Unemployment income

I’m a sole proprietor. I already have my business bank account set up but I received pandemic unemployment compensation for months. How do I record the unemployment income?

That would depend. If you are setting up Manager for the first time you will not need to enter past transactions; they will effectively be part of your starting balance in Equity after you have entered the other starting balances in Assets and Liabilities.

If you already had Manager up and running and have just been holding off on entering the payments, you would record them as any other receipt via the Receipts and Payments tab. It would be advisable to create a new income account called Unemployment and post the receipts there to easily separate them from normal business income.

New income account as in new bank account or just an income account under assets? and thank you so much for answering!

Just an income account under assets.

Thank you!

I don’t think that’s going to work. I have to record the unemployment income to a bank account first before I can choose an account to apply it to. And I can’t put it in my existing bank account because that’s not where it went when I first received it. I received that money on a debit card. I hope that made sense. if it did, I’m sure it changes how it;'s done. I’m sorry I didn’t mention that before. Thanks again!

If it went to a bank account that’s not in your chart of accounts that begs the question what are you using Manager for - a business? personal accounts? a mixture?

I see. That won’t complicate things too much; you can set up the debit card as though it were a bank account by following this guide Set up credit cards | Manager (the guide refers to credit cards but it will work the same). Leave the card as an asset.

Then simply receive the funds to the card using Receipts and Payments.

What account has this been received into? Was it your normal business bank account

What are the tax rules in your jurisdiction with respect to “pandemic unemployment compensation”? The issue being entries into an accounting package must be done in a manner consistent with the local tax rules not Managers capabilities.

For example in Australia see posts in this thread

  • What country are you in?

  • What Manager Chart of Account entries are you currently using to record payroll entries

  • Do you have employees or is the “pandemic unemployment compensation” referring to your personal unemployment payment?

Unemployment compensation you received as an individual is not business income and should not be entered in Manager at all unless you are using the program to manage your personal finances.

No, it’s not business income but I file taxes as a sole proprietor so all income is reported under my social security number.

thank you for your help :slight_smile:

the funds were received on a debit card. I used those funds for both personal and business expenses

So you are a sole trader.
Have no employees
Taxation rules sound similar to JobKeeper in Australia so above link & associated discussion should be relevant.

Is the debit card linked to your normal businesses account or a separate bank account. Ie are these transactions already part of the existing Manager bank account.

i’m in the U.S. the card is not linked to my business account. the debit card was issued by unemployment so I think it is actually an account unto itself. Funds were added from unemployment on a weekly basis. so it’s like it’s own bank account but a bank account that came loaded with money ready to spend. the monies on the card was net. i had them take taxes taken out as we went aloong

I do use manager to manage my personal bank account too but I have it in manager as a separate business

Since the debit card is given to you personally, and the unemployment benefits are paid to you personally, and your personal finances are being kept in a separate Manager “business,” that reinforces my earlier comment: you should not enter the unemployment benefits in Manager in any way.

If you use the debit card to pay for a business expense, enter an expense claim in Manager for the business. That constitutes an outside entity (you, not your business) paying for a business expense. See the Guide: Use expense claims | Manager.

Now, in your personal finance “business,” the weekly addition of unemployment benefits to the debit card is just entered as a receipt. For the bank account, choose the debit card, set up as a regular bank account, not a credit card. The plastic card effectively holds the monetary asset instead of some financial institution.