Many financial transactions are completed, or cleared, by the time they are entered in Manager. No further financial activity will occur. Some examples are:

• Cash sales to customers, with received funds held in cash till
• Cash payments to merchants from a petty cash fund
• Imported bank transactions
• Transfers between company accounts within the same financial institution

Others involve delay before all financial activity is complete. Examples of these pending transactions include:

• Cheques written to suppliers or employees that have not yet been presented for payment
• Credit card charges not yet showing on the card statement
• Receipts from customers not yet deposited with the bank
• Deposits to bank accounts not yet available for withdrawal
• Transfers between bank accounts in different institutions not yet finalized (whether by cheque, electronic or wire transfer, or other means)

Manager can easily track status of bank account deposits and withdrawals, including dates of both initial transactions and eventual clearance, in a Cleared field. Cash account transactions are, of course, always complete instantly, so status is not recorded. Using this feature, you can quickly determine how much of your bank account funds are unobligated, that is, actually available to spend. Likewise, you can determine whether or not money received is actually accessible.

Cleared transactions

By default, all new receipts and payments to bank accounts in the Receipts and Payments tabs are cleared on the date of the transaction. For example, a receipt from a customer automatically shows On the same date in the Cleared field:

If desired, the clearance date can be modified. Select On a later date in the Cleared field and enter a date manually or using the date picker:

The result of all cleared transactions will appear under the Cleared balance column for a bank account in the Bank and Cash Accounts tab:

Pending transactions

When money has been received, but perhaps not deposited in the bank, the transaction can be marked as Pending. Similarly, until a cheque has been presented and paid by the bank or a credit card charge is posted to a statement, it can be shown as Pending. To do this, select On a later date in the Cleared field, but do not enter a date. The default condition will be Pending:

Inter account transfers

When transfers are made between accounts in the Inter Account Transfers tab, status of both the outgoing and incoming legs of the transfer can be annotated separately (if they involve bank accounts). In the illustration below, a nightly deposit of cash receipts from a Petty cash account has been recorded, but the bank transaction will not clear until at least the following day. So the clearance date is left as Pending:

Monitoring status

If any pending deposits or withdrawals exist, they will automatically be shown in separate columns in the Bank and Cash Accounts tab:

A Bank Reconciliation Statement can be produced adjusting an account statement for pending deposits and withdrawals. This can help ensure bank records match accounting records in Manager.

Clearing a pending transaction

Once a pending transaction has cleared on the records of the financial institution, drill down by clicking the blue balance under Pending deposits or Pending withdrawals for the bank account involved in the Bank Accounts tab. Click Edit beside the particular transaction:

Enter the clearance date. (See illustrations above.)