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, click New Transaction to open the transaction popup. In multi-business setups, the popup can start on a Business tab first. After that, the live form is split into Basic Information and Relationships, with a read-only Recurring Schedule tab appearing only when the entry belongs to a scheduled transaction. Customer-linked finance is job-led now, so the job choice is the linking step that matters most.
Basic Information
- Transaction Type: Choose whether this is a Charge, Payment, Expense, Tip, or Adjustment. Transfer is not available from this popup.
- Entry Date: This usually defaults to today. Change it only when the money event happened on a different day.
- 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. Charge, payment, refund, tip, write-off, and adjustment entries should all have a job. Pure business expenses can still stay unlinked.
- 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: Shows on a charge or payment once a job is chosen. While a job has no transactions, Add Opening Balance on its Transactions tab opens this popup as a charge with it already ticked. Tick it when the entry brings over what the customer already owed (a charge) or had in credit (a payment) before you started using Work Planner. It still counts towards what they owe, but it's left out of your income figures, such as the VAT report, the Total Revenue 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 ticking it moves the Entry Date to the day before the job's first transaction, unless it's already earlier, and the hint underneath says which day. Unticking it puts the date back. Ticked with the Description empty, it fills in Opening balance, as a job's opening balance is described when it's made with the job.
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.
- 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: This is calculated for you from the amount and VAT rate.
- Net Amount: This is also calculated automatically so your VAT split stays consistent.
- 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.
Recurring Schedule Section
If the transaction is being created from a recurring workflow, a Recurring Schedule section can appear. It is read-only on this popup. Future recurring transactions are managed from Scheduled Transactions, so this screen only edits the individual occurrence in front of you.
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.
- 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.