Manage bank accounts and opening balances

Your bank and credit-card accounts are first-class in TALISK_HQ, each with an opening balance:

1. Go to Ledger › Banking › Accounts.
2. Click Add bank account and set the Name, Type (Bank, Credit card, Line of credit, or Prepaid balance), the Currency, the opening balance (labelled Balance owed at opening for a card or a line of credit), and the Opening date.
3. For a bank, card or line of credit, use Post opening balance to ledger to record that starting balance as a journal entry.

Typing the opening balance does not put it in your books. Step 3 is what records it. Until you do, your books hold nothing for that account, so your cash position reads low and the balance sheet is short by the whole opening amount. Open the account's row and its Setup section tells you which of the two numbers you are looking at: Not yet in your books with what your ledger actually has, or In your books once the two agree. Books Health raises it as well, and that card can be snoozed but never dismissed, because the balance sheet stays wrong until the opening is recorded.

The opening balance and opening date are only shown where they can actually be recorded: on a Bank, Credit card or Line of credit account, in a book that has not already entered opening/conversion balances. In the two cases where a per-account opening can't be posted the fields are left off the form rather than taking a figure that would never reach your books, and the form says where the balance comes from instead:

• a Prepaid balance account, whose balance builds from your opening/conversion entry and from the top-up transactions you categorize;
• any account in a book that already has opening/conversion balances, which already include every account's opening.

Every bank, credit-card and line-of-credit account gets its own ledger account, created for you, so there is nothing to choose. That is what lets the account show as its own line on the balance sheet and reconcile against its own statement. The row shows the ledger account's number, and the account's Setup section its full name. A Prepaid balance is the exception: you pick the balance account it posts to, because it is standing in for an account someone else holds.

The Currency defaults to your book's currency. For a bank or credit-card account you can instead pick a supported foreign currency, and the account then holds its money in that currency and reconciles in it, while your books record the home-currency value at each transaction's date. Currency can't be changed once the account exists, so pick it when you add the account. See Foreign-currency bank and card accounts for how the numbers flow.

Accounts are also created automatically the first time you import a statement, in the statement's currency when that's supported. They are offered from your trial balance too, when you use Import from accountant documents: rows that look like bank or card accounts can become accounts here in one step, each keeping the ledger account your accountant already gave it. An account created that way starts without an opening balance of its own: the figure arrives when you post your opening balances, so nothing is counted twice. An account your chart marks as customer deposits, PST payable or a holdback can't become a bank, card or line of credit's ledger account, here or when you link one later, because TALISK_HQ keeps those balances in step with its own records. When a statement disagrees with the opening balance you typed, an Apply hint lets you take the statement's figure.

If your book was set up by entering full opening/conversion balances, those already include each account's opening: change them there rather than posting per account here, or the balance counts twice. TALISK_HQ doesn't offer you the choice: the opening fields are absent from the add and edit forms in that book, and a note above the table links straight to Opening balances.

Each account's Setup section still shows its opening figure in that book. Where the account carries its own copy, that copy is shown. Where it doesn't, TALISK_HQ reads the opening straight off your opening/conversion balances and marks the figure From your opening/conversion balances. A blank there means only that no opening was recorded for that account, never that the figure was lost. Two cases show nothing on purpose: an account whose ledger account is shared with other accounts, because the one opening can't be split between them; and a foreign-currency account, where the figure shown is your book's currency rather than the account's, and the row says which. If a copy disagrees with your opening/conversion balances, the row shows both and tells you the ledger is the one that counts.

Balance is what the account holds today, taken from your ledger. A credit card or line of credit shows it as the amount owed. Because each account has its own ledger account, the figure is that account's alone. Accounts set up before this changed can still share one Cash account between them; where that happens the row says the balance is the combined one, and the reconciliation screen says the same rather than showing a difference that could never close.

What each account row shows

Each account is one line: its name (with the last four digits when a bank is connected), currency, ledger account number, balance, and the next payment due on a card or line of credit. Under the balance, one short line compares it with the bank: matches bank when a connected bank agrees, the bank's figure and the difference when it does not, or the latest statement's closing balance when no bank is connected. A small red dot beside the name means a month has neither a statement nor the bank feed (see Statements below).

Click the row, or the arrow at its start, to open it. On the left: Setup, then Bank feed when a bank is connected, then Account details. On the right: Payment for a card or line of credit, then Statements. On a narrow screen they stack in that order.

• Setup: the ledger account, the opening balance and date, and Edit for the name, type, opening balance and active switch.
• Bank feed (connected accounts): which bank feeds it, then two figures one above the other: In your books and Bank's balance, each with its date underneath (a card or line of credit reads Owed in your books and Owed per the bank). When the two can be compared, a Difference line follows, and below that whether the feed is verified.
• Account details: the institution, transit and account number, SWIFT/BIC and the rest of what you give someone to pay into the account (see Account details below).
• Payment (credit cards and lines of credit): the last payment, the due date and where it comes from (and, for Same day each month, the day the statement closes), the latest statement's figures, how much of the credit limit is used, the Email reminder switch with its options, and Paid since statement. Change any of it right there and click Save payment settings.
• Statements: the last twelve months, one square each. Green means a statement is on file, amber means the bank feed covers it, red means neither, and a dashed square means the next statement has not arrived yet. When the strip shows both green and amber months, a small key underneath names them. Below it: the last statement, the date the account is reconciled through, and how many of its lines are waiting for a category.

A month the bank feed covers does not need a statement. The months before you connected a bank still do, which is the usual reason for a red square.

Account details

Each account's Account details section keeps the numbers you otherwise go looking for on a void cheque: the Institution number (3 digits), Transit number (5 digits), Account number, SWIFT/BIC, a Routing number (ABA) for a US dollar account, an IBAN for an account outside North America, the bank's address and phone, the Online banking link, and a note. Click Add details (or Edit), fill in what you have, and click Save details.

TALISK_HQ can fill these in from your statements. When you upload a PDF statement, TALISK_HQ reads whatever account details it prints (often the institution, transit and account number, and the bank's phone and website). They are shown as suggestions, never saved on their own: the section says which statement they came from, and Review and save opens the form with them filled into the empty fields, each marked From your statement. Check it. Compare them with the statement, correct anything that is wrong, then click Save details. For a statement uploaded before TALISK_HQ did this, click Read from my latest statement. If the statement prints none of it, the section says so. A credit card's statement never fills in an account number.

Every value has a copy button beside it. The account number is masked to its last four digits: Show reveals it, and its copy button copies the whole number without putting it on screen. Wire instructions gathers your business name and address, the bank, the institution, transit and account number and the SWIFT code into one block, and its copy button copies it ready to paste into an invoice or an email. The beneficiary is your Legal name from the Business details card when you have filled it in, because banks want the registered name; otherwise it is your business name. The address comes from your business profile.

On your phone, More, Business details lists every account's details the same way, to look at and copy only: the account number is hidden until you tap Show, and Copy wire instructions copies the whole block. Entering or changing details is done on a computer.

TALISK_HQ checks each number before saving it: a transit number must be 5 digits, an institution number 3, a SWIFT/BIC code 8 or 11 characters, and an IBAN and a routing number must pass their check digits. A number that fails is not saved, and the message beside it says what is wrong.

TALISK_HQ also knows the last four digits of the account from its statements. If the account number you enter ends differently, TALISK_HQ asks you to check it before saving, because one of the two is probably wrong: a typo, or details for a different account. Click Save anyway if you are sure, or Go back to fix it. A saved number that ends differently keeps a note under it saying what the statements end in.

A credit card's details hold only the issuer's phone, address, online-banking link and a note: TALISK_HQ does not store card numbers. A bookkeeper you have given view-only access sees the account number masked with no way to reveal or copy it, and only a bookkeeper with full access can change the details.

Credit card or line of credit

Both are money you owe, so both work the same way in your books: their own ledger account, the balance owed shown as a positive figure, payments from your bank recorded as transfers, and payment reminders. Pick Line of credit for a bank line of credit so it is called one everywhere, and so the Cash Flow statement shows your draws and repayments as borrowing rather than as part of your credit-card balance.

If a line of credit was set up as a Credit card, edit it and change its Type to Line of credit. That only changes what it is called and where the Cash Flow statement shows it: the ledger account, the opening balance, the payment due date and every transaction already recorded stay exactly as they were, so it works even after the account has been used. Switching back works the same way. Changing a card or line of credit into a Bank account is different, and is refused once the account has transactions in your books.

Other balances

Below the accounts is an Other balances section: money your books track that has no bank feed, so there is nothing to reconcile it against. A GIC, a customs or import account, a clearing balance carried over from your accountant. These are ordinary ledger accounts, so their balance is worked out from your entries rather than typed in, and View activity opens the entries behind it.

They are listed here because they were otherwise only visible under Accounting, which made money set up during onboarding look like it had vanished. If one of them should really be reconciled, Track as an account adds it above as a Prepaid balance on the same ledger account: that is how a customs or third-party balance becomes a full account you can match transactions against. It carries no opening balance of its own: whatever the ledger account already holds is its balance, and it moves as you categorize top-ups and charges. Everything is listed, including an account you have just set up and not used yet, and one you have emptied. A goods-in-transit account you cleared when a container landed is still where the next shipment goes. An account you have archived stays listed too while it holds a balance or has moved this financial year, so money left behind in a retired account can't quietly disappear. The only thing left off is an archived account that is empty and hasn't moved this year.

An archived account is shown for reference only: reactivate it in the chart of accounts before you can move money in or out of it.

Move balance

Move balance shifts money from one account to another and writes the bookkeeping entry for you. Use it when stock you paid for in advance arrives and moves from goods-in-transit into inventory, when you count stock and move the cost of what you sold into cost of goods sold, or to tidy a leftover balance your accountant carried over.

It sits on each Other balances row here, and on every account in Ledger › Accounting › Chart of accounts, including TALISK_HQ's own accounts such as Inventory. Those can't be renamed or switched off, but moving a balance is an ordinary bookkeeping entry, so it is always available. Inventory isn't a bank account, so look for it in the chart of accounts, not here.

Pick the account to move to, check the amount, set the date, and TALISK_HQ shows what each account will be worth before you commit. You do not enter debits and credits: TALISK_HQ works out which way round the entry goes from where the money currently sits, so it cannot be recorded backwards.

The amount starts as the whole balance but you can change it. Moving part of a balance is normal: if one shipment of several arrives, move just that shipment's value and the rest stays where it is, ready for next time. The preview tells you how much is left behind.

Two things it won't do. It refuses accounts that TALISK_HQ works out from your invoices, bills and payments (Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Undeposited Funds and Vendor Credits) and the accounts it keeps in step with your customer deposits and holdbacks, because moving those by hand would put them out of step with the records behind them; fix the records instead. And it refuses a date inside a locked period.

A PST payable account can be moved, with a warning: the move changes the PST figure for the period it is dated in. A PST payment, or the commission you kept, is recorded with Tax payment › PST on the bank line and the PST return instead, which keep it out of that figure.

If the move would record a GST/HST or QST payment or refund TALISK_HQ already recorded (for example emptying a Receiver General suspense account into the input tax credits account, or into Other income, after the refund was marked), the preview warns This may record your ... refund a second time before you confirm. It is a warning, not a refusal; see A GST/HST payment or refund recorded twice.