Help to speed up my time spent on clearbooks..

Hi Joanne,

To help improve your experience with the explanation of your bank transactions Clear Books offers a mass update feature. This feature allows you to explain multiple transactions on the basis that they contain similar details to the description of the transaction. In order to carry out a mass update you will need to ensure the automatic rule creation box is unchecked this can be done by navigating Settings > Organisation > Toggle features and clicking VAT and bank import tool from the right hand side column.

Once this is done you will need to navigate Money > Import tool and select the imported statement select explain and then select the first transaction which has details in common with the multiple transactions you want to explain. You will then need to click on the green icon besides the 'create a user defined lookup rule'. It is important the search term set is common for all mass update transactions. Once the lookup rule is confirmed this will appear besides your imported statements.

You may also find this guide helpful on the Mass update feature: http://www.clearbooks.co.uk/support/guides/explain/mass-update/

Hope that helps.

Many Thanks,

Anan Shahid

Just to chirp in to quickly double check something: are you actually using the statement import feature or literally copying up each individual transaction yourself? The import feature should really save time more than anything, not make things an added burden.

Hi Kevin, Yes I am importing which does make things easier but we have soooo many transactions to explain...147 just in July and I am up to 27! I still have Aug and Sept to complete for my accountant and it feels a mammoth task, I will try the mass update thing!

In that case I think the mass update option will probably work well for you, especially to explain the daily cash deposits.

Make sure you're using the 'lookup rule' feature too as that'll really save time with repeat transactions.

You'll get there, it's just about getting into a system that works for you.

Hi Joanne - I agree with the above, I have recently introduced a client to CB who sells through a national website and she has perhaps 500-600 transactions a week to explain but by using the lookup rules they now take her about 5 minutes to upload.

As mentioned, the most important thing is to pick the best search term that you know will always recognise items and if these change or appear slightly differently each time, there's nothing to stop you setting up 2 or 3 lookup rules to try and capture as many as possible. This is particularly useful if sometimes items appear in capitals and others in lower case.

Thank you everyone...I will try and sort out the look up rule...I am really worried about doing it wrong as I did last time and my accountant had to spend ages sorting it out!

Why not ask the accountant for a quick demo? Might take half an hour but sounds like it could be in everyone's interest.