Am I getting it all wrong?

[mibmusic]

Hi all,

I am looking at the finance module and I am trying to understand it.

My band plays a gig and I sent an invoice via my company. When I recieve the payment I want to add a new transaction to bandhelper. I fill in the amount of the invoice (add the pdf) and deposit it to ‘bank account’. After that, I want to‘pay’ the bandmembers, the crew, book travel expenses, etc. and what's left stays on that deposit.

But the only option I have in this module is to share the full amount to the selected bandmembers. What am I missing here? I read that I should be able to overrule the payment to bandmembers, but I can’t. And I also need to select them.

Any help would be great!

[arlo]

First, do you actually have a bank account, and are you actually paying the band members from it? You put "bank account" and "pay" in quotes, which implies you're not literally doing these things.

[mibmusic]

Hi Arlo, Yes I have. And right now I am doing this in my account register software. But that part misses all the goodies you offer.

[arlo]

Assuming you're paying the band members by a direct payment from the bank account, like a check or Venmo transfer, you would enter each payment as a Withdrawal transaction, with Received By and Shared By both set to the user receiving the money and Withdrawn From set to the bank account. These individual transactions in BandHelper will match the individual transactions in your bank account register.

If you made a single cash withdrawal and then paid each band member from that cash, you would enter the withdrawal as a Withdrawal transaction, with Received By set to you and Shared By set to all the users receiving the money (including you if you are paying yourself from this cash). That shows the money moving from the bank account to you. Then enter a Distribution transaction, with Paid By set to you and Received By set to the users you're paying (not including yourself), and enter the amount each user received in the Shares fields. Alternatively, you can enter a separate distribution transaction for each user you pay (not including yourself), with Paid By set to you and Received By set to one of the users you're paying. That shows the money moving from you to your bandmates. The amount you withdrew minus the amount you paid to your bandmates is tracked as your personal income -- you do not need to enter a separate transaction for that.

[mibmusic]

Thank you for taking the time Arlo. But what is my first step? I can’t add the deposit like this. It says I need to select users. And I just thought I’d add it like this because sometimes, we just keep the money in the bank. (not too often)

[arlo]

When entering the deposit, you should select the users who played the show.

If your band is sharing the income and expenses equally, you can leave the Shares fields set at the defaults and when you pay expenses, select all the users again and leave the Shares fields set at the defaults again. If you treat it as a personal business where you pay band members a fixed amount, pay the expenses yourself and keep the profits, you would set the Shares fields to match the amounts you're paying each band member for the gig, with your own share including the rest. Then when you pay expenses, select only yourself. This is probably more info than you need, but I'm putting it here for other bands who might read it.

[mibmusic]

Thank you Arlo, that helps. But is there a way to see what we have saved in the bank if we do it like that? It would be nice to just put the money in the bank and pay the band members and crew from there, per gig. But I will try to understand better and see if we can use it.

[arlo]

"is there a way to see what we have saved in the bank"

You can see the current balance of your bank account in the Funds list on the Finance > Totals page.

"It would be nice to just put the money in the bank and pay the band members and crew from there, per gig."

Do you mean you want to pay out whatever is left in your bank account after paying expenses? You will see that calculated for each user in the Saved column on the Totals page. You can log a withdrawal for each user with an amount matching what is shown as saved for them, meaning that's how much of the money in the bank account they're entitled to.

If you want to keep a minimum balance in the bank account, you could pay out a little less to each user, but the amount they are owed is still tracked over time so you can fully settle up later if needed. Or if someone is owed on odd amount like $197.42, you could just pay them $200 for simplicity and the difference will be accounted for over time (i.e., after a future gig they'll get paid a little less). That's more helpful when paying with cash because it reduces the need to make change.