Multiple Data Files - One Bank Account

[Rebecca_S]

Our organisation runs 5 separate data files and 5 separate bank accounts.  We are looking at moving to one bank account whilst keeping the separate data files - what is the best way to operate this in MYOB AccountRight Premier in terms of bank reconcilliations?

It has been suggested to utilise recoverable accounts (inter company loans) - is there a better way?

We have multiple programs - hence the data files - but operate under one company name and one ABN.  We report to different funding bodies therefore we need to keep the data files separate at this stage.

Thanks!!

[ronatbas]

@Rebecca_S

My view is that removing the bank accounts is the wrong way to go and would both significantly increase your workload and the risk of error. Every entry into an inter-company loan account must be reflected in the other account. This does not need to be done on an entry by entry basis, perhaps weekly, monthly, quarterly but it must be disciplined and tightly controlled. There would be an expectation that you can reconcile all of the intercompany loan accounts against one another at least quarterly for reporting purposes.

It will most likely mean that you will need a sixth file to give you truly reconcilable figures for the entity.

For what it is worth I would think that maintaining the 5 banks and reducing the number of files would be a more cost efficient way to go. Using Categories and Jobs would enable you to prepare insular reports for of your funding bodies that would contain reconciled and reproducable figures.

[Neil_M]

Hi @Rebecca_S

Welcome to the MYOB Community Forum, I do hope you find it a great resource

Great to see @ronatbas has offered some great wisdom and advice on this topic. I just wanted to expand on a couple of things that Ron mentioned.

Jobs and Categories are great ways to separate transactions within your file as they do split your data in slightly different methods. Jobs can be employed on a line by line basis so that a single transaction can have a portion that relates to one job and another portion going to another job. An example of how you might use jobs is if you purchased a six pack of cans, two of which go to one customer and the 4 others go to another customer. Jobs are used to track only income and expenses for the job, in essence a profit centre.

Categories by comparison are applied on a transaction basis, as opposed to each line of a transaction. Categories can be used to track the income and expenses as well as asset transactions. You could use categories, as an example, to track individual departments within a department store.

Something else you may not have considered, which does build from what Ron mentions. If you use Bank Feeds on any of these files, then all of these transactions will come through on the bank feed. If you were using intercompany loans once a month or once a quarter, then you will have a number of transactions in the bank feeds window which will not match any individual transactions and may require you to hide the various intercompany transactions.

Please do feel free to post any other questions that you may have.