Accounting

Enter and pay supplier bills, and post journal entries for everything else.

A bill records what the business owes a supplier: entering it will add its total to Accounts payable, and each payment from a bank, card or cash account will reduce what is owed. Anything else, such as money the owner puts into the business, is a journal entry with equal debits and credits. A bill or a journal entry entered by hand can repeat every week, month, 3 months or year.

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Enter a bill

Enter the supplier, the bill's date and number, and a line for each account the bill is spread across, such as Rent or Software. The total will be added to Accounts payable, and the due date is filled in from your payment terms.

A supplier from Contacts
A name from Contacts links the bill to that contact: the contact's page lists its bills, and their costs count under it in Spending by supplier.
A project on a line
A line can name the Time Tracking project its cost belongs to, and the cost will count in Profit by project.
Recoverable tax
Recoverable tax goes on its own line, against Sales tax recoverable, and the Sales tax report sets it against the tax charged on sales. Check the rules where you file.
From a Store purchase order
A received Store purchase order can enter its bill, for the cost of what arrived, on the Inventory account.
Who can see bills
Bills, including those on a contact's page and in Search, are shown only to people who can open the books: the team's admins and its accountants.

Pay a bill

Bills lists what is unpaid, paid and void, with the balance due on each, and marks a bill Overdue after its due date. The overview lists the bills due within a week.

  1. Record payment

    On the bill, enter the amount, the date and the bank, card or cash account it was paid from.

  2. Pay in parts

    A payment can be any amount up to the balance due. The bill will show as Partly paid, with the rest still owed, until the last payment.

  3. Match it in Banking

    When the payment appears on an imported statement, match the transaction to the payment's entry so it is not counted twice, or record the payment from the transaction itself.

  4. Remove a payment

    Remove, beside a payment, takes off one recorded by mistake. Its entry will be reversed and the balance due will go back up.

Void a bill, attach files and see who changed what

Void bill
A bill's amounts and lines cannot be changed. Void bill reverses its entry and keeps it under Void, so the bill can be entered again correctly.
Attachments
Attach the supplier's bill or a receipt to a bill or a journal entry, as a JPG, PNG, WebP or PDF file of up to 10 MB. The journal entry a bill adds shows the bill's files too.
Activity
Activity, in Accounting Settings, lists changes to the books, such as a bill voided or a payment removed, and who made each one.

Bills in another currency

Enter a bill in the supplier's currency, with what it was worth in the books' currency on its date. Accounts payable holds that amount, and the bill's balance stays in its own currency.

A payment is entered in both currencies, and any difference from the bill's own amount will go to Exchange gains and losses.

Repeating bills and journal entries

Repeat this bill or Repeat this entry, in the More menu, repeats a bill or a journal entry entered by hand every week, month, 3 months or year, from a first date and, if it ends, to a last date. When Accounting is opened, a copy will be entered for each date that has come, with the same supplier or contact, accounts and amounts.

The Recurring page
Recurring lists everything that repeats, with the next date and how many copies have been entered, and each schedule's dates change in place.
Pause or stop
Turn off Repeating to pause it, or choose Remove to stop it. Copies already entered will stay in the books.

Post and reverse journal entries

Journal Entries lists every entry in the books, newest first, and can show only those entered by hand or from one area, such as Invoice or Store order. Export lines downloads every line between two dates as a CSV file.

  1. Enter the lines

    A journal entry has a date, a memo and a line for each account, with a debit or a credit. Money the owner puts into the business, for example, is a debit to Bank and a credit to Owner contributions.

  2. Debits equal credits

    Totals under the lines show whether the entry balances. One that does not, or is dated before the books start or in a closed period, cannot be posted.

  3. Reverse this entry

    A posted entry cannot be changed or deleted. Reverse this entry posts the opposite entry, linked to the original, so the two cancel out; then post the correct one.

  4. Entries from other areas

    An entry added from another area, such as an invoice, changes when its record changes and cannot be reversed by hand.

Close a period

Closed through, in Accounting Settings, closes the books up to a date, such as the last day of a financial year. No entry can then be dated on or before it, reversals included, so the reports for that time will not change. Clearing the date reopens it.

A record from another area or a repeating copy dated in a closed period will be entered on the first day after it, with a note of its own date. Recording a sales tax return can close its period too.

Enter your first bill.

Create a Magpie account, open Accounting, choose the date your books start, then choose Enter bill under Bills.

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