Bookkeeping for One Quick Start

(How to prepare your BAS in record time)

This tutorial will follow the process of preparing the January - March 2010 BAS for TechInsite. We shall use real data but the details of account numbers and the like will be hidden.

To follow this tutorial your self, you need to be a customer with a bank we support, holding an account type we support. A full list of supported banks and bank account types is here. If you are using a bank or account that is not supported, please upload a sample bank statement for us to try. We are adding new account types all the time and will aim to support your account as soon as we can.

1. Download bank statement PDFs
   
   Log onto your bank's webiste and download and save to disk the necessary PDF statements. For example, PDF statements can be downloaded from the Commonwealth Bank as shown below:
   
   
   
2. Install BK1
   
   If you have not already done so, download and install BK1 from here.
3. Start BK1
   
   Start BK1 by clicking the BK1 icon on your desktop
   
   
4. Import bank statements
   
   Click one of the "Import PDF" links and select the files you wish to read into BK1.
   
   
   
   You can use Ctrl+Click to select several files at the same time.
   
   
   
   It's best to import the statements for all the entities that you want to work with at this stage because this gives BK1 the best chance at matching transfer transactions accross accounts.
5. The process or converting PDFs to BK1
   
   Converting bank statements from PDF to BK1 format is a complex task which is done on our powerful server here. When BK1 is finished converting the statements and checking them for accuracy, a message appears at the bottom of the screen reporting how many transactions where imported. If the statement belongs to a bank account that is new to BK1, then the account is also created. The screen shot below shows the import messages as well as the newly created bank accounts.
   
   
6. Edit account nicknames
   
   Before we go any futther, we shall give the newly created accounts nicknames to make it easier to identify them. (An account has it's formal name which appears on the bank statement. For example my business account name is "TechInsite Pty Ltd ATF TechInsite Trust" and I assign this the nickname "TechInsite"). To assign an accounts nickname, click the "Manage accounts" link as shown below:
   
   
   
   Double click on each account and edit the account's nickname as shown below:
   
   
   
   You can also create and delete entities, or move move the accounts between entities if BK1 has put them in the wrong location.
7. Manage chart of account categories
   
   Now that our accounts have short nicknames, we shall start assinging transactions to chart of account categories. You can review the standard chart of account categories that come with BK1 by clicking the "Manage categories" link as shown below:
   
   
   
   You can do the following with chart of account categories:
   
   • Create, edit or delete a category;
   • Mark a category as having GST;
   • Create groups of categories and sub categores;
   • Move categories between sub categories;
   • Jump to a list of all transactions assigned to a category.
   Category management is done with the screen shown below:
   
   
   
   If you are not sure what chart of account categories you will be wanting, don't worry because BK1 makes it easy to create categories on the fly, and to rename and move categories around, even when they have been assigned to transactions.
8. Profit and loss report
   
   At this stage it's useful to have a quick look at some business reports. Go to the profit and loss report by clicking the link shown below:
   
   
   
   Select the entity and reporting period that interests you and the profit and loss report will be generated as shown below:
   
   
   
   Make sure you choose the reporting period that corresponds to the statement dates you imported.
   
   The Profit and Loss report for TechInsite above shows no expense items because I pay for my business expenses with my personal credit card. The business refunds the purchases to me at the end of the reporting period. Next, we will learn how to assign these business expenses that where purchased on my credit card to the business so they show in the Profit and Loss report.
9. See the transactions
   
   To start assigning chart of account categories to transactions, click the bank account link as shown below:
   
   
   
   A page showing all the statements for this account will load as shown below:
   
   
   
   Click on a statement and the transactions for that statement will load as shown below:
   
   
   
   Click the screen shot above to see the detail which are described here:
   
   
   • The tabs at the top of the screen let you switch between "Transaction view" shown here which lists all the transactions on the statment in a form that allows them to be assigned to a chart of account category or business entity; and "Statement view" which shows the actual PDF bank statement;
   • The "Opening balance" line (and "Closing balance", "Total debits" & "Total credits" not shown here) values are read from the bank statement and used to check the import for errors (when the transactions are summed, the values must match the statement totals);
   • When you are assigning chart of account categories to transactions, if you don't know what a transaction is, you can search Google for suggestions. (Some businesses trade under a different name than you may think and these can cause confusion when it comes time to prepare your accounts);
   • Transactions with a red icon to their left are unknown to BK1 and you need to assign a chart of account category;
   • Transactions with a blue icon to their left are have several chart of account categories assigned and BK1 needs you to confirm the right one;
   • When you import a bank statements, transactions already in BK1 are scanned for the possiblity of transfers. The middle transaction has been identified as a transfer.
   
   
10. Assigning transactions to chart of account categories
    
    To assign a chart of account category to a transaction, double click the transaction and a screen like the one below will show:
    
    
    
    Click on the screen shot above to see the details which are described here:
    
    
    • Double clicking a transaction lists the transaction you currently have selected, as well as all similar transactions. The quality of the match as a percentage is show to help you decide if two transactions are actually the same;
    • You can select just the current transaction; only transactions with a match quality of 100%; or any combination of individual transactions;
    • You can edit the category list from this screen;
    • Select a category from the drop down list and click "Set to income/expense"
    • Click the "OK" button when you are done.
    
    
11. Making a business purchase from your personal credit card
    
    To assign a transaction to an entity different to the entity that owns the transaction's account (hope you are with me on this), you double click the transaction and use the screen shown below. In this example, tranactions with the description "Ofwk" are for business purchased made from "Office Works" on my personal credit card and I need to be remibursed by my business.
    
    
    
    Click on the screen shot above to see the details which are described here:
    
    
    • Select all the transactions you want to assign;
    • Not all the transactions will have exactly the same description, but BK1 will do a pretty good job of finding those that are similar;
    • Select the entity then click the "Set entity to" button;
    • Click the "OK" button when you are done.
    
    These transactions will now show correctly in the Profit and Loss report.
12. Taking cash out of the bank
    
    Sometimes you take cash out of the bank for small purchases and I typically do this from a CBA ATM. These transactions look like the ones shown below, that need to be marked as a transfer to the special BK1 account called "Cash".
    
    
    
    Click on the screen shot above to see the details which are described here:
    
    
    • Select all the transactions you want to assign as transfers to cash;
    • Click the "transfer to cash" button;
    • Click the "OK button";
    
    These transactions will now show in the cash account as shown here:
    
    
13. Making a cash purchase
    
    Sometimes cash is used to make a business purchase and these transactions are entered through the cash account and assinged to the business entity. To do this, open the cash account as shown here:
    
    
    
    Click the "New" button and fill in the date, description, amount, chart of account category and entity as shown here:
    
    
    
    The cash transaction will now show in the appropriate entitie's profit and loss report.
14. Complete the process and view reports
    
    Whe you have completed the process by assigning all transactions as either income / expense categories, or transfers you can generate Profit and Loss, Cash Flow, BAS Work sheet or transfer reports for your business as shown here: