Transactions
Selecting an account brings up a list of transactions for that account. If you selected an example business, you'll see example data for some of the accounts. To edit an entry, simply double-click on it, or control-click to bring up the context menu. From here you can navigate between linked invoices and payments, delete the entry, view the PDF invoice and so on. If you selected a template business, there won't be any transactions listed initially; and you will add them gradually as you pay for things, or make sales. To add a new transaction, click on the + button in the top right of the transaction list.
The colour of the text shows whether a transactions is locked or fully editable:
Black - The transaction is editable.
Grey - The transaction is dated before the last P&L consolidation or VAT Return, or is reconciled on a statement and cannot be altered.
A transaction can be one of the following types:
* Transfer from one account to another
* Purchase from a supplier
* Sale to a customer
A transfer can be just a simple transfer of money between two bank accounts, for example a transfer from your main bank account to your savings account. Or it can be used to record an expense, such as when you might buy paper and pens (stationary) for the business. In this case you might not have a supplier account, and can simply record the purchase as a normal transfer from a bank account or credit card to the "Postage and stationary" account.
If the company uses a credit card, you will be entering purchases against the credit card account in the same way. When the credit card bill arrives, an amount is paid from the main cheque account to the credit card, perhaps by cheque or direct debit. The amount should be recorded as a transfer from the cheque account to the credit card account. You can then reconcile both the main cheque account and the credit card accounts with their paper statements.
Purchases
If you purchase items from a certain supplier regularly, and the supplier will accept your payment at a later date, you would usually add this supplier in Easy Books. This means you will record the purchase as separate from the payment. (See later for how to add purchase invoices).
One-Off Purchases (no supplier account)
If there is no supplier account, so you pay the amount due to your supplier at the same time as the purchase, or you are using simple cash accounting, the payment can be entered in one transaction. In this example, we have bought some "GSM Antennas" by mail order using a credit card. The card is listed in the business's accounts, so select the account, then the + button at the top of the transaction list to add a new entry.
Note: The option to set VAT is only available if you have told Easy Books your business is VAT registered under Business Settings.
Save the Transaction
The save button is disabled if the transaction is not valid or cannot be saved. There are a few reasons why the save button might be disabled (greyed out).
* You haven't set any of the fields yet (so there is nothing new to be saved)
* The date isn't valid (try setting it to 'today')
* The to and from accounts are not set. For double entry, there should be two accounts
* The to and from accounts are the same. You can't create a transaction from one account to itself
* If there is an amount set as VAT, the VAT account must be set too
Action Button
The action button at the top of the form is used to...
* Duplicate the current transaction
* Set up a regular transfer (every week, month and so on)
* Delete the transaction
For standing orders, you can set the transaction as a regular transfer. Easy Books creates the next transaction as a copy of the previous one when the next one becomes due. You can choose from the following periods:
* Every week, two weeks, four weeks, month, two months, three months (quarterly), or every year.
Splits
Split transactions are especially useful on sales and purchase invoices. For sales to a customer, you can divide the main transaction (the invoice) into multiple lines. You might use this to just itemise an invoice, or you might split the income into sales of goods plus another line for postage.
Likewise, for purchase invoices, you pick the supplier, then split the transaction into lots of lines, one for each type of expense. This is useful if you want to record the amount paid for postage separately from any goods you have bought.
All transactions and invoice lines can be split into multiple lines. They all share the same source account, but each linked account can be set independently. In addition, there is a "details" field, which you can use to keep extra information about the transfer. This is not presented on the transaction list screens or the financial reports. The details are used in the generation of sales invoices, where each detail line is presented on the invoice as a separate item.
Customer Invoicing
For sales invoices, you can select the invoice in the list and press SPACE or select Send invoice from the context menu. Easy Books is capable of producing professional looking invoices in PDF format that can be emailed to yourself, or direct to your customers. For more information, see Customer Invoicing. It is also possible to send receipts, remittance advice slips, refunds and copies of supplier invoices.