Is there a way to search for all “Blank” in the notes box?
We are currently using a separate dummy bank account to track cheques (we issue around 20-30 month!). When I pay a supplier by cheque I mark as paid and pay from the cheque clearing account. In the notes box I then enter the Cheque Number.
When the cheque appears on the Bank Statement I mark it as transferred from the Bank to cheque Clearing. I then mark this transfer with the relevant cheque number in the notes box
Very occasionally we have cheques appear on the bank statement where I may have not seen the original check request (no purchase in system) . However If I transfer from the bank account to the cheque clearing account I may not Identify this? Is there a simple way to search for items with nothing entered in the notes column?
Or is there a better process for handling this? At the moment we process a lot of cheques and this is not likely to change in the near future (unfortunately). I need to know which cheques are still outstanding and to be processed through the bank
There isn’t a way to search the notes box at the moment I’m afraid, although we can certainly change this to a feature request and look into this further should there be enough interest.
What you can do however, is export the bank account, either 50 records at a time from the bank statement screen, or through an account backup. This will be in an excel compatible file, so you can easily filter through the data and find the blank rows.
There’s nothing wrong with the way you’re handling it. A holding account approach is a common method, although other users may comment on this thread with other ideas.
I’m currently running a zip back up. Taking the bank transactions running an excel/power pivot Query. This quickly shows which cheque numbers are outstanding. However this process means I have to input everything, export the data, then run the query.
It would be great to search notes and those that contain blank fields however I very much doubt this has a high level of demand.
I’m just wondering If I’m missing a trick and an easy way to show outstanding cheques not cleared or those cheques that have been processed through the bank that don’t have a purchase (rare but does happen). By using a clearing account I cannot easily see cheques that do not have a purchase.
Are you tagging the invoices as paid from the holding account or just leaving them there until they’re cleared? Although it may be premature to mark them as paid from that account, it would certainly show you what’s tied up with each invoice.
It would be pretty much inline with my colleagues post:
So essentially, when you write the cheque, mark the invoice as paid from the holding account. Then when the funds leave your main bank account, tag it as a transfer. That way, each invoice is tagged and any without a cheque or a payment tagged to it will still be outstanding, and the holding account’s value will show you how much is pending clearance too.
Does that make sense? If not, I’ll mock up an example for you.
It does, however let say the holding account shows -3000 balance. How can you identify what cheques outstanding add up to this balance? I maybe missing something…?
If you can show an example that would be most helpful in case I’m missing an obvious step
I’m marking invoices as paid as soon as we write the cheque. The funds are taken from the Cheque Clearing Bank Account. I then transfer funds from the bank account when the cheque appears on the bank statement to the Cheque Clearing Bank Account
That would be the tricky part, I admit. Unless you were to keep a log of the cheque numbers in the description fields and the values would be the same, there wouldn’t be an easy way to match them up.
I can certainly show you an example though. Bear with me - I’ll see what I can do
A simple way is just to have a folder of the outstanding invoices/cheques to be processed. The invoices in this folder should add up to the balance shown in the Cheque Clearing Account in Quickfile. I feel a bit of a fool!
Perhaps using project tags would be beneficial in this instance then? These can simulate folders in that an invoice can be assigned a project tag, and you can view everything assigned to that tag.
You could, for example, create a tag for a purchase invoice called something like “pending-clearance”, and remove the tag once the cheque has cleared?
