Recurring charges with no bill

Some contracts never send an invoice: the money just leaves your bank each period (an equipment lease, a service agreement, a software subscription billed to the card). TALISK_HQ calls that a charge with no bill, and it can recognize it off your bank feed so you still get the expense on the books, with the embedded GST or HST claimed as an input tax credit when your book is able to claim it.

Set it up once. Go to Ledger › Expenses › Recurring, click Add recurring expense, and enter the title, amount, tax, frequency, and Next run date. The row shows a Charge · no bill label so you can tell it apart from a recurring bill. In British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, enter the PST in its own PST field and keep the amount as the price before any tax (or turn on Amount includes tax and let TALISK_HQ work it out), so the template adds up to exactly what the bank charges: the form's Total per charge should match the charge on your statement.

Which account it posts to. The template's GL account # must be one of your expense accounts (or a capital asset account). TALISK_HQ refuses a number that is not in your chart, or that is an account it keeps in step with its own records: Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, a sales tax account, Vendor Credits, customer deposits or Foreign Exchange Loss. It refuses when you save, and Run now refuses to book a template saved earlier with such an account and names the account to change, so nothing is booked until you fix it.

What happens when the charge lands. When a bank line imports (from a statement or a linked bank) that matches your template:

• If its total is an exact match and the line isn't already categorized, TALISK_HQ books that period for you, splitting out the GST or HST you can recover, and marks the bank line reconciled. Nothing for you to do.
• If the amount differs, it is the first charge we've seen for that template, or more than one template could fit, it appears as a one-tap Confirm (in the Recurring list and on the Banking review queue). Confirming books the bank total with the tax worked back out. If the bank line is not that charge, click Not this charge: the suggestion leaves the queue and TALISK_HQ never suggests that line for that template again. Nothing is posted.

How much of the tax you actually claim. A recurring charge claims exactly what the same charge would claim if you coded the bank line by hand, and the rules are the ordinary ones. A book that is not registered for GST claims nothing, because the tax it paid is a cost rather than a credit. A book on the Quick Method claims nothing on its everyday spending, though a capital purchase such as equipment still claims in full. A charge coded to Meals and Entertainment claims the half the CRA allows. Anything you cannot claim stays in the expense, so the entry still adds up to the money that left your bank. Every one of these is judged on the charge's own date, so a charge dated before you went onto the Quick Method claims what that day allowed.

PST is never claimed. The PST on a template stays in the expense, and when the entry claims its GST the PST shows as its own PST (not recoverable) line on the same expense account, the way a coded bank line shows it. If the PST is left out of the template altogether, the charge no longer adds up to the template, so it waits for a Confirm, and the tax worked back out of it comes out wrong: a $112 British Columbia charge against a "$100 plus $5 GST" template would claim $5.33 of GST instead of the $5 you paid. Added into the amount instead, the charge still matches but the PST is hidden inside the expense. Put the PST in its field and the charge matches exactly, with the PST shown on its own line.

In Quebec, the charge's own date decides the QST. The QST inside a charge is claimed as an input tax refund when your book was QST-registered on the date of the bank line itself, not on the day TALISK_HQ booked it. A charge dated before your QST registration effective date keeps its QST inside the expense, because you could not claim it yet. Run now follows the same rule using that entry's own date, so all three ways of booking a period agree.

If a charge is missing. When an expected charge hasn't come out of your bank by its due date, the row shows a may be missing flag (and a card appears in Books Health). Open the template to check the contract, and Pause it if the charge has stopped.

Manual Run now still works for a period before the bank line has imported. When the bank line arrives, TALISK_HQ matches it to that Run now entry rather than booking the period twice, but only on its own when the line is the same money: the same amount to the cent, paid from the account the entry booked to (the template's Paid from, or Cash / Bank when your business has no bank account or card set up), within 7 days of the entry's date either way. A charge that lands a few days later in the next month still matches: the expense stays on the Run now entry's date. Anything else waits for a one-tap Confirm, and the Recurring list says why: the amount differs or paid from another account than this period's Run now entry, or more than a week from it. TALISK_HQ never books a difference on its own: only your Confirm does.

If the bank took a different amount. Confirming makes the bank's figure win: the Run now entry is re-posted at the amount the bank actually took, with the tax worked back out the same way, on the same date and account. The expense and the account it was paid from then match your statement. The confirmation says the entry was updated, from what figure to what figure.

If you already categorized the bank line. TALISK_HQ never matches a categorized line on its own: it waits for a one-tap Confirm, and your category's entry stays on the books until you confirm. Confirming takes that entry off, so the expense and the money that left your bank are each counted once, at the bank's figure.

When Confirm refuses. Confirm refuses, and changes nothing, when a Run now entry already booked that period and the bank line was paid from a different account than the one that entry booked to, or is more than 7 days from that entry's date. A categorized line is then counted twice while both stand; an uncategorized one stays open. The refusal names the fix, with the figures:

1. Remove the Run now entry: on Ledger › Expenses › Recurring, the template's row lists its Run now entries by date and amount. Click Remove beside the one the refusal names and confirm. TALISK_HQ deletes that entry and offers the period again.
2. Go back to the bank line's Confirm and confirm it again. TALISK_HQ books the charge from the bank line, once, on the account it was paid from, on its own date and at the bank's figure.

Removing a Run now entry. Each Run now entry is listed under its template's row on Ledger › Expenses › Recurring, with Remove. Removing deletes the entry and puts the template's Next run date back to that entry's date when it was the latest one, so the period is offered again. It is refused in a locked period, and while a bank line is matched to the entry (the row says matched to a bank line): undo that match first from the bank line's Recurring charge card. Removing the same entry twice does nothing the second time.

To stop this happening in later periods, set the template's Paid from to the account the charge really comes out of. If the line's category sits in a locked period, Confirm says so instead, because the category can't be cleared until the period is unlocked. A Run now entry in a locked period can't be re-posted at the bank's figure either, so Confirm refuses with the lock.

Not this charge. Every suggestion carries Not this charge, on the Recurring list and on the Banking review queue. It says that bank line is not that recurring charge, and it is the way out of a suggestion that Confirm refuses and you do not want to fix. The suggestion leaves the queue and TALISK_HQ never suggests, matches or books that line for that template again, even once the template has history. It posts nothing and leaves the bank line exactly as it was; another template can still claim the same line. A dismissed suggestion is listed under Show dismissed, with Bring it back to undo it. Bringing it back is refused when the line has since been matched, or when another recurring charge is already suggested for that line: confirm or dismiss that one first.

Undoing a match. Open the bank line under Ledger › Banking and, in its details, click Undo match on the Recurring charge card. The line goes back to being open. A charge TALISK_HQ booked from the bank line has its entry removed; a charge matched to a Run now entry leaves that entry standing, back at its own amount if Confirm had updated it to the bank's. A category the line had before is put back in full.