Not sure where to start in Crunch Free?

Luke_Young

Hello,

When thinking about where to start, as with most new software, it can sometimes be quite daunting. Fear not, it's far simpler than you think.

I'm here to provide you with some super-simple steps to help you get up and running so you're able to get the absolute most out of your Crunch account in rapid-time.

While we do have a complete Getting Started guide available on our Help Centre, I'll try to really simplify the steps here and will include the relevant links to specific articles if you'd like to know more and want additional support.

Let's take a look at the super-simple steps together 😀

1. Add your business bank account(s) and credit card(s) details to your Crunch account.

This is your starting block. In order to fully utilise the other features of your account, such as creating invoices and recording your expenses, you must include the details of all business bank and credit card accounts that you hold.

If you're a limited company, you must include every bank account that has your company name on it
If you're a sole trader, this simply means any account that you're using for business purposes (including your own personal account if you're paying out or receiving money into it on behalf of your business).

2. Once you've added your business bank accounts, check if there's an Open Banking feed available.

It's completely free, so why not, eh?

Your bank statements will be automatically uploaded into your Crunch account each month. This may sound like a small thing, but I can't even begin to explain how much time you will save by having an integration set up between your bank and your Crunch account.

3. Next, set up your suppliers for expenses.

This isn't the most fun task you'll do... but, it can really save you time when recording your expenses later.
Essentially, you need a supplier to record expenses against and a supplier can be a person or a company that you buy goods and/or services from. You can even set a 'Default Expense Type' against them to make the process of recording expenses even faster!

The best advice I can give when setting up new suppliers is to keep it simple, they're just references for you when you record your expenses. Think of all the places where you may pay for expenses, and add them now.
There's no need to set up individual suppliers for everyday, regular expenses. For example, you could set up a generic supplier for food or public transport expenses, simply name the supplier "Food" or "Travel" and then record all expenses under just one supplier.
If you do want to be more specific then there's absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. In some cases, it actually does make sense to create a unique supplier for some expenses, such as "Adobe" for specific software, "Amazon" for equipment costs, or "Business Mileage" for mileage allowance claims.

4. Now that you've got your suppliers set up, you can go ahead with recording your expenses!

It's worth checking whether you're able to claim the expense for your business. If you're happy that you can, get cracking!

To make recording expenses even easier, check out our expense app, Snap. You can literally take a photo of your receipt and it'll upload the expense information into your Crunch account while you're on-the-go!
Automate regular expenses, such as any paid via Direct Debit, by setting up recurring expenses
If you've only just started your business, there may already be a handful of business start-up costs that you'll want to include.
If you've been running your business for some time, you may well have some items that need backdating.

5. In order to start creating and sending your invoices, you'll need to set up your clients.

In some ways, it's very similar to setting up your suppliers for expenses. In order to invoice through Crunch, you need to add the details of your clients to start using the invoicing features.

You should always try to include as much information as possible when setting your clients up.
Be sure to include their name (company or individual), their trading address, contact information, and set a default bank account you want to be paid into.

6. Once you've got your clients set up, you can now begin invoicing through your Crunch account!

You have a few options when it comes to creating invoices. I won't explain them in huge detail here, but I'll highlight some of the interesting features below and will provide links for more context.

You can save the invoice as a draft, which can then be used to create a quote/estimate for a potential new client.
You can simply issue it, which you can use if you're purely raising it for bookkeeping purposes and have provided them with an invoice already (or use your own invoice template)
Lastly, you can issue and email it directly through your Crunch account to your client, meaning you don't have to download it and email it manually from your own email account.
When you receive payments for your invoices, simply record a client payment directly against the invoice in question to keep everything nice and tidy.

These are the basic steps to take with setting up your Crunch account and being able to use some of the features as soon as possible. I hope this has helped some of you 🙂

I'd be happy to explain our more advanced features, such as Bank Reconciliation, however, I'm conscious that this post could get very, very long...

If you have any questions or would like to see the advanced features included in this post, please let me know and I'll squeeze them in 🙂

Kev_Woolfe

Hi guys. Am new to Crunch, and just trying to work out how to record sales where an invoice is not required? We are ebay resellers, and all of our income is paid into our bank account minus fees. Thanks in advance.

Katie

Kev_Woolfe
Hi Kev,

Welcome to Crunch, hope you're enjoying it so far!

If you don't need to send an invoice to your client/customer, due to selling through an online platform, such as eBay, you'll need to create an invoice in Crunch for record-keeping purposes.

We've got a guide in our Help Centre which covers how to raise an invoice. When you issue your invoice, you'll see that you have the option to 'Issue and email', for when you need to send this to a client or 'Issue'. This creates a copy just in your Crunch account.

Ideally, you'd raise an invoice for each item you sell. However, if you sell lots of items each day, this may not be practical. In this instance, you can raise an invoice for the total sales that day/week/month. If you do this, it's a good idea to keep a record somewhere of what sales are included in each invoice - you could add this as a note on your invoice if you wanted.

For the fees that are taken for eBay or Paypal processing, you can claim these as expenses. You can set up a supplier called 'Bank Fees', or something similar, and record them all under here. You don't need to have separate suppliers for eBay, Paypal, your bank, etc.

Hope this helps.

Katie

Kev_Woolfe

Thanks Katie
Yes, I hope to be able to use this as I do like the option of having accountants on hand, especially when it comes to end of year.

The issue I have, is that the funds I receive from ebay are already net of fees. However, I would like to be able to show these fees as expenses, so that I can keep an eye on promotion costs / listing fees / final value fees, as this info will inform decisions on when to step up to the next ebay subscription level and also what effect promotions have on sales etc....

My question is if I receive lets say £500 from ebay for sales in a week, that is net of fees, how do I account for the fees in Crunch? If I show them as an expense, I would need to also show them as an income to balance things out.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers

Kevin

Katie

Kev_Woolfe
Hi Kevin,

Ah yes, I see the problem this causes. My apologies, I thought eBays fees were paid at a later date.

In that case, here is the best solution for you:

Set up a new bank account in your Crunch account and call it 'Dummy Payments'. Make up a sort code and account number and mark it as a personal account.
Raise your invoice for the total amount, as per your eBay listing.
Once payment is received, record this against your invoice as having been paid into the bank account you actually received it into. You'll have an amount left as outstanding, which is the amount taken for your seller fees.
Add another payment against the same invoice for the remaining amount. Make sure to say that this payment was paid into the dummy bank account. Your invoice should now show as settled in Crunch.
Raise an expense for the same amount as your fees.

I appreciate this isn't the most elegant solution, but following these steps will ensure you're declaring the correct amount of income and expenses when it comes to preparing and filing your tax return.

Rest assured, our team is already working on how we can improve support for scenarios such as this, so be sure to keep an eye out here and on our newsletter for new developments.

All the best,
Katie

WaltonWaxCo

Hello - I am clueless!!

I have linked my bank account and just starting to reconcile payments etc. however, what do I do with the payments received in from eBay.
I sell my goods on eBay through eBay Managed Payments and I have no idea what to do with these? Do I set eBay up as a client?

Thanks,
Tracey

Luke_Young

Hello Tracey,

Don’t worry! You’ve nailed it.

You’re absolutely right, as you’re selling goods on eBay you can simply setup eBay as a Client and then raise all of your invoices under this.

To help distinguish your invoices, you can then enter specific details into the ‘Client reference’ field when raising your invoice, and don’t forget, you also have a Line Item ‘Description’ field to help specify the different items you might sell.

Hope this helps 🙂

CARA

Hi,

Just started having a look at Crunch Free to see if it can replace our current system. Seems to work slightly differently, but working through it! We also sell on eBay and have been migrated to managed payments (a real pain!), so we receive our sales revenue net of eBay fees.

As Katie and Luke mention above, it looks like this is possible on Crunch (we used a contra account on our current system), but I’m keen to know if Crunch have improved on this as Katie alluded to last year? We actually stopped selling on eBay because the contra system was such a pain.

Also, would we set up a petty cash account in the same way Katie suggested for a ‘dummy account’ above?

Thanks!

Col

Hi Katie,

Is it absolutely necessary to record expenses like eBay / Paypal etc. for tax reasons or is it possible to record transfers from paypal direct into my bank account as a ‘sale’ without adding the expenses incurred for selling on eBay and fees for utilising paypal.

So basically I would be recording income and expenses (to / from my bank) without full behind the scenes data?

Thanks

Colin.

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