Set up your bank accounts

What this is for

Most businesses have money in more than one place. A cheque account, a savings pot, some cash in the till, maybe a card. In Worklog you add each account once, then tag your income and expenses to the right one. After that you can look at one account on its own, or all of them combined, on your dashboard and reports.

You reach this from the "Business Hub" button at the top right of your home screen, then the "Bank accounts" card. Only the business owner sees the Business Hub.

Before you start

Here you only name your accounts. What each one held when your books started is set afterwards in Opening Balances, under Financials — so have the statement for that day handy, or count your till float.

Add an account

1. Open the Business Hub (the button at the top right of your home screen) and tap the "Bank accounts" card.
2. Tap + Add at the top right.
3. Under Type, pick what kind of thing this is: Bank, Savings, Card, Cash or Other. A blue note under the pills explains the kind you picked.
4. In Account name, type a name you will recognise, for example FNB Cheque or Till / cash box. The grey example in the box follows the type you picked.
5. Bank - optional: type the bank, for example FNB. You can leave this blank. A Cash account skips this and the account number entirely — a till has no bank.
6. Account number - optional: the last 4 digits are enough. This lets Worklog match an uploaded bank statement to this account automatically.
7. Tick Use as the default account for new entries if this is the one you use most.
8. Tap Add account to save.

Adding an account, changing one or importing a list of them takes Edit access to Money in or Money out, so whoever logs your money can add the account they need. A team member who can only look at those, or has neither, sees the accounts and their balances but no + Add or Import button. Deactivating an account takes Full access to Money in.

How the balance works

An account's opening balance is what it held at the end of the day before your books start, and it is set in Opening Balances (Financials) with the rest of what you had — the account form shows it but no longer changes it. From your start date onward, every income and expense you tag to the account is added or subtracted to give a running balance, shown on the account's card. An account you opened after your start date simply starts from nothing.

Set a default account

The default account is the one Worklog fills in first when you log a new entry, so pick the account you use most. You can set this while adding an account, or later by opening one from the list.

1. Open Bank accounts and tap the account you want as the default.
2. Tick Use as the default account for new entries.
3. Tap Save changes.

Only one account can be the default at a time. Setting a new one automatically clears the old default. The default account shows a small Default badge next to its name in the list.

See one account or all of them

Cash Flow shows a row of account cards, always with All accounts first, and each card shows that account's balance — so the row itself answers what is in each account. Tap All accounts to see everything combined, or tap a single account to see only that one. The row shows once you have two or more accounts. An account you've deactivated gets no card, but whatever is still in it counts in All accounts, and a grey line under the cards says how much. Banking keeps your accounts in its Show ▾ menu under Account — even with one account, so you can work inside it — and the count line under its buttons gives the balance of the account you are in, or of all of them, the same figure the cards show. The Account Statement report in Money Reports shows one account at a time, with a pill for each account. Profit & Loss has no account picker — it is a statement of the whole business; for one account’s money in and out, use Cash Flow or Money Reports. The Tax Jar has no account picker at all — a whole-business figure can't be filtered to one account.

Move money between accounts

When you move your own money from one account to another, for example putting cash into savings, log it as a transfer. A transfer is not income or an expense. It just shifts the balance out of one account and into the other.

You do this in Banking, where every transaction lives — tap + Add, set the line to 🔄 Move, and pick the account it is going into. Your transfers are listed in Banking alongside the money in and out, where you can search them, filter to just transfers, tap one to correct it, or remove one you logged by mistake. See Move money between your own accounts for the full steps. A team member needs Edit access to Money in or Money out to move money between accounts; someone who can only look sees the transfers but not the 🔄 Move button.

Each account's balance on this screen already counts the transfers in and out of it, so what you see here stays right the moment a transfer is saved.

Find an account in a long list

Once you have accounts saved, a search box appears above the list. It searches the name, the bank and the account number, so typing FNB or the last four digits finds it.

Show ▾ lets you see only Bank, Savings, Card, Cash or Other accounts. Sort ▾ orders them by name, by balance (highest or lowest first) or with the most recently changed first, and the count line also totals the balances of everything currently showing. Under the list, 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel print your accounts as you have them — name, type, bank, whether it is your default, in use or deactivated, how many transactions and the balance — with the total of those in use and, when deactivated accounts are listed, what they still hold and everything together. Account numbers are left off. The buttons show for people who can see both money in and money out, since the balances come from both.

Import your accounts from a spreadsheet

If you already have your accounts listed somewhere, Import brings them in instead of typing each one. The columns are the same fields as the Add account form.

1. On the Bank accounts screen, tap ⬆ Import at the top right.
2. Tap Download template CSV and fill it in, or match its columns in your own file: name, type, bank_name, account_number. Balances aren't imported — set what each account held when your books started in Opening Balances afterwards. An older file that still has an opening_balance column imports fine; that column is left out and the preview says so.
3. Tap Choose CSV file and pick your file.
4. Check the preview. It shows how many will import and how many are duplicates of accounts you already have, and flags anything it could not read.
5. Tap Import to finish.

Imported accounts are never made the default, because only one account can hold that and a spreadsheet should not decide which. Set it yourself afterwards on the one you meant.

Deactivate an account

An account you no longer use, added by mistake, or brought in twice by an import is deactivated, not deleted. That way nothing that was ever logged against it can go missing with it.

1. Open Bank accounts and tap the account, or tap the ✕ on its row.
2. Tap Deactivate this account.
3. Read the note — it tells you how many transactions the account has — then confirm.

If Worklog can't deactivate it, it tells you, and the account stays on the list. Removing an account needs Full access to Money in, so a team member without it doesn't see the button.

Everywhere a transaction in it shows, the account keeps its name with (deactivated) after it. Open a transaction saved in it and the account picker shows it too, greyed and picked: tap another account to move the transaction, or leave it where it is. New entries never offer a deactivated account.

Reactivate an account

Deactivated accounts are listed at the bottom of Bank accounts under Deactivated, greyed, with the day each was deactivated and what your books still hold in it. Tap Reactivate and the account is back in every picker, as it was. Whoever sees the ✕ to deactivate an account sees Reactivate.

Use it to undo a deactivation you didn't mean, or to change a deactivated account's day-one balance: Opening Balances can't change it while it's deactivated, so reactivate it, set its balance there, then deactivate it again.