Suspence account as default drawings

I am just wondering if it is inappropriate to use the Suspence account as a default drawings account when downloading bank files for updating accounts?

I find the slowest thing about importing bank statements from a business/personal credit card is having to allocate personal expenses to an equity account. I have numbered my drawings account to number 1 which makes it a little quicker categorising.

If all business expenses have a bank rule when importing, a bulk update can be done moving the business costs to their account and everything else (drawings) to the suspence account.

To clear the suspence account (if needed/wanted) it can be done by journal entry debiting drawings to the value of the suspence account and leaving the credit leg blank (thus by default suspence).

The equity drawings account reflects the correct balance and a detailed brake up of the transfer can be found through a “drill down” of suspence in a General Ledger Summary.

What problems will I find if I do my importing in this manner?
Is there any way to set a default when importing, or making the suspence account more directly accessable?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Yes. There should never be anything in Suspense. That is where Manager stores mistakes until corrected. See the Guide: Manager Guides.

Only through bank rules.

If handling personal expenses purchased with a business credit card is causing you problems because of frequency of such transactions, I would recommend separate cards.

Thanks Tut

I can appreciate your point of view but I for one cannot justify another card just for this convenience.

I would clear the suspence account after each download therefore allowing the suspence account free to show other mistakes!

My original question still remains

I think the program is excellent (coming from 15 years full time with MYOB), I am just trying to make it even better!

Obviously, @Malton, you are free to do as you wish. But purposely erroneous transactions, such as journal entries with blank posting accounts, is poor practice, whether made to offset (note, I did not say correct) still earlier mistakes or not.

You are putting a lot of questionable entries into your records that would be hard to explain to an auditor, in a manner that seems to be quite inconvenient for you. Otherwise, I don’t think you would have started this topic. You imply you’d like to see the program changed to make your improper use of it easier. I don’t believe that will happen.

I am only doing it so it is more convenient for me, and I don’t think I would have any problem explaining to an auditor.

If I could have any change it would be to have a default account in the imports dialog, which I do not consider improper use.

If you have many recurring private expenses you can create bank rules to automatically allocate them to your capital account.

Thanks tony

I am aware of bank rules, but they add considerable time for importing especially if it is likely that the rule will not be used again. They are excellent for recurring transactions.

Why not post all to the equity account and then just have rules for the business expense imports?

Although, it would be simpler to follow Tut’s recommendation and have two cards and keep the business and personal expenses apart altogether

That is exactly what I would like to do, but unfortunately the program only allows bulk posting to the Suspence account - uncategorised.

I don’t import bank statements so my knowledge of bank rules is more or less zero, but I’m sure you could devise a rule that says if description contains “e” or “a” assign to drawings

This is not an accurate interpretation of what the program does. Manager does not allow “bulk posting” to any account during bank statement importation. (The Bulk Update button is more like a Save function that confirms the transactions, but it does not make any account allocations in bulk.) The program simply defaults to Suspense when any transaction is not recognized by a pre-existing bank rule. This is so information is not lost, requiring you to create a bank rule to fit the situation and re-import the statement. Any transaction in Suspense is considered incomplete.

The issue that is frustrating you, @Malton, is not Manager’s inability to post imported transactions to the account you desire. Bank rules can be defined to post transactions to your capital account with no problem. The issue is your inability to identify these transactions based on content of their Description fields. (You said rules would be used only once in many of these situations.)

If you cannot furnish that information in advance, Manager is going to temporarily leave the transaction in Suspense for resolution. You seem to regard this as a big inconvenience. But compare it to the alternative. You would have to enter the entire transaction manually. Surely, selecting a posting account while importing the statement is easier than that.

You need to accept the fact that Manager is not going to furnish you the opportunity to designate a separate account for unidentifiable imported transactions. The potential for importing improperly posted transactions is too high. You have been focused on the idea that anything not covered by a bank rule belongs in your capital account, apparently because you are using the business credit card so frequently for personal expenses. But there are many reasons Manager might fail to recognize a transaction properly. Scattering such transactions to accounts other than Suspense could easily cause problems.

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Thanks Joe91

The idea of a “catch all” bank rule would be very interesting. I know I have trouble with some rules e.g. Aldi (private) and Aldimobile (business phone). Manager keeps categorising Aldimobile as Aldi - thus I have to overrule a bank rule or have it posted incorrectly.
I just do not know how manager prioritises bank rules.
Whatever, each transaction does have to be scrutinised before posting.

Maybe there is some room there for a catch all - any ideas Tut?

I assure you I do not regard this as “a big inconvenience”. As someone who started accounting with pencil and paper before computers became affordable, I am only trying to make the program better - its called progress.

The challenge is to come up with a unique description.

Nor do I. Bank statement importing is very hard to experiment with, because you need real statements to conduct meaningful trials. It may not prioritize at all. It might apply the bank rules in the order they are listed, overriding earlier results with later matches, if there are any. That could be another reason to be sure your criteria are unique.

No. Every bank includes different terminology in its descriptions. Some I’ve seen are uselessly vague for constructing bank rules. That is why I don’t personally import statements for my business. And it is why the Guide includes the Caution statement at the end.