I’ve been using Quickfile for a while now but only recently started using the AutoTag feature on bank uploaded statements.
Can someone advise when it is best to use Auto Tagging and when is it best to use recurring purchases?
For example, previously I had a recurring purchase for £10 mobile phone bill, Quickfile would create the purchase then I would upload my bank statements and then manually tag it to the purchase Quickfile created. Would I be better to not have the recurring purchase and instead have an AutoTagging rule that matched the record on the uploaded bank statement, Quickfile then creates a purcahse record from the autotag.
To sum up, when should I use Recurring Purchases and when should I use Auto Tagging rules?
I personally would never use recurring purchases, but it really depends on the business I think. Recurring purchases will always involve manually reconciling your bank statement as whatever the system decides should be the date for creating the purchase, in reality it’s likely to differ due to weekends, public holidays, changes to the suppliers systems etc.
I always work on the basis of uploading the bank statement, so you know the bank is 100% correct then tagging from there. What auto-tagging will allow you to do is automate those routine expenses, e.g payments to BT, utilities, insurances payments etc. It will take some description from the bank entry and carryout some automated tagging based on that. You then don’t need to spend any time reconciling the bank, moving entries around, adding missing ones etc.
As I say it depends on the business, and many will prefer to setup things manually and regularly prune the bank statement, this would give you more oversight at least.