AccountsTransactions
Creating a Transaction
How to create a new transaction and how the job-led linking, invoice, and financial fields work together.
From Accounts > Transactions, or the Transactions tab of a customer or a job, click New Transaction. It asks what you're adding first: a Charge, Payment, Expense, Tip or Opening balance, each with a line on what it's for, in the colour the Transactions list gives that type. The popup that opens is for that one, such as Create Payment, and shows only the fields it uses, listed under What Each Kind Asks below. In multi-business setups, the popup can start on a Business tab first. After that, the form is split into Basic Information, Relationships, Schedule and Attachments tabs. Customer-linked finance is job-led now, so the job choice is the linking step that matters most.
For a payment a customer has made by hand, such as cash or a bank transfer, Record payment is quicker. It's on Accounts > Home, a customer's page and an invoice, and behind Pay on Debts and Who owes you. It asks only what a payment needs, pays the customer's open invoices, oldest first, and offers to send them a receipt, unless an automation sends one. See Taking a Payment.
For something you've paid for the business, Add expense is quicker. It's on Accounts > Expenses and Accounts > Home, asks only what an expense needs, works out the VAT in it, keeps a photo of the receipt with it, and can repeat a cost that comes round again. See Adding an Expense.
What Each Kind Asks
- Charge: What the customer owes you, such as for a clean. On Relationships it has Invoice, Service, the VAT fields if you're VAT registered, Vehicle and Missed. It has no Payment Method or Payment Reference, as no money has changed hands.
- Payment: Money the customer has paid you. It has Payment Method, with the Payment Fee that carries, and on Relationships, Invoice, Payment Reference and Vehicle.
- Expense: Something the business paid for, such as fuel or materials. It has Payment Method, and on Relationships, Expense Category, the VAT fields if you're VAT registered, Payment Reference and Vehicle.
- Tip: A little extra the customer gave you. It has Payment Method, and on Relationships, Payment Reference and Vehicle.
- Opening balance: What the customer owed, or had in credit, before you started using Work Planner. It asks which, with what that means underneath, and has no Relationships or Schedule tab. See Opening Balance below.
- Every kind: Entry Date, Amount, Job, Customer, Description and Attachments. Job is marked as needed on all but an expense.
Editing a transaction shows every field, Transaction Type too. See Editing a Transaction.
Basic Information
- Transaction Type: Set by what you chose before the popup opened, so a new transaction doesn't ask it again. Transfer isn't one of the choices, and Adjustment isn't offered any more, as an adjustment didn't change what anyone owed or any tax figure. Money you give back and debts you won't collect have their own popups: Refund on the payment the money came from (see Refunding a Payment Taken by Hand), and Write off on the debt, from Debts or Who owes you (see Write-Off Flow).
- Entry Date: This usually defaults to today. Change it only when the money event happened on a different day. If the date is in a VAT return you've already sent, the hint underneath says so: your next VAT return includes the transaction instead. A return you marked as sent on the VAT page doesn't: tell whoever sent it about the transaction.
- Amount: Enter the full amount early in the form. This field is required so the entry can be saved with a real ledger value.
- Job: Choose the job when the transaction belongs to customer work. Charges, payments, tips and opening balances can't be saved without one, so it's marked as needed on those. An expense can stay unlinked, or go against the job it was for. From a job's Transactions tab, the job is already chosen.
- Customer: This is now a read-only field derived from the selected job so you can confirm who the transaction belongs to.
- Payment Method: Choose the method when the way the customer paid matters for fees, reporting, or later traceability.
- Payment Fee: This is read-only. It appears only for payment entries where the chosen payment method carries a flat fee or percentage fee.
- Description: Keep this plain and recognisable. It becomes part of the search index on the Transactions list.
- Opening Balance: Choose Opening balance for what the customer already owed, or had in credit, before you started using Work Planner. While a job has no transactions, Add Opening Balance on its Transactions tab opens it straight away. A customer with no transactions has it on their Transactions tab too, with no job chosen yet: choose the job it's for under Job, as it can't be saved without one. Opening balance, under the date, asks which: They owe you makes it a charge and They're in credit a payment, as a new job's opening balance asks. It still counts towards what they owe, but it's left out of your income figures, such as your VAT returns, the Work Done card and what's sent to HMRC, and out of how long a debt has been owed. Only the job's earliest transaction can be its opening balance, and one dated the same day as the earliest counts too. So its Entry Date is moved to the day before the job's first transaction, unless it's already earlier, and the note under Opening balance says which day. Its Description starts as Opening balance, as a job's opening balance is described when it's made with the job. When you edit a charge or a payment, an Opening Balance tick makes it one, or stops it being one.
Relationships
- Invoice: Use this once the correct job is selected and the transaction belongs to one invoice in particular. If you switch the job later, Work Planner clears any invoice that no longer matches. Leave it empty on a payment and Work Planner pays the job's open invoices with it, oldest first, splitting it into one payment per invoice; anything more than they owe stays on the job as credit.
- Service: Use this when the money entry is tied to one service and you want that relationship visible later.
- Expense Category: Use this for expense-style entries so the cost lands in the right category later.
- Vehicle: The van an expense, charge, payment or tip was for, so it counts against that van in its reports, such as the Vehicles Report. Charges, payments and tips recorded on a worksheet, or when a job is marked done, get their van by themselves, so you mostly set this on expenses. If an expense's category is one you've put in HMRC's Car, van and travel expenses for Income Tax and no van is chosen, the hint underneath says This is a vehicle cost. Choose the van it was for, so it counts against that van in its reports. The field shows once your business has a vehicle, if your role can see vehicles.
- VAT Rate: Choose the VAT percentage from the list only when VAT applies to the transaction.
- VAT: Worked out for you. The amount includes VAT, so this is the part of it the VAT rate makes up: £120 at 20% is £20 VAT.
- Net Amount: What's left of the amount once the VAT is taken out, £100 in that example.
- Payment Reference: Use this for a bank reference, cheque number, gateway reference, or other identifier you may need to search later.
- Missed: Leave this alone unless the entry is meant to record a missed charge or missed event rather than a normal completed one.
Attachments
- Attachments tab: Add receipts or supporting documents while the transaction is being created.
- Accepted files: JPG, PNG, GIF, and WEBP images, plus PDFs. Up to 5 files at a time, 10MB each.
- Upload timing: Files are held until the transaction saves, then uploaded straight afterwards. If that upload fails the transaction is still saved, and a message tells you to edit the transaction and add the files again.
Transactions That Repeat
New Transaction adds one entry, unless you make it repeat on its Schedule tab, such as for a regular payment coming in:
- Repeats: Switch it on and it repeats every month from the Entry Date, set out as a job's schedule is: Schedule Frequency (daily, weekly or monthly), Schedule Interval (every how many), the days of the week, and for a monthly one the weeks of the month, with a Schedule Summary saying how often it repeats and when the next one comes.
- When it's saved: It becomes a scheduled transaction starting on the entry date. Any due up to today are added straight away, and a message says when the next is added, such as It repeats from 23 September 2026. The next is added on 23 November 2026. The rest are added as each comes due. Attachments go on the first, once it's been added.
- What can't repeat: One for a particular invoice, or a missed visit: the tab says why, and Repeats can't be switched on. An opening balance has no Schedule tab at all.
- Only when it's new: The tab isn't there when you edit a transaction.
For a cost that comes round again, such as van insurance, Add expense is quicker, and it's stopped with Stop on the Repeating Costs tab of Expenses. Other transactions that repeat are changed and stopped on Scheduled Transactions. When you edit an entry a schedule added, a Repeats line under Basic Information says how often it repeats. See Editing a Transaction.
What Happens After Save
- It lands in the ledger immediately: The new entry appears on the Transactions list straight away.
- Fee expense can be created: If you save a payment with a fee-bearing payment method, Work Planner can create the related fee expense automatically. An opening balance doesn't get one, as no money is being taken now.
- Links follow the record: Customer, job, invoice, service, payment method, and expense category links are all carried into the detail view and search results.
Related articles
- Transactions List: Shows where the new entry appears after saving.
- Editing a Transaction: Useful when an entry already exists and needs correcting.
- Taking a Payment: The quicker way to record a payment a customer has made by hand.
- Adding an Expense: The quicker way to record something you've paid for the business.
- Refunding a Payment Taken by Hand: Recording money you've given back, against the payment it came from.
- Write-Off Flow: Clearing a debt you won't be collecting.
- Linked Customer, Job, and Invoice Selector Flows: Covers the selector behaviour in more detail.
- Transaction Attachments: Covers accepted file types, previewing, and removing attachments.
- Advanced Pricing and Opening Balance: Covers entering an opening balance while you create the job.