Owner's Equity @ Startup

Dear members,
As we are starting a fresh business, we are funding the business through our personal account till the time our corporate bank account is open. We have properly maintained the payments done. We have followed by maintaining a receiving entry and updating it as and when Owner feeds the business. We are using capital accounts sub function “funds contributed”.

Additionally, we have read the guides and adjusted the “retained earnings” to “owners equity” for sole proprietorship clarity.

Our query is:

  1. Is the above way correct?
  2. How to pay back the owner once we have deposited the money for corporate account separately? Also will this be taxable if we return the money i.e. Should not appear as income.
  3. Expense claims are different than capital funds contributed and should not be used in this case, correct?

Thanking you for your support.

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It’s something related to your country and its laws. You better ask you chartered accountants for that rather than on this forum which is international.

I do agree, however can you advise for point 1,2,3 excluding the tax part.
thanks.

What you are putting in place is a shareholder financing in order to face a contingent period. So it should be registered as a debt Vs shareholders rather than Equity.

A shareholder financing, in Italy, can be refund without any taxation with the exception of eventual interest on the amount you lent.

Once your equity will be in the right place you will close the shareholder financing by paying it back to the lander, ie payment Vs shareholder financing.

No. You cannot have both an Owner’s equity account and capital accounts. Re-read the Guide about renaming Retained earnings.

Yes, they are different, but depending on other factors, they could certainly be used to account for owner-funded expenses instead of accounting for such things via a capital account. Again, re-read the Guide about expense claims.

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Thank you all for correcting my mistake. Is it okay now that I have removed the capital accounts and kept it default to retained earnings. Now I have created one journal entry owners funding and every time I fund the business, i use the journal entry and balance it with opening balance equity (which I created newly under equity). My plan is now not to take it as a loan.

That is not the correct approach. When you fund the business with additional capital, you should enter a receipt under the Recipts & Payments tab. Allocate the receipt to your equity account. If you are going to use the Retained earnings account as your equity account, see this Guide: Simplify equity accounting for sole traders / proprietors | Manager.

If you had equity when you began using Manager, that should have been entered as a starting balance. See Enter starting balances | Manager. Such a number should never be adjusted subsequently, because the starting balance did not change. Adjusting a starting balance to reflect an additional contribution would render any balance sheet or statement of changes in equity covering an earlier period incorrect.

Thanks for the clarity

thank you Tut… The Australian Government has been giving businesses cash boosts from $20k to 200k without them being taxable or having to be paid back, to assist in helping businesses start up when the covid 19 lessens its grip. Putting this amount into Owners Equity fixes the problem instantly. Tens of Thousands of businesses may not be aware where to place these funds.I thank you for your help once again and am indebted to Manager for producing such a fantastic package.

@Mifs, the previous posts were not written with Australian COVID-19 stimulus programs in mind. They predate the pandemic.

Whether or not cash boosts from your government are taxable, need to be repaid, or should be posted in Owner’s equity are all decisions best answered by local, qualified accountants. You should not regard the information given previously on how to use the Manager program as tax or accounting advice applicable to your situation.

Once you have obtained qualified advice about how the cash boost should be treated, if you have questions about how to do that in Manager, then post your questions on the forum.