Transactions

Entering a Journal

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register. Choose Journal from the menu that drops down.

Journal is the special one: the raw two-sided entry for when you want to say exactly what to debit and what to credit.

At the top — the journal date, the transaction type (fixed, showing Journal), and the journal number, which Dealersip assigns.

The grid — one line per account you want to touch, with these columns:

• Account — the account this line posts to.
• Debits and Credits — a line uses one or the other, never both. Type an amount in Debits and the Credits box on that line is cleared, and the other way round.
• Description — a note for that line alone.
• Associated Party (Optional) — the customer or supplier this line concerns.
• Tax (if applicable) — a tax code for the line, and an Incl. tick box beside it that says whether the amount you typed already includes that tax (see below).

Add as many lines as you need with Add lines, or start over with Clear all lines. Each line also has:

• a drag handle to move it up or down, and
• a row menu (⋮) with Insert above, Insert below, Duplicate and Delete.

What tagging a party on a line means

The side the line sits on decides which way the money runs. Tag a party against a debit to a receivable account — as in A/R – Account Receivables debited with Ashok on the line — and it means that amount is receivable from Ashok. Tag a party against a credit to a payable account and it means the amount is payable to them.

That tag is what puts the amount on the party's own ledger, so always name the party on lines that concern one.

Adding tax to a line

Pick a tax code on a line and Dealersip works out the tax and posts it to that code's tax account for you — you never add the tax line yourself. It appears in the saved transaction as its own line, noting which code and rate produced it.

The Incl. tick box decides how the amount you typed is read:

• Not ticked (tax on top) — the amount is the figure before tax. The tax is calculated on it and added.
• Ticked (tax included) — the amount already contains the tax. Dealersip takes the tax back out of it, so the line itself keeps only the net.

Worked example. You bank 6,500.00 from a vehicle sale, and that 6,500.00 already includes 13% HST. Enter just two lines — Bank Account debited 6,500.00, and Vehicle Sales credited 6,500.00 with the HST code and Incl. ticked. Dealersip splits the credit for you and saves:

The sale is recorded net, the tax sits in the tax account ready to be remitted, and the entry balances against the full amount banked.

Reading the totals, and the out-of-balance warning

Under the grid Dealersip shows a Subtotal for each side, a row for each tax applied, and the Total debits and credits. In the example above the subtotal credit reads 5,752.21 with the HST row showing 747.79 — so you can see the split before you save.

Entering a Payment

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register. Choose Payment from the menu that drops down.

A Payment records money going out — you paying a supplier. It comes out of a bank or cash account and settles that supplier's open bills. You never choose debits or credits; filling the form is enough.

Fill in the top of the form:

• Paid to (Party) — who you are paying. Create Party is there if they aren't set up yet.
• Date, and the Payment no., which Dealersip assigns.
• Pay from — the bank or cash account the money leaves. Create Account is there too.
• Reference no. — the cheque or transfer reference.
• Amount paid — the full amount going out.

Then apply it to the bills you are settling. Choosing the party loads their open items under Outstanding transactions, each showing the bill, its date, the original amount, the balance still open, and a Payment box for the amount you are putting against it. Tick bills individually, or use the header tick to select them all. The bill number is a link, so you can open the bill itself to check before you apply anything.

Add an overall note and attachments if you want a record with the entry — the supplier's invoice, a cheque image, a remittance advice.

The bar at the bottom shows Amount, Allocated and On account as you work, so you always know how much of the payment is still unapplied. Finish with Save, or Save and new to enter another.

Worked example. You pay Ashok 52,000.00 from the Bank Account. Bill PUR-48/550215 was originally 500,000.00 and has 300,000.00 still open, and you apply 50,000.00 of the payment to it. The bar reads Amount 52,000.00, Allocated 50,000.00, On account 2,000.00 — that last 2,000.00 goes to the control account you choose, explained under Amounts left on account, and the control account.

Entering a Receipt

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register. Choose Receipt from the menu that drops down.

A Receipt is the mirror image: money coming in, from a customer. It goes into a bank or cash account and settles that customer's open invoices.

The form works exactly like the Payment form, with the wording turned around:

• Received from (Party) instead of Paid to.
• Deposit to — the bank or cash account the money goes into — instead of Pay from.
• Amount received instead of Amount paid, and Receipt no. instead of Payment no.
• Outstanding transactions lists the customer's open sale invoices rather than supplier bills.

Everything else is the same: tick the invoices you are settling and type how much to apply to each, add an overall note and attachments if useful, and watch Amount / Allocated / On account at the bottom. Finish with Save or Save and new.

Anything you do not apply to an invoice is recorded on account — see Amounts left on account, and the control account.

Entering a Deposit Cash

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register. Choose Deposit Cash from the menu that drops down.

Deposit Cash records cash leaving your premises and arriving in the bank. Name the bank account once at the top, then list the cash you are banking.

At the top:

• Date, the transaction No. (Dealersip assigns it), and an optional Reference no. — the deposit slip number, for example.
• Deposit To — the bank account the money is going into. Create Account is beside it if the account doesn't exist yet.
• Amount Deposited — the total going into the bank.

The grid — one line for each amount making up that deposit:

• Account / Category — which cash account the money is coming out of.
• Description — what this particular amount is, for example "Daily cash sale" or "John's collection".
• Amount.

Use + Add line for more rows and the bin icon to remove one. Add a Note and attachments — a scanned deposit slip is the obvious one. Finish with Save, or Save and new.

The Total at the bottom adds up the grid lines, so you can see at a glance that they come to the amount you deposited. The two must agree before the transaction will save.

Keeping your cash accounts the way you want

You can run as many cash accounts as suits you. Many dealerships keep an Undeposited Cash account so money collected but not yet banked is visible, then clear it with a Deposit Cash. Others keep a single cash account and simply tell the deposits apart in the Description column. Both work — it is a question of how much detail you want on the face of the accounts rather than in the descriptions.

Both forms are configurable

Deposit Cash and Withdraw Cash are ordinary transaction types, so what they show is up to you (see Transaction Types). Every label on them can be renamed — a dealership that thinks of these as bills could relabel No. as Bill No., or Deposit To as Account. You can also turn the Description column off if you don't use it, and turn a Name (Customer/Supplier) column on, which is not there as shipped.

If you turn the Party Name column on

Both forms ship without a Party Name column, and we recommend leaving them that way. These transactions move your own money between your own accounts, so there is usually no customer or supplier involved at all — and naming one has a real effect on that party's balance.

Here is what happens. In a Deposit Cash, the grid lines are the credit side (cash leaving the cash account) and the bank account is the debit. So a party named on a grid line receives a credit on their ledger, which is the same thing as the dealership owing them more. The entry ends up reading as though that money was paid to them out of the bank.

Worked example. A Deposit Cash banks 8,000.00: Bank Account is debited 8,000.00, and the cash lines are credited 5,000.00, 2,000.00 and 1,000.00. The 5,000.00 line was tagged to a party. Open that party's ledger and the deposit is sitting there as a 5,000.00 credit against Bank Account, pushing their balance up to 71,411.00 Cr — so the books now say the dealership owes them 5,000.00 more than it really does.

Withdraw Cash does the same thing in reverse. There the grid lines are the debit side, so a party named on one gets a debit on their ledger — making it look as though they owe the dealership money they never borrowed.

Keep the Name (Customer/Supplier) column switched off on Deposit Cash and Withdraw Cash unless you have a specific reason not to. These transactions move your own money between your own accounts, so there is usually no customer or supplier involved at all — and naming one has a real effect on that party's balance.

Here is what happens. In a Deposit Cash, the grid lines are the credit side (cash leaving the cash account) and the bank account is the debit. So a party named on a grid line receives a credit on their ledger, which is the same thing as the dealership owing them more. The entry ends up reading as though that money was paid to them out of the bank.

Worked example. A Deposit Cash banks 8,000.00: Bank Account is debited 8,000.00, and the cash lines are credited 5,000.00, 2,000.00 and 1,000.00. The 5,000.00 line was tagged to a party. Open that party's ledger and the deposit is sitting there as a 5,000.00 credit against Bank Account, pushing their balance up to 71,411.00 Cr — so the books now say the dealership owes them 5,000.00 more than it really does.

Withdraw Cash does the same thing in reverse. There the grid lines are the debit side, so a party named on one gets a debit on their ledger — making it look as though they owe the dealership money they never borrowed.

Left off — as shipped — the transaction says exactly what it is: your own money moving between your own accounts. Turn the column on only when the amounts genuinely do belong on someone's ledger.

A double entry must balance. When the two totals differ, the total line shows "Out of balance by …" in red, and the entry is not finished. Dealersip shows you the gap but never closes it for you — deciding which account takes the difference is an accounting decision, and yours to make.

Below the grid you can add an Overall Note for the whole transaction and attachments — a scanned document, a receipt. Finish with Save, or Save and new to enter another.

Entering a Withdraw Cash

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register. Choose Withdraw Cash from the menu that drops down.

Withdraw Cash is the mirror image: money coming out of the bank and into your cash. The form is laid out identically, with the wording turned around:

• Withdrawn From — the bank account the money is leaving, instead of Deposit To.
• Amount Withdrawn — the total coming out, instead of Amount Deposited.
• The grid lists the cash accounts receiving the money, each with its description and amount.

Everything else behaves the same: Date, No., Reference no., + Add line, the running Total that must match the amount withdrawn, a Note, attachments, and Save or Save and new.

The guidance on running multiple cash accounts, renaming the labels on these forms, and why the Name column is best left off applies to both forms and is covered under Entering a Deposit Cash.

Amounts left on account, and the control account

Money you receive or pay does not always match an invoice exactly. You might pay a round 52,000.00 against a 50,000.00 bill, take a deposit before any invoice exists, or receive a payment from a customer with nothing outstanding at all. Whatever you do not apply to a specific document is recorded on account.

What a control account is. A control account is an account that holds a party's balance as a whole, rather than against one particular invoice or bill — Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable are the everyday examples. An on-account amount has no invoice to attach to, so it has to sit in one of these accounts against the party's name until it is applied later.

When Dealersip asks you for one. Whenever a receipt or payment leaves an unallocated amount, the form shows a Control account (On Account) list for you to choose from, with a Create Account link beside it. Pick the account where that leftover should be recorded, and Dealersip posts it there.

This covers two situations:

• Part of the money is left over — as in the 2,000.00 example above.
• The party has nothing outstanding at all — Dealersip tells you plainly ("This party has no outstanding transactions, so the entire amount will be recorded on account") and the whole amount goes to the control account you choose.

An on-account amount is not an error. It is a real advance or credit standing against that party, and it shows on their ledger. It stays there until a future invoice or bill is settled against it.

Entering a custom transaction (no fixed side)

To start one, go to Accounting → Transactions and press New, the dark green button at the top right of the register, then choose your own transaction type from the menu that drops down. Custom types appear in that menu alongside the built-in ones.

You can build your own transaction types (Accounting -> Transaction Types). When you set one up you choose "Which side is a single fixed account?" The answer changes how the entry form behaves, and "No fixed side" is the plain-journal option that this section explains. (The other choice - a fixed debit or credit account - makes a Bill/Receipt-style form where one account is filled in for you and everything else is listed against it.)

What "no fixed side" means

It means the person entering the transaction picks the account on both sides themselves - exactly like a manual journal. There is no account that Dealersip fills in automatically. Use it for transactions that don't always hit the same account, such as a general adjustment or a transfer you want to spell out line by line.

The entry screen

It's a grid, one line per account you want to touch. The always-present columns are Account / Category, Debit, and Credit; a line uses either its Debit box or its Credit box, never both. Depending on how the type was set up, the grid may also show Description and Name (Customer / Supplier).

The account you pick decides the side

When the type was set up, each account group was placed on either the "Debit side can use" list or the "Credit side can use" list. So every account belongs to one side. On the entry grid this means:

• Pick an account and only its side's amount box stays open - the other one is greyed out.
• An account set up for the debit side can only be debited; an account set up for the credit side can only be credited.

This is why you can't type a credit against an account that was only allowed on the debit side - the box simply won't accept it. It stops the "account is not allowed" message you'd otherwise only see when you tried to save.

The totals show both sides and the difference

A no-fixed-side transaction is a two-sided entry, so the footer shows Total Debit and Total Credit separately - not one combined number. When the two don't match, it shows "Out of balance by ..." in red. A proper double-entry has to balance (total debit = total credit), so that message is telling you the entry isn't finished. The screen shows you the gap; it does not fill it in for you - you decide which account takes the balancing amount.

Customer / supplier on each line

If the type was set to ask for a customer or supplier on each row and to require it, then every line needs a name before it will save. Leaving one blank is refused, with a message telling you which is missing. (If instead the type asks for one name for the whole transaction, you fill it in once at the top.)

Quick checklist for entering one

1. Add a line, pick the account - notice which amount box opens.
2. Enter the amount in that box.
3. Fill the name if the type requires it.
4. Repeat until Total Debit equals Total Credit and the "out of balance" note disappears.
5. Save.