Keep track of petty cash

Many businesses have a petty cash account for everyday purchases or costs, such as office supplies, parking charges and petrol.
Petty cash transactions can often be cash only. They may also used to be a reimburse employees or to buy items for small amounts.

We recommend that you create a special petty cash bank account to track these payments. This will also help you report and manage how you spend your petty cash

What you need to know

Here we will explain how to set a bank account in Accounting to represent your cash expenses. Rather then being an actual bank account, we will set up a special bank account for cash only.

As this is account s for cash only, cannot reconcile the bank account.

What you need to do

Create a petty cash account

  1. From Banking, then click New then Bank Account.

  2. For the Account Type list, choose Cash in Hand.

    A cash in hand account just means that rather than being a real bank account, this account is for recording cash only. This also means you cannot

    • Transfer money from a cash account.

    • Reconcile the account.

    • Connect it to a bank feed.

  3. Enter an account name, for example, Cash register.
  4. Click Save.

Enter the opening balance

It's likely that you will already have an amount in your petty cash. You now need to enter this as an opening balance to make sure your balances match up.

  1. Choose the Add opening balance link from the create your bank account page.

  2. Enter the date for your opening balance.

  3. Enter the amount.

Record petty cash payments

Enter details of money spent to keep track of what you've spent and the balance that should be left.

  1. From Banking, choose the petty cash account.
  2. Select New Entry then Purchase / Payment and select the Other Payment tab.

  3. Enter details of the payment.

    You must specify the

    • Bank Account

    • Date Received

    • Amount Received

    • - choose a to categorise what you've bought, such as office supplies.

    • Details

    • VAT rate and VAT, if applicable.

  4. If the payment was for several types of items relating to different ledger accounts, or with different VAT rates, enter these on separate lines.

    Don't forget, the total value of all the separate lines must add up to the total value of the payment.

  1. Click Save, or to add another payment:

If this is a payment you make regularly, such as once a week or once a month, consider making it recurring. Read more about recurring bank payments.

Record a transfer of money from another bank account

When you need to add to your petty cash and you take money from another bank account, record this as bank transfer

  1. From Banking, select New and Bank Transfer.
  2. Enter the details of the transfer
    • Paid from Account - the bank money is coming from
    • Paid into Bank Account - your petty cash account
    • Method - how the money was paid in, cash or debit card, for example.
    • Date transferred
    • Reference
    • Description

Record cash deposits

When you pay cash into another bank account from your cash accounts, record this a Bank Deposit.

  1. From Banking, open the cash account.
  2. Select New Entry and Bank Deposit.
  3. Enter the details of the transfer
    • Paying in Reference - this would usually be the reference from your paying in slip
    • Cash - the amount you are paying in
    • Bank Account - the bank you paying the money into.

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