How money accounts work

Money › Money shows “Where Shamba Fresh Foods keeps its money, and how it moves”, in your business’s name. Each place the business keeps money is a money account: the cash in the tills, an M-Pesa till or paybill, a bank account, a safe. Kila keeps a balance for each, from everything recorded, so an owner can see where the money is without asking.

1. Kept. Each account has a balance in Kila, and it is also an account in the books, such as Cash drawer · 1000.
2. Moved. Money taken from the bank as cash, or swept from M-Pesa to the bank, is a move between two accounts: Move money.
3. Paid out. Every expense and supplier payment says the account it came from: Paid from.
4. Checked. Someone counts the cash or reads the statement, records the actual balance and explains any difference.

The accounts

Shamba Fresh Foods keeps its money in three, each its kind’s default, and you can add more with Add account:

• Cash on hand, the cash drawer. “Every till drawer already counts in Cash on hand.” Kila shows how much is at each branch.
• M-Pesa till, for money received and paid by M-Pesa. Add another for “Another till, a paybill or a business phone line.”
• Bank account. Add another for “A bank account the business pays from or banks into.”
• A Safe or cash box: “A safe or cash box at a branch, for example the office safe or petty cash.”

When a business has more than one M-Pesa or bank account, one is the default: “Payments that only say the method are taken from the default account.”

Zoom

What Kila shows, and what is really there

Kila shows is the balance from everything recorded. Last checked is what someone last counted or read on a statement, and Difference says Matches or how much is unexplained. Check each account now and then with Record actual balance: see Check an account’s balance.

An account in Kila can go below zero when a payment was recorded from the wrong account. Kila says so at the top:

Kila shows:

M-Pesa till is below zero in Kila

An account cannot really hold less than nothing. Usually a payment was recorded from the wrong account, or money moved without being recorded. Check Money paid out, or record the actual balance and explain the difference.

Paid from

Every expense and supplier payment records the account the money left, in Paid from. Kila starts with the usual account: under Settings, “Where money paid out comes from unless a supplier or an expense category has its own usual account.” When you record an expense you can tick Pay this category from this account next time.

The Money paid out tab lists “Supplier payments and expenses, with the account each came from. If one was paid from somewhere else, change it: Kila posts a correcting entry.” Tap Change on the payment.

Zoom

Stop till paid outs to suppliers being booked as expenses is on at Shamba Fresh Foods: “A paid out whose reason names a supplier must be recorded as paying that supplier, so the stock they delivered is not counted twice.”

Zoom

The owner’s own money

Money the owner puts in or takes out is neither a sale nor an expense: Owner money, “It is not a sale or an expense, so profit does not change.” When the owner pays a business expense from their own pocket, the expense says so with Owner’s own money. See Record owner money.

Needs a manager

Moving money and recording balances needs the right to manage money. Recording owner money, explaining a difference and changing where a payment came from need the owner’s money right, which the owner and the accountant have.

Related

• Move money between accounts: bank to cash, M-Pesa to the bank.
• Record owner money: what the owner put in or took out.
• Check an account’s balance: count the cash or read the statement.
• Record an expense: an expense and the account it was paid from.
• Deposit cash: when the business pays the takings into M-Pesa.