Multiple businesses using one bank account
GlennF
Member Posts: 30 ✭✭
I have more than one rental property and have set each up as it's own "company" for individual P/L reporting. However, they use the same bank account for management. Is there a way to link each "company" to one general bank account in the chart of accounts so the bank balance stays correct?
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Hey @GlennF. This is something that's not currently possible in Wave (using the same account across multiple businesses). With that being said, you will need to make sure that you will need to upload your bank statements manually into the other businesses that use the same bank account.
Hello,
I was wondering the same thing. I'm not a big investor, but what some people did before the digital age was to use the same bank, but have a checking account for each property. This made what GlennF is trying to do easy.
You could add extra accounts in Wave but to be honest unless there is a good reason not to then open more actual bank accounts. If by linking you mean the uploads are automatic you are going to have a lot of journalling to do and also give your auditors (assuming you have them) a substantial headache..... I'm actually a little surprised your bank is ok with this arrangement.....
Opening multiple bank accounts would not only increase workload but you also have to worry about increased fees because of account minimums on each account. That could add up to a lot of fees or thousands in minimum balances.
@JamieD I came across this post regarding managing personal transactions. Could we just name a checking account in the Equity>Business Owner Contribution and Drawing under the Chart of Accounts and share it across companies? Basically using a personal transaction in Wave as the one business account so it balances.
@GlennF I wouldn't advise doing that. In accounting, Asset and Equity accounts act differently, and while this may seem like a quicker solution, your reporting would be effected, and also the functionality of the account would be different.
Thanks for the reply. In testing it isn't linked across companies anyway. The only way I see to make this work is to use the personal account as the business checkbook register but you would have to do a manual entry every time which is not an ideal solution.
Hey @GlennF, there is the manual option @JamieD mentioned to you in the thread above to upload the bank statements into each business. If you want to upload statements there are two methods you can use: 1) Using our CSV uploader.
2) Wave Connect
Wave Connect allows you to upload or download transactional data, invoices, customer lists, etc, into a Google spreadsheet.
Hi, I am running into the same issue as @GlennF with running multiple rental properties but all sharing one bank account and one credit card between them. I am just setting things up in Wave and wondering how to make the best use of the business-account-categories-transactions tiers. I initially thought that I'd set each up as their own business until I realised I couldn't link across businesses. @GlennF did you find an optimal solution?
Also, I have expenses that run across multiple properties, for example a lawyer's or cleaning bill that covers advice more more than one of them. If I set the properties up as separate businesses, would I have to manually split up by legal expense and enter each separately?
Hi @StefW ,
There isn't a way to have multiple properties (companies) on one checking account in Wave. This is unique to property management such as ours. I do have each property as it's own company though as each property will need it's own reporting.
If you have one global expense just decide how you want to split it up but you have to enter it manually for each property. Each property (company) is independent of the others.
You could scrape the income checking account with all the rental businesses. Then pick and choose which deposits apply to that rental business and delete the others. Not optimal but doable.
Thanks @GlennF . Yes, I was afraid of that and it's what I was trying to get away from when moving off spreadsheets. I see the healthier thing in the long term is to split up my personal and business into separate bank accounts or payment cards to naturally be able to upload the transactions separately without having to manually go through it. While on this note, integrations with my bank or credit cards would be a dream - if Yolt and Revolut can do it in the UK and even intelligently categorise it for me, could Wave get there someday?
As of now, you can already connect the major banks to Wave.
@StefW Any luck on your end? I have the exact same issue as you where I'm looking to bookkeep P&L for multiple properties held under the same entity.