Track Invoices in Seller Ledger

As we continue to improve the product based on customer feedback, today we’re announcing the release of improvements to tracking invoices. In accounting parlance, this involves accounts receivable (money owed to you) accounts.

Why would I need to track invoices?

For many small sellers, cash-based accounting works quite well. You simply recognize income and expenses when you receive or spend the money. But as your business grows, you may to choose to use more of an accrual model, when you recognize income when you make the sale, since payment can come a biit later. For that, you’ll need some new accounts.

Tracking invoices

To track invoices in Seller Ledger, you’ll want to create a new account. Go to Settings -> Accounts, or just click “Manage accounts” at the bottom of the account list on your dashboard.

Click the “Add Asset Account” button to see the following:

Choose “Accounts Receivable” as the type, give the account a name and, optionally, a start date, and you’ve created an account that will let you keep track of the money people owe you.

Now, once you’re create your invoice account just click into it to start recording invoice transactions.

At the top of the screen, you’ll see buttons to “Add an Invoice” or “Receive a payment”

Click “Add an Invoice” and you’ll see a screen like the following:

You can even split the invoice amount into multiple categories if you would like.

Tracking invoice payments

When a customer pays an invoice, you can record that payment in a few different ways.

If you have connected the bank account where checks and payments get deposited, you should see the payment for an invoice show up there. Simply click to categorize that payment as a transfer to the new Invoices account.

Notice that, as soon as you choose the Transfer: Invoices option, a button appears to allow you to “Apply to Outstanding Invoice.” Click that and you can mark the specific invoice has having been paid.

And if you don’t have a connected bank account, just click into the Invoice account and choose the “Receive a payment” button.

Invoice amount tracking only

At the present time, Seller Ledger only allows you to track the amounts of your invoices. We do not provide electronic sending of invoices. Not do we yet support the ability for customers to pay your invoices electronically.

Improved handling of transfers between accounts

Handling transfers between accounts is one of the most basic elements of proper accounting. In the world of eCommerce sellers, this includes payouts that get withdrawn from a marketplace account, like Amazon or eBay, and get deposited into your bank account. It also includes transactions like payments from your bank account to a credit card account. Because these transactions represent money that moves between accounts, they don’t impact your profit and loss. Making sure that they are treated properly is critical to accurate record-keeping, so you don’t end up double counting anything.

Seller Ledger does a great job of automatically recognizing transfers between different accounts and matching them. However, sometimes, due to timing issues with banks, or even potential mistakes make by customers, these automatic matches of transactions can get mixed up. To help with these cases, we’ve rolled out some improved functionality.

Match to a specific transaction

Let’s take an example of a credit card payment from your business checking account. You may have categorized it as a transfer to the correct credit card account, but it’s not showing as matched.

Bank transfer to match

To help with that, just click the edit/pencil icon next to the current “Transfer” category. It will bring up a new “categorize” pop-up with a new option to “Pick matching transactions”

Click that button and Seller Ledger will now show you any transactions that match that same amount across different accounts you have in the software. In this case, it finds the payment made on that Wells Fargo credit card.

Just select the transaction, click “Match Selected”, and you’re all set.