Once you’ve set up your chart of accounts, you can start tagging transactions on your ledger - this will be your primary bookkeeping workflow on Ambrook. Simply click on any of the tag icons on the right side of a transaction row and a tagging window will open where you can apply all of your available tags. You can navigate among the 4 tag types - Category, Enterprise, Entity, and Funding - using the tabs at the top of the tagging window and you can apply all of the different types of tags before clicking the Tag button to save your work.
The category tags will tie income and expenses to your tax forms, and you’ll likely want to make sure these categories are complete at the end of the year to help you file your taxes. The Enterprise, Entity, and Funding tags all give you more information about why you spent or earned money, and how to organize your transactions for other types of analysis. In some cases, you may not use all the tag types for every transaction. As an example, not all transactions will be associated with a grant you want to track, and you can leave the Funding tag blank in these cases.
Adding New Tags
If while tagging you encounter a new type of transaction and want to add a new tag to your chart of accounts, you can do so directly from the tagger. At the bottom of each tag list you’ll see an option to manage that list of tags. Click the Manage button to be brought to the settings page where you can add or remove tags of each kind as needed.
In the case of category tags, Ambrook will suggest new categories to add based on your search criteria. These categories will be indicated with a (+) icon and can be added with a single click. You can also use these default categories as a starting point because they are tied to a Schedule F box, but adjust the name to fit your use case.
Tag Splitting
Oftentimes a single transaction needs to be split across multiple of the same tag type. For example, a purchase of hay may be used both by the Vegetable and Chicken enterprises, or utilities expenses are shared between legal entities by their level of usage. In those cases, you can split a transaction across tags.
After selecting a tag, a Split option will appear to the right of the tag name. Click Split and then select all tags you wish to split across and allocate the split by percentage. An even split is assumed by default unless you manually enter an uneven one.
Tips for staying on top of your tags
Your transactions can easily add up quickly throughout the year - here are a few tips we’ve found useful to stay on top of your tags throughout the year.
Tag right when you purchase: when you use the Ambrook card, you’ll be notified immediately of the transaction on your phone and can tag expenses right when you purchase them. Tagging immediately when the context is fresh makes it easy to remember what was purchased and why.
Set aside time for bookkeeping: if you know you’ll have a few spare moments on a particular day of the week, commit to spending an hour or two tagging during that time. Consistency helps avoid the end-of-year catch-up on transactions when it’s tough to remember what you bought.
Get your team to help out: if you have other members of your team making purchases, you can give them Staff access to help you categorize when things are purchased. See our article on permissions to give them the right level of access.
The most powerful tool to stay on top of tagging is automations, which you can learn more about in the article here!