Recurring charges with no bill

Some contracts never send an invoice: the money just leaves your bank each period (an equipment lease, a service agreement, a software subscription billed to the card). TALISK_HQ calls that a charge with no bill, and it can recognize it off your bank feed so you still get the expense on the books, with the embedded GST or HST claimed as an input tax credit when your book is able to claim it.

Set it up once. Go to Ledger › Expenses › Recurring, click Add recurring expense, and enter the title, amount, tax, frequency, and Next run date. The row shows a Charge · no bill label so you can tell it apart from a recurring bill. In British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, enter the PST in its own PST field and keep the amount as the price before any tax (or turn on Amount includes tax and let TALISK_HQ work it out), so the template adds up to exactly what the bank charges: the form's Total per charge should match the charge on your statement.

What happens when the charge lands. When a bank line imports (from a statement or a linked bank) that matches your template:

• If its total is an exact match and the line isn't already categorized, TALISK_HQ books that period for you, splitting out the GST or HST you can recover, and marks the bank line reconciled. Nothing for you to do.
• If the amount differs, it is the first charge we've seen for that template, or more than one template could fit, it appears as a one-tap Confirm (in the Recurring list and on the Banking review queue). Confirming books the bank total with the tax worked back out; dismissing leaves it for you.

How much of the tax you actually claim. A recurring charge claims exactly what the same charge would claim if you coded the bank line by hand, and the rules are the ordinary ones. A book that is not registered for GST claims nothing, because the tax it paid is a cost rather than a credit. A book on the Quick Method claims nothing on its everyday spending, though a capital purchase such as equipment still claims in full. A charge coded to Meals and Entertainment claims the half the CRA allows. Anything you cannot claim stays in the expense, so the entry still adds up to the money that left your bank. Every one of these is judged on the charge's own date, so a charge dated before you went onto the Quick Method claims what that day allowed.

PST is never claimed. The PST on a template stays in the expense, and when the entry claims its GST the PST shows as its own PST (not recoverable) line on the same expense account, the way a coded bank line shows it. If the PST is left out of the template altogether, the charge no longer adds up to the template, so it waits for a Confirm, and the tax worked back out of it comes out wrong: a $112 British Columbia charge against a "$100 plus $5 GST" template would claim $5.33 of GST instead of the $5 you paid. Added into the amount instead, the charge still matches but the PST is hidden inside the expense. Put the PST in its field and the charge matches exactly, with the PST shown on its own line.

In Quebec, the charge's own date decides the QST. The QST inside a charge is claimed as an input tax refund when your book was QST-registered on the date of the bank line itself, not on the day TALISK_HQ booked it. A charge dated before your QST registration effective date keeps its QST inside the expense, because you could not claim it yet. Run now follows the same rule using that entry's own date, so all three ways of booking a period agree.

If a charge is missing. When an expected charge hasn't come out of your bank by its due date, the row shows a may be missing flag (and a card appears in Books Health). Open the template to check the contract, and Pause it if the charge has stopped.

Manual Run now still works for a period before the bank line has imported. If you also use Run now, TALISK_HQ reconciles the later bank line to that same period rather than booking it twice. Because the charge is recorded straight from your bank, don't also categorize the matching bank line yourself. Once Run now has booked the period, a categorized line counts the charge a second time until it is confirmed.

If you already categorized the bank line. TALISK_HQ never matches a categorized line on its own: it waits for a one-tap Confirm, and your category's entry stays on the books until you confirm. Confirming takes that entry off, so the expense and the money that left your bank are each counted once. When a Run now entry already booked the period and the bank took more than that entry, the difference stays under your category.

Confirm refuses, and changes nothing, when a Run now entry already booked that period and the bank line was paid from a different account (Run now books to Cash / Bank, so a credit card or a bank account with its own ledger account refuses), or when the line falls in a different month from that entry. While both stand, the charge is counted twice. The refusal names the figures for that line and what to do:

• If the bank took the same as the Run now entry, click the line's category under Ledger › Banking, choose none, and confirm again.
• If the bank took less, do the same. The Run now entry still books its full amount, so the expense and its tax credit together stay high by the difference. When the line was paid from Cash / Bank, so does the money it shows leaving Cash / Bank.
• If the bank took more, doing that books only the Run now amount. The refusal spells out the journal entry for the difference: the date of the bank line, a debit to the line's category (with the GST split out when your book claims it), and a credit to the account the line was paid from. Post it under Ledger › Accounting › Journal, New Entry. Posting a journal entry needs owner or full access.

The Run now amount then stays where that entry booked it: on Cash / Bank, and in that entry's month. A difference you post for a larger line is dated the bank line's own day. When the line was paid from a different account, that account no longer matches its statement afterwards, because Cash / Bank carries the Run now amount instead. The refusal states the exact figure. If the line's category sits in a locked period, Confirm says so instead, because the category can't be cleared until the period is unlocked.