Can you please add a way to directly assign transactions from imported bank statements to another account (ie Paypal, cash on hand). The current process is error prone and time consuming, since you have to manually go through the imported list and handle each transaction twice.
Ideally the transaction should be handled exactly as a direct expense transaction, so that I can assign the transaction immediately as a transfer from account ABC to account XYZ. The functionality is already there (ie inter-account transfer) but is not exposed to the end user directly. A checkbox to swap between the two types works as well (sort of like the discount checkbox is handled, when checked it adds a column to an invoice for example).
If you get it to work with a bank rule as well, that would be golden
You can use a “interaccount transfer” account. You will make a payment from account A to this new account and a receipt to account B from this new account as well.
It’s not the same thing. I still have to manually edit out the transactions when being imported. I’ve settled for an “Inter-account transfers” equity account in the meantime, but it’s still two steps per transaction. Paypal works because you import that statement as well, but for cash it’s extra unnecessary steps that can be ommited if the feature is added.
That is because there are two transactions. An inter account transfer is not a single transaction, even when within the same institution. (And often, they are not.)
This topic has been discussed many, many times in the forum, with extensive explanations and examples of why this cannot work. Please search to find those if you are interested in more information.
You can as explained by @Davide " You can use a “inter account transfer” account. You will make a payment from account A to this new account and a receipt to account B from this new account as well.
No you don’t. Let’s assume Bank A has funds being transferred to Bank B
Bank A’s imported statement’s payment would have a bank rule to be posted to “clearing account”
Bank B’s imported statement’s receipt would have a bank rule to be posted to “clearing account”
Read this edited extract:
If you use imported statements entry then you need to process the Bank Rule via a clearing account.
Bank Transfers are two separate accountings transactions not a single transaction.
1.Bank A: Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit ???
2.Bank B: Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit ???
The Inter Account Transfer tab feature in Manager allows you to truncate that to a single entry - Credit Bank A and Debit Bank B. However, when importing bank statements and using Bank Rules, the processing of the two transactions is still required because (rightfully) Manager’s Bank Rules prevents any allocation directly between bank accounts otherwise you would have duplicate transactions as demonstrated below.
If you substituted the ??? for the opposing Bank you would now have:
1.Bank A: Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit Bank B
2.Bank B: Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit Bank A
The Bank A account now has two credit entries and the Bank B account now has two debit entries - hence the duplication. So to use Import Bank Statement you just need in the Bank Rule to post the opposing debit/credit entry to a clearing account, where the contra will cancel themselves out.
1.Bank A Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit Clearing Account
2.Bank B Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit Clearing Account
The Clearing Account can be created as either a Current Asset or Current Liability but not an Equity account.
@Brucanna
That’s how I got it working for now. I’ve read the documentation, but consider this:
I import a bank statement with 10 cash widthrawals. Those 10 cash widthdrawals were transfered to the cash account. I can’t set up a bank rule to get those recognized automatically, which is why I’m asking for this feature. And no, it’s not the same as assigning those to a clearing account, then manually adding a transaction from that account to the cash account. The feature request is for: “is this an inter-account transfer?” if yes > select the account to transfer to. if no, use the existing transaction editing fields.
I understand how the inter-account transfer works, what I don’t understand is why I can’t set up a bank rule to create an inter-account transfer. Double entry should be taken care of by the inter-account transfer, no? Duplicate transactions would not be imported when importing the “second” bank statement, no?
Because, when you import the statement, you only have one of the two transactions. The other leg has to come from a different bank account, either via import or manual entry. Depending on how the inter account transfer is executed, this could take many days. An example is when you mail a cheque to pay off a credit card. This is entered as an inter account transfer, but it might take 2 weeks before everything clears.
That would result in an unnecessary account for many users, with no way to get rid of it. Many would probably wonder what it was for. Meanwhile, it does not seem unreasonable to expect those who import bank statements to set things up to accommodate their own practices. Some might like to use a clearing account. Others might like to manually exclude inter account transfers. An automatic system account forces you to do things one way. A one-time account creation doesn’t seem like a large burden.
@Tut
A one time account isn’t a large burden, and neither is adding the feature (which by the look of it a few people want).
This is what I (and others) want to do:
Import the bank statement
Use a bank rule to tag “CASH WIDTHDRAWAL” and set up the inter-account transfer to the cash account assigned (it’s not "one leg of the transaction, that breaks double entry accounting, it is in fact both legs of the transaction right there: a debit to one account and a credit to a different one).
Tick the tagged transactions and process them. Finished.
What you want to do:
Import the bank statement
Use a bank rule to tag “CASH WIDTHDRAWAL” and assign it to the clearing account.
Tick the tagged transactions and process them.
Manually add transactions to transfer the already transferred money to the cash account (because in your case, double entry isn’t applied to the two “affected accounts”, but instead applied to a third account that now shows a positive balance).
Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, it’s the documented scenario (of a clearing account) that actually “breaks” the double entry and only contains “one leg of the transaction”, not the requested feature. As a reminder, the functionality requested is already implemented in manager (it’s the inter-account transfer we are talking about), it’s just not exposed to the user in a user-friendly manner, and does not break the double entry (debit one, credit another). A clearing account simply adds an extra manual step into the equation. I understand that it “doesn’t seem like a large burden”, but processing a few hundred transactions turns from a 10 second job of simply ticking the highlighted transactions into a 2 hour job of copy/pasting dates, descriptions and sums. That (to me) is a large burden.
@deZillium, you are missing my points, possibly because of duplication of the term account. I was not speaking of two legs of a transaction in terms of double-entry accounting, but rather of two different bank accounts. If you want to think about double-entry accounting, and imported receipt (as an example) is already two postings: a debit to the bank account and a credit to some other account, such as Accounts receivable. It is this second account you are identifying with a bank rule. There is no second bank account involved.
When you make an inter account transfer, you have two completely separate bank accounts involved, and you have no information during import for the second one. Yet, in addition to the two account postings for the origin account, you also would need two postings for the destination account, for a total of four database entries. There simply is not adequate information in an imported statement to determine which other bank account is involved.
This may seem trivial to you. I assure you its more complex than you seem to think.
@Tut
Let me help with the complexity: When processing a transaction with a bank rule, the destination account can be manually selected. Complexity problem solved!
I cannot select another cash or bank account as the destination, which is exactly my point (with all due respect, it is you that is missing the point).
If you need 4 database entries for inter-account transfers, you are doing something extremely wrong and this needs to be fixed now before it blows up 5 years down the line. A single transaction (on ANY account) is a 2 database entry: A debit (or credit) from the source account and a credit (or debit) to the destination account. Double entry is still applied (source entry + destination entry)
Let me put this into capital letters to make it clearer: THE FEATURE REQUEST IS TO BE ABLE TO SELECT A DESTINATION ACCOUNT THAT MAY BE A CASH AND/OR BANK ACCOUNT, EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THAT AN EXPENSE ACCOUNT CAN BE SELECTED.
I hope I got my point across. This is a legitimate feature request. Just because everyone else is doing it the “X way”, does NOT mean that the “X way” is correct. It is one thing I’ve learned from my job watching “enterprise IT persons” cowboy-ing together “enterprise” solutions.
There is no need to shout. Your point and request has been made by previous posters
They key problem is that if you import a statement from two banks accounts with transfer between them, then the import will double up the debit and credit in your scenario ie Importing a statement from bank account one will create a debit in one account and a credit in the second account. Importing a statement from the second account will create another debit in account one and another credit in account two
Admittedly, if the inter-account transfer is to or from a cash account there will be no second importation as cash accounts do not generally have statements to import
No. As it currently works manager recognizes already imported / present transactions.
I handle inter account transfers by making the transfer first and then importing the bank statement and it always says something like 5 transactions in the bank statement 4 to be imported one is already present.
I can post a screenshot of that once I have a transaction like that.
@Joe91
This is me shouting: I AM SHOUTING
This is my capilizing for emphasis (ie as I said above “let me put it into capital letters”): THIS IS AN EMPHASIS
Joking aside, exactly what @novica said. Already imported transactions are automatically excluded, so that’s not the “barrier to entry” for this feature request. Neither is the “unknown destination account” (it will be handled exactly the same as an expense account). Any other strawmen that we need to take apart?
That will only function for bank to bank transfers if they are of the same date.
If you import Bank A statement that has a transfer to Bank B dated 1/1/1 then when you import Bank B statement it must also have the exact same transfer date 1/1/1 for Manager to recognise the existing Bank A imported transaction against Bank B.
However, if Bank B has that transfer dated 2/1/1 then when imported Manger will see this as a whole new transaction, so the single transfer becomes two imported transaction - a nightmare if your suggestion is adopted.
That is why it is essential that intra bank transfers (not necessarily inter bank transfers) which happen over night or days MUST be handled via a clearing account so the User doesn’t get trapped by date differentiation.
Bank to/from Cash transfers can be of a different situation with Cash being non-importing, but having duplicate / alternate processing systems between bank to bank and bank to cash just brings complexity which contradicts Manager’s simplicity.
I search through all the Forum threads and topic and ideas and this seams to be the closest one to the problem.
I will attach the screenshots so that all can see what the problem is and then, please guide me how to rectify the problem or how to solve the problem because I seams to overlook it some where.
This screenshot is where I import my bank statement and all will see that the description is numeric that comae from the bank and you can not use bank rules to solve it because I will have thousands of bank rules over a couple of months because I do transfers between these accounts quit often.
I can use edit to solve interest received but the inter bank transfers is a issue, and I believe for many others also.
If in the account column was a new inter bank transfer rule or something it will make processing data faster.
In Bank Rules I can not set up this account rules and in edit to create a Asset account will bring forward extra journal transactions to solve 1 simple programming future that we need.
Blessings
NS. Our power is to be shut done now for the next 2 1/2 hours so I will look later if someone shed some info for me.
I found the solution self here Post inter account transfers from imported bank statements | Manager.
Please take note of this: Caution
You should use the Inter Account Transfers tab or import bank statements in the Bank Accounts tab, but not both. Using both will result in duplication of transfers. Correction of duplicates requires deleting either (a) the inter account transfer entry or (b) both the corresponding payment and receipt from imports from the two banks.
I think there is little chance that this important change will ever be made! At some point in the early stages of development, I assume, someone wrongly decided that this entry:
Bank a/c 1 debit
Bank a/c 2 credit
was incorrect. All subsequent development has been based on this silly assumption. Furthermore, any justification for this principle which you might read in this forum uses a circular argument which begins with this assumption and thus cannot be challenged! To change this now would, I believe, require an extensive if not a complete rewrite. By way of context, I am a home user with 7 accounts using 2 different currencies in 2 different countries and I have made 20 inter-account transfers in the last 2 months. If I lose track there goes half a day. In addition, I would suggest that while OK for the small user this program will never graduate to the big time with this limitation
I just found this thread after trying to do the exact same thing, very interesting.
I also don’t like having to do all my Inter account transfers manually and must agree that there is reason for this request from me also. Had 20 to do already this month and more will follow as businesses increases. I can understand both sides of this but believe the speed this feature would add to inputting transactions would be invaluable to me personally. As long as the end user understands double entry then they should not get themselves into any situations using this feature.
An example, I transfer many times from PayPal to my main bank account and this is always done instantly so no worries on my side regarding dates etc. If this feature was available i could import PayPal statement and assign all the inter transfers via the rule suggested and then just delete all of the transfers from the main bank CSV before import and i would be done No double transactions to worry about. It would be so simple and as its always the same kind of transfer, a bank rule to do this would be a really great feature. I understand it would not suit everyone but it would save lots of people hours of valuable time.
At present i just reference all the transaction in the PayPal CSV sequentially, make note of dates, amounts and references of my inter transfers and then delete them from the CSV and enter them manually after finishing the import. When doing Bank CSV i only take note of the reference i want and delete all the transfers before importing. This seems to be the quickest way i can figure to do this but i have only been using Manager for a little over a year so still learning
No double transactions to worry about. It would be so simple and as its always the same kind of transfer, a bank rule to do this would be a really great feature. I understand it would not suit everyone but it would save lots of people hours of valuable time.