Managing Your Bank Accounts

Every transaction in your books belongs to a bank account. Getting these set up properly is what makes the rest of Finance work — statement imports, reconciliation, transfers between accounts, and the Direct Debit income that arrives from GoCardless all depend on it.

This is a treasurer's job. Group admins and anyone with treasurer access can manage bank accounts; other volunteers can't see them.

Where to find this#

Open Finance → Accounting, switch to the Settings tab, and expand Bank Accounts.

Your first account isn't added here, though — it's part of the Accounting Setup Wizard, which won't let you finish without one. This screen is where you add your second and subsequent accounts, and where you change any of them later.

The primary account — read this bit#

One account is marked Primary. It carries an amber badge in the list, and it does two jobs:

• Direct Debit payments collected through GoCardless are recorded against it. Subs, event fees, hire payments — all of it lands on the primary account.
• It's the default selection when you record a transaction by hand.

The first account you ever create becomes primary automatically. Every account you add after that is created non-primary, and there's no primary option in the Add or Edit form — you change it from the ⋯ menu instead.

Changing which account is primary#

Open the ⋯ menu on the account you want and choose Set as Primary. This only appears on accounts that aren't already primary.

Scoutworks confirms with Make "account name" the primary account? and explains that Direct Debit payments will be recorded there from now on.

If your current primary account already has GoCardless transactions on it, you'll also get a tick box — already ticked — offering to move those existing transactions across:

Take that seriously, and untick it if you're not sure. Transactions already recorded keep the account they landed on — changing the primary only affects what happens next, so switching primary doesn't retrospectively tidy your history unless you ask it to.

Adding an account#

Click Add Bank Account and fill in the form:

Click Add Account to finish.

Opening balance and balance date#

These two are the starting line your books are drawn from. Scoutworks works out an account's balance as your opening balance, plus every transaction dated after the balance date.

That makes the Balance Date more consequential than it looks:

• Set it too recent and everything on or before it is left out of the balance — silently. Put today's date on an account with three years of history and the balance drops to just the opening figure.
• Set it too early and transactions already included in your opening figure get counted a second time.
• A transaction dated exactly on the balance date is not counted. If you're working from a statement, use the statement's closing date and enter the closing figure — the transactions on that statement are already in it.

Both fields can be changed later from ⋯ → Edit Details. Bear in mind that editing an opening balance also updates the opening balance of your current accounting period, which reports read from — so it's worth getting right rather than adjusting repeatedly.

The account list#

Each row shows the account name, its bank and type, a Primary badge if it's the primary account, a Cash badge if it's a cash account, and the current balance — in red if it's negative. Primary sorts first, then alphabetically.

Balances are worked out from your ledger every time you look, so there's nothing to refresh and nothing to reconcile between screens. The figure reflects money that's genuinely in the account, including bank lines you haven't categorised yet.

The ⋯ menu gives you:

Deactivating an account#

Accounts are never deleted — closing one is a Deactivate, which hides it from new transactions while keeping every existing record intact.

Open ⋯ → Deactivate and confirm. Two things will stop you:

• You can't deactivate the primary account. Make another account primary first, then come back.
• You can't deactivate an account with unreconciled transactions. Clear them down in the Bank Inbox first — see Bank Reconciliation and Restricted Funds.

What needs a bank account#

Worth knowing, because it explains why the setup matters:

What's next#

• Accounting and Bookkeeping — how money moves from your bank into the Ledger.
• Bank Reconciliation and Restricted Funds — importing statements, reconciling, and cash accounts.
• Setting Up Payments with GoCardless — collecting Direct Debits in the first place.