Got the GiST Help
Day to Day: Creating a split transaction
A split transaction is one financial transaction that impacts a number of cashbook categories, or has different rates within categories. For example, if you go to the stationary store and purchase $9 worth of paper for you office, and a $2 box of pens for personal use, then you are only entitled to claim GST back on the paper purchase. Because the transaction on your bank statement or the cheque you used to pay with will read $11, you need to split the transaction.
Split transaction are most commonly used for telephone bills, where you pay the entire bill with one financial transaction, but only certain calls or a percentage of the entire bill can be claimed as a business expense. The best way to treat these types of transactions in Got the GiST is to work out how much of the bill is a business expense, and how much is a personal expense, and enter those values into Got the GiST. You could itemise each call if you wish, but that is probably overkill.
To create a split transaction you must first select the cashbook you want to enter the transaction in. You can do this by clicking on the cashbook name in the "My Cashbooks" screen.
You will then be taken to the cashbook transactions page. This page shows you all the transactions within a cashbook, and gives you the ability to add, delete and edit transactions.
To create a new split transaction, you enter the transaction details in the "New Transaction" form at the bottom of that screen. The mandatory fields are Date, Category, Value and GST Rate. You can also enter a reference for the transaction. This field is usually used to record cheque numbers for cheque book reconciliation, or "DD" in the case of direct debits. You can however use this field for whatever you like (for example, a suppliers invoice number). The Notes field is for a note for this specific transaction value. This field is usually used to record what was purchased or sold (e.g., "Desk for office").
By default the date is set to the current date (if you have no transactions), or the date of the last transaction in that cashbook (if you do have transactions). If you enter your transactions in date order this feature will make data entry faster.
When you select the category for the transaction, the GST Rate field is populated automatically based on the default GST rate for the category. If you want to override that value, just change the value in the "GST Rate" box.
The value of the transaction is for a single line item within the transaction. In the stationary example above, this would be $9 or $2, but not $11.
To create the split transaction, just click on the "Create Split Transaction" button.
The transaction will then be saved, and you will be taken to the transaction edit page. This page is where you can add other line items to the transaction. You can do this on any transaction within the system already. To get to the edit page, just click the pencil icon next to the transaction you want to split (or remove a split item on).
To create the other line item, just enter the category, notes, value and GST Rate (although GST Rate will be auto-populated when the category is changed), and click on the "Add Split Transaction" button.
This will save the transaction, and return you to the edit screen so you can add more transaction, or alter the transactions you have already entered.
Another thing that is now added to this screen is a little cross on the right of each line item. This is because you can delete individual line items within a split transaction. If you have accidentally added a split transaction that you didn't mean to, you can delete it by clicking on that cross, and then clicking "OK" on the box that pops up.
To get back to the cashbook transactions page, just click on the "Back" link or arrow icon.
Congratulations! You have successfully created a split transaction.
