Module · Bank statement

Where to find it in the app

• Use it: Finance → Bank statement
• Turn it on/off: your business name (top-left) → Settings → Modules → Finance → Bank statement

Plan: Solo and Business · Module group: Finance · Navigation: Finance → Bank statement

1. Overview

Purpose. The first thing an accountant asks at the end of the year is whether what you recorded agrees with the bank. This screen answers it. You download a CSV of your business account from your online banking, bring it in, and each line is ticked off against what HappierBiz already knows: an invoice that was paid, an expense on the business card, a bill you settled, a staff member you reimbursed. What is left is the short list your accountant actually asks about.

It is not a live bank feed. Nothing connects to your bank. You export the file yourself and choose to upload it, so the only thing HappierBiz ever holds is a copy of a statement you already have. Every Australian bank's CSV reads, with or without a header row, whether the amounts are one signed column or split into money out and money in.

It records what you decided. It never decides tax treatment. Whether a line is income, deductible or carries GST is your registered tax agent's call. An expense you record from a line is an ordinary expense claim, with the GST field left for you to fill or not, exactly as on the Expenses screen.

2. When to use it

• You are paid by bank transfer, or you spend on a business debit card, and want the bank's version of events held against your own.
• Your accountant has asked for a reconciled year, or for "the deposits you can't explain".
• You want to catch what you forgot to record: a payment that never went against its invoice, a subscription that never became an expense.

3. Required permissions

Managers and payroll officers have both. Staff and supervisors have neither: a bank statement is the most private document a business has.

4. Navigation path

Finance → Bank statement. Each financial year is a chip along the top; All years shows everything on record. Below the figures, To look at, Explained, Set aside and All filter the list.

5. What you'll see

Three figures for the year. To look at counts the lines nobody has decided yet, with the money in and out they add up to. Explained counts the lines matched to a record or recorded as one. Set aside counts personal lines, transfers and payouts. None of them is a tax figure.

The lines, month by month. Each shows the bank's date, the bank's description, the amount (money in shown in green) and what it is: still to look at, or what explained it and who decided. When HappierBiz has one record of the same amount within the matching window, it appears beside the line as Looks like, with a one-click button to accept it.

Imports. The statements brought in so far, with the account, the dates covered, how many lines were new and how many were already here.

6. Turning it on

Your business name (top left) → Settings → Modules → Finance → Bank statement. Solo and Business plans both include it.

7. Step-by-step tasks

7a. Export the CSV from your bank

In your online banking, open the business account, find Export or Download transactions, choose CSV and the date range. A month or a quarter at a time keeps the list short. The file's shape does not matter: Commonwealth's four columns with no header, NAB's nine with a header and Westpac's separate debit and credit columns all read.

7b. Import it

1. Finance → Bank statement → Import a statement.
2. Choose the CSV file, or paste the lines straight from a spreadsheet.
3. Which account. Your own name for it, such as Everyday account. Use the same name every time: a re-import skips lines already here for that account, so overlapping exports add nothing twice.
4. How the file was read. One sentence says which column became the date, the description, the amount and the balance, and which way round the dates are. Change anything that is wrong. For a credit card statement, tick This is a credit card statement so purchases become money out.
5. Check the first lines and the totals underneath, then Import. Rows that cannot be read (an opening balance row, usually) are named before you import, not dropped in silence.

7c. Look at a line

Every line starts as To look at. Open one with Look and choose:

• Looks like / Match. A record HappierBiz already has of the same amount, within 90 days before or 20 days after the bank's date. A payment already recorded, an expense on the card, a bill marked paid, a reimbursement, or an asset on the Asset register bought for that amount. Matching only links the two.
• Record the payment. The line pays an invoice that is still owing. HappierBiz records the payment in the invoice's ledger, dated the bank's date, and the invoice becomes paid or part paid. No receipt is emailed: the customer paid weeks ago and the invoice already lists its payments.
• Mark the bill paid. The line settles a bill in Expenses → To pay. The bill is marked paid on the bank's date.
• Record it as an expense. Money out with no record yet. Pick one of your own categories, say what it was for, add the GST if you know it, and an approved expense on the business card lands in Expenses dated the bank's date. Money out that bought equipment you keep is not an expense: add it under Operations → Equipment with its cost, GST and invoice, then match the line to it. It appears under Looks like once the amounts agree.
• Set it aside. Personal, a transfer between your own accounts, a Stripe payout (its card payments are already recorded under Payments, so counting the payout too would count the money twice), or other, with a note.

A line already decided shows Change, which opens it again. Reopening a line that recorded a payment or an expense leaves that record in the books; remove it from Invoicing or Expenses if it was wrong.

7d. Remove an import

Imports → Remove this import takes a statement's lines off the screen. It is refused while any of its lines has recorded a payment or an expense: open those again first, so nothing in the books points at a line that is gone.

8. Examples

A deposit with the invoice number in it. Direct Credit J SMITH INV-0042, $450.00. Invoice INV-0042 is still owing $450.00, so Looks like names it. One click records the payment and the invoice becomes paid.

A card purchase nobody recorded. VISA PURCHASE OFFICEWORKS, $89.00. Nothing in HappierBiz has that amount. Record it as an expense, category Supplies, and it is in Expenses with the bank's date.

A Stripe payout. STRIPE PAYMENTS AU, $1,240.00. The screen points out it looks like a payout. Set it aside as one; the card payments inside it are already under Payments and Reconcile with Stripe on the Accounting screen ties the payout to them.

A coffee on the business card. Set it aside as Personal, not the business. It stays on the record with that decision beside it, which is what an accountant wants to see.

9. Reports & exports

CSV downloads every line in the period, oldest first: date, account, description, money in, money out, balance, status, what explained it, the note and who decided. Statuses are in plain words. The last two rows say who prepared it and that it records decisions, not tax treatment. Hand it to your accountant with the Profit and loss and the BAS worksheet from the Accounting screen.

10. Common mistakes

• Two names for one account. Everyday one month and Everyday account the next are two accounts to HappierBiz, so overlapping exports are not skipped. Pick a name and keep it.
• Dates the wrong way round. A file of dates that all fit both readings (every day is 12 or under) is read day first. If the preview's dates look a month out, change Dates are before importing.
• Matching the wrong thing. Two records of the same amount a day apart get no Looks like, on purpose. Open the line and pick.
• Recording a payment twice. If you already marked the invoice paid under Invoicing, the line will find that payment and offer to match it. Do not also record a new one.
• Recording equipment as an expense. A van, a laptop or a machine the business keeps belongs on the Asset register, not in Expenses. Add it under Operations → Equipment with its cost, then match the line to it.

11. Troubleshooting

• "Nothing new: all lines were already here." The same statement, or an overlapping one, under the same account name. Nothing was added, nothing needs undoing.
• A line I know is an invoice payment has no suggestion. The amount must agree to the cent and the invoice must be within a year, or the recorded payment within 90 days before or 20 days after the bank's date. A part payment matches nothing automatically: open the line and choose the invoice; a part payment is recorded against it.
• "The books are locked up to..." The line is dated inside a period an owner has closed off under Settings → Invoice & tax details. Recording into it is refused, as everywhere else.
• The page says migration 486 is needed. The module is on but the database has not had its tables yet. Whoever runs your HappierBiz setup runs it once.

12. Error messages