How to Record Credit Card Transactions & Pay Credit Card Bills
Credit cards can be so convenient and simple when you're having to pay for things! But keeping track of that spending across your organization can be challenging. MonkeyPod sets you up for success here by providing an easy way for you to enter your charges and pay your credit card bills—including an option to reconcile with an online account to make sure you haven't missed any transactions!
How do I setup my credit card account?
To get started, be sure you have your credit card account entered in your chart of accounts. If it's setup, you'll find it by choosing Finance > Chart of Accounts, and looking under the Liability tab. If it's not there, you can choose "Add Credit Card account" to set it up. See "How to Use the Chart of Accounts" for more detail on setting up accounts.
How do I enter each credit card transaction?
Ideally, you'll record transactions for the credit card incrementally as you use the card. To do so, just choose Finance from the main menu, and select Credit Card Charge. Enter the details for the charge, and click "Save".
To learn more about entering expenses, see How to Enter Expenses.
How do I use "Online Banking" to help enter credit card transactions?
Although best practices call for recording your credit card transactions throughout the billing cycle, we know life gets in the way. Receipts get stuffed away, maybe another staff member used the card and didn't submit their expenses... things happen. This is where MonkeyPod's "Online Banking" is really helpful.
Setting up MonkeyPod's "Online Banking" for your credit card is optional, but it can be a huge help! Once your MonkeyPod is connected to your online credit card account, all new credit card transactions received by your bank will be listed in"Online Banking", making it easy to create new transactions, or match them to existing transactions.
Check out How to Use Online Banking to learn more about this feature, and how to set it up for your credit card account.
Once you've setup your credit card account to use Online Banking in MonkeyPod, you can simply choose Finance > Online Banking (Match/Add) from the main menu, and select the option to review your transactions:
MonkeyPod will display the current transactions for that card, and give you the option of matching them to existing transactions, or creating a new transaction in MonkeyPod for any unmatched transactions. See How to Use Online Banking for details.
How do I reconcile my credit card transactions?
To reconcile your credit card account, go to your chart of accounts by choosing Finance > Chart of Accounts from the main menu. Find your credit card account under the "Liabilities" tab, and select the "Reconcile" icon.
Enter the statement date, and select "Start New Reconciliation".
See "How to Reconcile an Account" for more details on reconciliation.
How do I record payment of a credit card bill in my MonkeyPod?
When your credit card bill arrives, first make sure that you have all of the individual transactions that are on the bill recorded in your MonkeyPod (as described above).
Then, to pay the bill, choose Finance > Pay Credit Card Bill from the main menu (you'll find it listed under "Income & Expenses," right next to "Bills to Pay"). Your MonkeyPod will show you a list of your credit card accounts along with their current balances: Select Pay next to the card you're ready to settle.
Note: If your organization only has one credit card account, your MonkeyPod skips the list and opens the payment window for you automatically.
From there, you can enter the details for the payment:
- Payment method: choose whether you'd like to create a bill in your MonkeyPod to pay later, write a check, or write and print a check now.
- Amount to pay: defaults to the account's current balance, based on the credit card transactions you've entered for this card, but you can edit it to pay the amount due or any other amount.
- Dated: the date you want on the transaction.
- Pay from account: the bank account the payment is coming from.
- Ref. Number: an optional reference or check number.
- Payable to: the payee for the payment.
When you're ready, click the button at the bottom of the window (it's labeled to match your payment method, e.g. "Write Check") and MonkeyPod will record the transaction.