How to record personal transactions from a business account
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How to record personal transactions from a business account
We’ve simplified how you handle personal transactions in Wave. Instead of moving transactions out of your business account and into personal, you can now categorize personal transactions right from...
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I still need to be able to categorize a personal transaction into various income and expense categories...how do I do this?
Does this mean that we still need to create a separate entry completely on the personal side without just clicking "mark as personal"? And I have the same question as below. If its a cell phone bill or groceries, how do you categorize those unless you create new entries?
Hey @Richard_Maxted and @mushpamensa , in that case you'd still need to manually create the transaction in your Personal Wave profile, and categorize it that way. Alternatively, you could add a note to include the expense type, though this wont allow you to track it via Reports.
Hmm this is really unfortunate.
This feature was so useful in the old version. Now I will be doing double the work. I don't get why you would take that away. I would love to stay with Wave, but honestly this is not going to work out for me. Would you all consider adding this back? If its going to be in the plan for 2019, I'll stick it out and do it for a bit, but if this is going to be standard from now on.... Please add it back. Huge bummer yall. 
@mushpamensa it's not that we purposefully took this away; we built the new accounting platform from scratch and not all of the features were recreated all at once. While I am not seeing any current plans for this, I can definitely put in a word for you to let our teams know that this is a requested feature.
Trying to do my tax return and finding this new site a lot of extra work to think through!!
I felt I had it all under control but now i'm completely lost. Reconciliations are now all showing as incorrect when I
thought I had completed them.
Also I can't see split transactions which I need to do and it needs to be simple.
I may have to sack this all off and go back to how I used to do it but I've already spent HOURS editing all my transactions!!
Completely agree with JohnnyB… I was shocked to see my transactions reports from 2014 up to now. Somehow my 2018 end of the year report is affected by previous years and calculations are weird. That's why I looked back and noticed that 2014/2015 reconciliations were incorrect (I haven't got them since as Wave doesn't support my new bank). I tried simply delete those transactions (ONLY RECONCILIATIONS) as they duplicated right ones (only instead of credit they were shown as debit, which brought me into minus) and now I cannot see any reports for 2014...it's all GONE:( !!! As for 2018 report, different reports show different amounts, i.e. loss and profit report shows one information and report on income by customers shows less than profit on the first one!! This is my 4th year with Wave, but I think, this is the last year!! The information on this website is very important and such mistakes in software updates can have very serious implications for self-employed people during audit! Is there any way to return to the previous version of Wave before updates?! I cannot imagine how people would re-do all the accounts!!
Hi Maryna
If it's any help, I've found that i was previously consolidating per month from the 1st to the end of the month. The new format seems to go from the 11th to the 10th as per bank statement. I've had to spend a few hours sorting through as some transaction just need to be put into the correct month and you'll find some months automatically reconcile! It's is a lot fast and smoother once you get over the initial shock!!! Hope this is helpful.
I'd love to see the feature put the transaction into your personal account like it did before. I probably wont bother using the personal account side of things now or I'll just have to do the categorising all over again - not favourable.
@JohnnyB thanks for providing your update -- I'm glad this ended up working out in your favor! While I do apologize for any initial inconvenience, our goal was (and is) to make all of your future bookkeeping easier through automations such as this.
@Maryam do you still have transactions for the year 2014 present on your Accounting>Transactions page? The reports should just be pulling information from that. If you were still not seeing reports generated for those transactions, you may have been affected by our reports maintenance mentioned in this post: https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/3686/notice-ongoing-report-maintenance
I had a look and your account should not be experiencing this anymore; however, please let us know if you are so that we can take a closer look at this.
@AnnaMM I'll bring this up to the team! However, we currently do not have any plans for this.
Like Johnnyb I need to see split transaction all on one screen, rather than hidden. Having to click 3 times to see where the money went, rather than three separate transactions is very time consuming.I also agree with Annamm that it was much less time consuming to to just send a transaction to my personal account rather than having to categorize it as an Owner drawing and having to recreate all the personal categories as notes in a transaction the details of which I can only see by clicking away.
Am I right in saying, this new 'simplified' feature is actually just removing the functionality that I found most useful? What should we do with the old transactions still in our personal accounts, or better still could you provide a tutorial on how to move all the new 'Owner's Investment/Drawings' from the business transactions page into a personal account?
You guys have now made this so much more difficult than it was. I hate the new way of categorizing personal transactions. As a freelancer who uses this for invoicing and tracking my business expenses via my personal account, you've just made a simple solution no longer viable. Once I find a replacement service, you are losing my business.
Please go back to the old way! This is much more difficult. Disappointed
Not helpful at all. The instructions above do not make sense. I cannot find Deposit from Personal for income transactions or Personal Expense or Withdrawal.
I agree with all of the comments below! This is a nightmare trying to learn a new system while preparing my taxes!!! Why, why, why did you do this to us this time of the year?
I agree this was ill-timed and not something most of us had wanted. I will deal with it, though (having to go back through the entire last year), as well as start to look around for another system.
How can we keep track of our personal expenses and NOT have them effect the Profit n loss statement?
I still don't see how this makes any sense.
If I have to put every such expense into an owner equity account, then I'm not putting the transactions into their proper expense category accounts? Right?
If you're saying that's correct, and I have to create another manual entry for every expense, then what's the point of even pretending to automate this for us? Why even bother hooking up the account at all? I should just manually enter everything.
To all Wave users feeling confused or frustrated by the new approach to personal transaction categorization, we're going to do two things to help. First, in the near future, we'll publish a longer article that explains proper accounting practices in a more detailed fashion, including the importance of your ownership type (sole proprietor vs. LLC vs. corporation), and the differences between business expenditures or deposits from personal accounts and personal expenditures or deposits from business accounts. Secondly, we'll outline our thinking on how we're going to fill some of the gaps you're feeling by Q2 of this year. As always, we appreciate your candor and we'll continue to listen so we can serve you best.
@Mani and anyone else at Wave that can help.
What I don't understand is why these transactions need to be posted to "Business Owner Contribution and Drawings". Would another appropriate option not be to post them to a Liability account under "Due to You and Other Business Owners”. I have created a "Shareholder's Loan" account there and have been tracking business purchases/expenses paid from a personal credit card that way. Is this wrong approach and should I be using the "Business Owner Contribution and Drawings" Equity type account instead. I'm incorporated (Canadian Controlled Private Corporation) if that makes any difference.
Thanks in advance and for all the hard work put into this great tool.
Leigh
@LeighL while I can't provide you with accounting advice that's right for your business and circumstances, I can say that corporations do commonly use one or more Shareholder Loan (liability) account(s) to bookkeep the personal flow of funds in to and out of the business by one or more business owners. That's because going through an equity account such as Common Shares could be quite laborious (it could suggest you're issuing or buying back shares each time)! Sole proprietors on the other hand commonly use a Business Owner Contributions and Drawing (equity) account as it's simple and easy to understand.
One of the improvements to the automated flows that you'll see in the next couple of months is one in which our system will handle the above for you by first asking you which ownership type you are (corp or sole prop) and then selecting the right type of account for you each time.
What is Equity Account ?
I originally chose Wave Accounting because as a small business owner I have only one bank account. I use the one bank account for business and personal expenses. I loved the ability to simply move expenses to the personal side and keep them completely separate from the business side. I also liked the ability to categorize personal expenses during this process. I would have appreciated some advanced notice of the system overhaul. I had to learn how to use the new features while on a deadline to get my income statements. After using the system, I will miss the ability to track personal finances. Overall, it is faster and easier to use. The speed and new features such as adding new income accounts is greatly appreciated and the cost is still free.
Hi @mpoirier, "equity" means an owner's interest in their business. In its simplest form, it's an account used to represent the money you invest in your business, and the money you withdraw to pay yourself from your business. If you took what you owe (your liabilities, or debts) and subtracted it from what you currently have (assets), the difference remaining is considered equity—what's left over for you.
@James233 thank you for your detailed note! We appreciate the feedback. As mentioned up thread, we're working to expand our business/personal offerings. In the meantime, though, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the improved speed and ease of the new system
Sophia or Wave,
So how would you do the opposite of this article? How would you enter business expense that was paid with a personal credit card? For example, say I purchased "Office Supplies" using my personal credit card. How would I enter that in Wave, step by step? Are there two routes - entering it as an "expense" so I can deduct it from my income, OR increase Owner's Equity?
Hey @ryan_k, you'd want to create an expense in your business account in this case. For the Account you're going to want to select the Owner Investment/Drawing account (signalling you were using personal equity). You can then categorize the expense as "Office Supplies". This will show that there was a movement of equity into the business to cover an expense that had been paid via a personal card/account.
Thanks @Samd, very helpful. Can you explain whether to select "deposit" or withdrawal" on that screen and why?
Also, does entering the transaction this way below accomplish the same thing?
1. "Add journal transaction",
2. for the Debit I would select the expenses category (e.g. Office Supplies)
3. for the Credit I would select Owner Investment/Drawing
Hi @ryan_k . When you select an expense, it will default to a withdrawal, as this is technically money leaving your account. No need to ever change change deposit or withdrawal, as this will also change whether the transaction is an Income or Expense transaction. In this situation, this is slightly different as a Journal Transaction will actually debit the Office Supplies category where as just creating an expense shows that the money is being categorized there.