@lubos, is it possible to be able to set up expense claims beginning balance ?
No, because generally expense claims only occur after the Start Date.
However, if you have an expense claim balance from a previous accounting system then take that balance up as part of Owners Equity - then Spend Money from there if reimbursement is required
@rully_p, remember that the expense claim does not technically record a transaction between the company and the merchant or supplier. It records a claim against the company made by the payer. So, although the actual transaction may have taken place before the start date, the company might consider an expense claim filed after the start date to be valid.
@Brucanna’s approach is the right one when an ongoing business is making the transition to Manager. But in a startup situation, an expense claim dated after the start date for a transaction before could be appropriate. You might also consider whether an earlier start date should be used, if people really are making expenditures on behalf of the company.
Hi @Tut, my situation now is the client migrating to manager and there are some expenses from the last 2 months haven’t been paid by the company since the internal chaos, so that’s why this amount need to be migrated to the liabilities in this month.
I’ll consider to use @Brucanna method.
That sounds like the right choice.
If it is a company, issued share capital / directors, then you need to use a liability account, not Owners Equity.
Hi Brucanna,
In case a company has started to use Manager at the beginning of Apr 2018, and it has 1000 USD of expenses claim not yet reimbursed to third parties, what are the steps to register the starting balance correctly in the accounting software?
through a new journal entry?
The answer to your question will depend on several things:
- Was there an accounting system prior to Manager? Or did you begin operations in April 2018?
- Who paid for the expenses? What is their relationship to the business? And whose money was used to pay the expenses?
- What are the expenses for?
Regardless of the answers to the above questions, a journal entry is almost certainly not how to enter things. Journal entries are fairly rare in Manager.
If you want to maintain those third parties as Expense Claim Payers (created under Settings > Expense Claim Payers) and hence use the BS > Liability > Expenses Claim account, then you have to use a Journal Entry as you can’t enter a Starting Balance against either the Expense Claim Payer or the BS > Liability > Expense Claim account. Why - because Expense Claim Payers don’t have sub-accounts within Manager.
The Journal Entry would be dated as of the Starting Date.
However, if you want to classify your third parties under either the Employees or Owners (Members) category, then they do have sub-accounts and individual Starting Balances can be entered.
I made a new journal entry with starting date April 1st 2018 (expenses claim account / payer / amount under credit).
The journal status result is shown as “unbalanced” and the amount entered is shown in “suspense” account in the main summary (under equity section)
Is this way correct?
Almost, by using the Journal Entry you are also going to have to enter a debit value.
Because this a back door (unorthodox) entry of a starting balance, this is done by adjusting another Starting Balance entry so that this can be accommodated.
So lets say you have the Expense Claims Starting Balance of 1000 credit and you have a Retained Earnings Starting Balance of 3500 credit.
The Journal Entry will be:
Debit - Retained Earnings 1000
Credit - Expenses Claims / Payer 1000
Now for the Retained Earnings account the Starting Balance would be entered as 4500 credit.
So that the Retained Earnings account balance now becomes 3500 credit (4500 - 1000)
Ok, I’ll proceed as you suggested.
thanks