How do I enter daily takings?

Not all businesses need to create customer invoices or to record sales per customer. Some businesses are paid immediately in cash, card or cheque payments. For example, you may run a shop and just want to use Easy Books to record your daily takings. Here's how.

To start with this may look a little daunting, especially if you're not familiar with Easy Books or bookkeeping in general. But once you've entered the transactions below, you can simply duplicate them each time you need to enter the next one. It's then just a case of changing the date and the amount(s).

Accounts required

To begin with, make sure you have all the accounts you need.

• To keep track of cash in the business, use an account in the category Petty Cash. You could call this account "Cash on hand". The account will show the value of all cash in the business before it's paid into the bank account.

• To keep track of cheques received from customers, create another account under the same category Petty Cash. Call the account "Cheques on hand" or similar. This will show the value of all cheques that have not yet been paid into the business bank account.

• To handle payments received from credit card transactions, create an account called "Card sales" in the category Petty Cash. Strictly speaking this would be better categorised as Debtors but it can be useful to see the cash, cheque and card balances all listed together in the Petty Cash category if you like to keep tabs on the amounts that you haven't yet paid into the bank. This account will show the value of outstanding credit card sales (before any processing fees are taken by the card company). You could also consider using the category Bank Accounts if you receive a statement from the company showing gross payments and their fees separately listed. This would allow you to reconcile the account against the statements provided by the card company in much the same way as you do for your bank account. The category of the account can be changed later, so for this example, proceed with the Petty Cash category.

• Finally, to handle the credit card processing fees you need an expense account. You could of course use one of the existing accounts such as Cost of Sales. If you prefer to keep these costs separate, create a new account in the category Direct Expenses named "Card processing fees". This will accumulate the total cost of receiving payment by credit card and will be reset to zero as part of the yearly consolidation process.

Record daily takings

You can record your takings in one transaction or separate ones, whichever you find works best for you. To record your takings in one transaction, start from the income account you use to track your total income. This is an account in the category Income from sales and if you created your business from one of the templates you may find one called "Fees income". Don't forget you can rename this to suit.

• From the "Fees income" account, create a new transaction. Set the Transaction Type to Sale and choose "Cash on hand" in Account 2. Set the amount received as cash.

• Add a split to the transaction and choose "Cheques on hand" in split 2. Set the amount received as cheques.

• For credit card sales, follow the same process. Add a split and choose "Card sales" in split 3. Set the amount taken as card sales.

• Save the transaction and you should find the balances of the cash, cheque and card accounts has increased.

Note: If your business is registered for VAT, make sure you record the amounts of VAT as well. You can split the VAT content or just record it all in the first split.

Bank deposits

Most likely you won't pay cheques and cash into the bank daily after the takings were recorded. Instead, you might pay in lots of cheques and cash at once. Here's how to record this in Easy Books.

• Add a transaction from "Bank Account". Set the Transaction Type to In (received) and choose "Cash on hand" in Account 2. Set the amount to match the total cash being paid into the bank account.

• If there are cheques to deposit at the same time, add a split to the transaction. In split 2 select "Cheques on hand" for the account and set the amount to match the total value of cheques being paid in.

Using splits like this means the transaction appears as a total value of cash and cheques deposited and will match the bank statement. If you opt for entering separate transactions instead, you'll reconcile the separate transactions all together for the one line on the bank statement.

Receipts from your card processing company

After you receive a payment into your bank account from your card processing company, this will need to be entered into Easy Books. Usually the card company will charge a fee based on the amount and will reduce the amount they pay you by their fee. This means you won't get back the same amount as shown in your "Card sales" account. Again, you can choose to enter the transaction as a single transaction with splits or to enter each as a separate transaction.

• Add a transaction from "Card sales". Set the Transaction Type to Out (spent). Set Account 2 to "Bank account" and set the amount received.

• Add a split for the fees charged by the card company. Choose the account "Card processing fees" and set the amount to equal the fees charged.

After entering this transaction, the "Card processing fees" account should have a lower balance and the bank balance should have increased.

Reconciling bank statements

When the bank statement arrives, it should match what you've already entered into Easy Books. If you chose to record transactions separately instead of splitting the transaction there will be more than one transaction to reconcile in Easy Books for each entry on the bank statement. This isn't a problem at all, it just makes it slightly more difficult to reconcile the statement because the amounts don't exactly match line for line.