Receipt rules are decision criteria you define so Manager can automatically categorize or post receipts to correct accounts and payers when you import bank statements. Procedures for importing statements are described in another Guide.
Define, edit, or delete a receipt rule
Receipt rules can be defined, edited, or deleted in the Settings tab after clicking Receipt Rules:
To define a new receipt rule, click New Receipt Rule and complete the description:
- Select the bank account to which the rule will apply under
If bank account is:. Or, leave the default entry, Suspense, when the rule will apply across all your bank accounts. - Enter any financial search criteria under
…and amount is:. The default is Any amount. Aternatives include:
- Enter any descriptive search criteria under
…and description contains:. This must be a literal string. Multiple criteria can be included by clicking Add line. Multiple criteria are evaluated as a Boolean AND operation, meaning all criteria must be contained in the description. - In
Paid by, choose the entity from which money is received. To do this, first select the payer type as Customer, Supplier, or Other. If Customer or Supplier is selected, customers and suppliers already defined in the Customers or Suppliers tabs will be available. If Other is selected, the field is free text, and any name can be entered:
- Specify the posting
Account. -
Tax CodeandDivisioncan be selected if any have been defined and an applicable account has been chosen. Otherwise, those fields do not appear. - Checkboxes for
Column — DescriptionandColumn — Qtycause corresponding fields to appear. Otherwise, those fields are absent, as shown in the illustration above.
Notes
When a control account is selected, such as Accounts receivable, an additional dropdown field will appear beside the account field to select a subsidiary ledger, such as the customer. If a subsidiary ledger is not selected, transactions fitting the search criteria will be posted to Suspense.
Example
Jose knows the interest he earns on a deposit certificate at National Bank is deposited monthly into his business bank account and is always described in his bank statements as DEPOSIT CERTIFICATE INTEREST NATL BANK. So he creates a receipt rule to automatically post any receipt in his Main business account with the phrase DEPOSIT CERTIFICATE INTEREST NATL BANK to his Interest received income account. He tracks income and expenses for his branch offices separately using divisions. So he makes a matching selection in the appropriate field:
Click Create when finished. The rule will appear in the list of receipt rules in the Settings tab:
To edit or delete a receipt rule, click the Edit button to the left of the rule. Edit as desired and click Update or click Delete.
Define a receipt rule during categorization
After a bank import is complete, Manager returns you to the Bank and Cash Accounts tab. Here, you will see a column for Uncategorized Receipts:
Transactions in that column have not yet been finally categorized. They are temporarily posted to the Suspense account. To define new receipt rules while categorizing those receipts, click on the number in the Uncategorized Receipts column. Then click New Receipt Rule on the line for which you want to define a new rule.
You should create rules for all receipts likely to recur, being careful not to include in the rules any transaction details that are unique, such as reference numbers, invoice numbers, or dates. Once-off transactions that are infrequent should be categorized individually by clicking Edit rather than by creating rules. Receipts you edit manually will disappear from the bulk categorization screen.
Once you have added all your receipt rules, select all transactions matched by new rules by checking their boxes. Click Batch Update at the bottom. All selected receipts with matching rules will be recategorized and taken off the list. Receipt rules you created will be saved in the Settings tab, so when you import bank statements again, Manager will match new receipts to existing receipt rules, reducing the time needed to categorize them.
Caution
The possibility always exists that a receipt rule will incorrectly categorize a transaction with unanticipated characteristics. When you complete the categorization process, review the results.