Accounting reports and budgets

Reports has a tab for each report. Choose a range such as This quarter, or Custom dates, and Show. A report of a position, such as the Balance Sheet, takes one date instead. Export PDF downloads the report as it is shown, ready to print or send to an accountant or bank; Export CSV downloads it for a spreadsheet. Each account links to its entries.

This year and Last year are financial years, which start on 1 January unless Financial year starts in Settings says otherwise, and This quarter and Last quarter are the financial year's quarters, counted from its first month.

The reports

• Profit and Loss: income, cost of goods sold, gross profit, expenses and net income between two dates. Compare with adds a column for the Previous period or the Same dates last year, or Each month shows each month of the dates in its own column, up to 24 months; for a longer range, the report says which months it shows. A previous period of whole months is the same number of months before. On the Accrual basis, invoices and bills count when they are issued. On the Cash basis, they count when they are paid: a payment of half an invoice counts half its income. Profit and Loss in Settings chooses which basis the report opens with.
• Balance Sheet: assets, liabilities and equity at the end of a date. Compare with adds the End of the month before or the Same date last year. Net income this year is income less expenses since the start of that date's financial year. Income less expenses from earlier financial years is added to Retained earnings; no journal entry is posted for it.
• Cash flow: where cash came from and went between two dates. It starts with net income and adds the change in every other account: what customers and suppliers owe, stock and tax under operating activities, equipment under investing activities, and loans and owners' money under financing activities. Cash is the bank, cash, Undeposited funds and Stripe balance accounts, and the total is always their change. Opening balances count as where the books start, not as cash coming in. Depreciation and the loss on an asset disposed of are added back to net income under operating activities, because neither moves cash; investing activities show only equipment bought and sold.
• Trial balance: every account's balance on a date, with total debits and credits. Income and expense accounts show the financial year only, and Retained earnings includes earlier years.
• Accounts receivable and Accounts payable: money owed to you on unpaid invoices and money you owe on unpaid bills on a date, grouped by how long past due they are.
• Sales tax: see Sales tax and returns.
• Income by customer and Spending by supplier: income and expenses between two dates for each contact named on the entries, largest first, with the rest under No contact. Bank rules can name the contact for imported transactions; see Import and review bank transactions.
• Profit by project: income, costs and profit for each Time Tracking project. Income comes from invoices billed from a project's time or expenses: an invoice's income is shared between the projects of its lines in proportion to their amounts, after any discount. Costs come from the project's expenses and from bill lines given the project. Income and costs in no project are totalled under Not in a project. Time worked is not counted as a cost.
• Budget against actual: each income and expense account's actual amount beside its budget for the same dates, and the difference. More income or more spending than budgeted is a positive difference. A month only partly in the dates counts in proportion to its days.

Sales tax and returns

The Sales tax report shows tax charged on sales by tax name, less the tax on sales reversed in the period, such as a voided invoice; recoverable tax paid on purchases; and the net for the period, which is the tax charged less the recoverable tax. Recoverable tax comes from bills and, with Tax on expenses on in Settings, from expenses.

Payments to the tax authority in the period are shown separately, under the net: they settle what was owed and are not part of it. A payment is a bank transaction added to Sales tax payable, or a journal entry that debits Sales tax payable and credits a bank, cash or card account; a refund from the authority is the same the other way. Opening balances and the entries that record returns are not counted as activity. Check the rules where you file.

When you file a return, choose Record return under Returns filed: check the period, enter the date you filed and an optional reference, and choose Record return. Magpie will post an entry on the period's last day that sets the recoverable tax against the tax charged, so Sales tax payable holds what is owed; then add the payment from the bank against Sales tax payable. Close the books through the end of the period, on by default, stops entries in that period changing the figures you filed. Periods cannot overlap. Remove reverses a return's entry; a closed period stays closed. Magpie does not file returns.

Budgets

Budgets has a budget for each financial year. Choose the year, enter what you expect each income and expense account to earn or spend in each month, as positive amounts, and choose Save budget. Leave a month blank for nothing. Same every month copies the first amount in a row into every month, and the Year column adds up the row. Start from last year's actual amounts fills the form with what each account actually had in each month of the year before; nothing is saved until you choose Save budget. Saving again replaces the year's amounts. Compare a budget with what happened in the Budget against actual report.

Ask the assistant

On Dashboard, the assistant can answer questions about the books, such as how much the business made last quarter or who owes it money, for team admins and accountants who are team members. See Use the assistant.

If the trial balance totals differ, Contact support.