Every transaction your organisation receives or pays throughout the year needs to be assigned a category. This allows Good Numbers to put everything in the right place when you prepare your year-end reports.
Good Numbers uses the categories required for your organisation’s financial reporting. This is why you cannot create your own custom categories.
There are a few special types of transactions that work differently, but we’ll come to those later. First, let’s look at the quickest way to categorise an ordinary transaction.
In this guide:
From your home page, click the link to review your pending transactions.
Each transaction card will show a suggested category. If any suggestions are missing, they will be generated soon. Come back later.
When the suggested category is correct, simply click the category button. The transaction will be categorised immediately and will be ready to include in your reports.
There is no separate save button to click.
Good Numbers will not always guess correctly. You may also want to review the transaction or add some extra information before categorising it.
Click anywhere else on the transaction card to open the transaction details page.
On this page, Good Numbers will usually suggest two or three possible categories. Select the category that best describes the transaction.
When none of the suggestions are right, expand the full category list to see all the available options.
Some of the categories can sound quite similar. We find some of them confusing too.
When you are still unsure after reading the guide, you are welcome to get in touch and ask us.
The most important thing is to categorise similar transactions consistently.
Try to use the same category for the same type of transaction from week to week, month to month and year to year. Avoid regularly moving similar payments between categories because another option suddenly seems slightly better.
Your categories do not need to describe every transaction perfectly. They need to give your organisation and anyone reading its reports a clear and consistent picture of where its money came from and how it was used.
It is easy to change the category of a transaction.
Open the transaction and select a different category. The transaction will be recategorised automatically, with no save button required.
You will not be able to change the category when the transaction belongs to:
This helps protect the integrity of your organisation’s financial records. You can't change a transaction when the lock symbol is displayed:
Once you have categorised a transaction, you can also:
Funding Views can help you track the income and expenses associated with a grant, project or other area of your organisation’s work.
To attach a file, click the upload area or drag and drop the file directly onto it. You might need to scroll down to see this area.
You can attach up to 10 files to each transaction.
When using Good Numbers on your phone, tap the 'Click to upload' option. Your phone should give you the option to open your camera roll and save photos taken directly.
When a transaction belongs to a completed or locked financial year, you can still:
However, you cannot delete or change notes and files that were already attached before the transaction was locked.
This means you can add extra supporting information without removing or altering the records that were used when completing the year-end report.
At the bottom of the category list, you may see three Balancing Movement categories:
These categories appear in grey. Most of the time, you will not need to use them.
Use Internal transfer when money moves between two bank accounts that are both connected to the Good Numbers app.
For example, your organisation might transfer money from its everyday account into a savings account. One account will show money going out and the other will show the same amount coming in. These are two sides of the same transfer, rather than an expense and a new source of income.
Both sides of the transfer must be categorised as Internal transfer. Good Numbers will usually detect this for you and suggest the correct category.
Good Numbers checks that your internal transfers match. If there is a transfer without a matching transaction in another connected account, you will need to fix it before you can complete your year-end reporting.
Only use this category when both accounts involved in the transfer are connected to Good Numbers.
The Tax payment or refund category is used for transactions relating directly to tax.
The most common example is resident withholding tax deducted automatically by your bank when it pays interest into your account.
Good Numbers will usually detect this for you and suggest the correct category.
You are unlikely to need to select this category manually unless Good Numbers has not identified the transaction correctly.
Good Numbers does not currently support GST reporting, so you should not use the GST payment or refund category.
This category has been included for future use.
If your organisation is GST registered, Good Numbers may not yet be suitable for managing its financial reporting. Please get in touch if you are unsure.
Ask Duncan anything — big or small. He’ll get back to you ASAP, and your questions will help improve the information here for everyone.
