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Payment Clearing Account Explanation
Step 1: Create the bank rule for automating Airbnb payout reconciliation
If you're using the payment clearing account (which you likely are), we recommend to create a bank rule within QuickBooks (or Xero) to automatically transfer all Airbnb bank statement lines to clear out the Airbnb Payment Clearing Account.
QuickBooks: Steps to create the bank rule
In QuickBooks, click on the gear icon at the top right and select "Switch to Accountant view" at the bottom right of the popup menu. Note: If you see "Switch to Business view", then you're already in Accountant View and can proceed to the next step.
On the left menu, click "Banking" and select "Rules".
Click "New rule".
Give the rule the name "Airbnb Payouts".
Select "Money in" and choose any bank account in which you receive your Airbnb payouts.
For the condition, set "Description", "Contains" and then type in the text "Airbnb"
For transaction type, select "Transfer" and for account, select the "Airbnb Payment Clearing Account".
Xero: Steps to create the bank rule
In Xero, go to the "Accounting" menu and select "Bank Accounts".
Towards the top of the page, click the button labeled "Bank Rules".
Select "Create rule" and click "Receive Money Rule"
Set items as follows...
Conditions: The conditions you set in your bank rule will depend on how your banking institution records your Airbnb bank line items, it will also depend on which payment processor Airbnb uses for your country/jurisdiction - these factors may vary. For most bank statements, the Airbnb line item "Reference" or "Description" contains the word "AIRBNB". Note, you can confirm by checking your bank statements and checking what an Airbnb line item looks like in Xero.
Set the Contact: Set the contact to "Airbnb Payout Clearing" (or whichever contact you prefer to clear Airbnb payouts).
Fixed Value Line Items: We don't recommend setting any fixed value line items.
Ratio Line Items: Allocate 100% of the amount to your payment clearing account. Assuming that you've used Bnbtally's recommended payment clearing account, select account code "Airbnb Payment Clearing Account". Feel free to set a description but that's optional. We don't recommend setting any tracking categories or tax rates greater than 0%.
Set the reference: Select "from the Reference" Note, this depends on your banking institution statements and preference. For example, you may want to set it from description. Double check by looking at your banks statement.
Target a bank account: In the drop down selector, choose the bank account where you are receiving your Airbnb payouts.
Give the rule a title: "Airbnb Payouts" will work, but this is to your preference.
Step 2: Apply above bank rule to past Airbnb payouts in QuickBooks/Xero
If you've performed a Historical Import in Bnbtally, then you'll want to make sure that the above bank rule gets applied to any associated Airbnb Payouts in your bank reconciliation in QuickBooks or Xero.
This mainly applies if you've already been using your QuickBooks or Xero for some time and you have Airbnb payouts already reconciled from the past. In this case, you should undo all of those items in your bank reconciliation and apply the above bank rule to those items. Why? This will avoid double counting income from historical data.
For more information about the Payment Clearing Account and how it is used in Bnbtally, be sure to check out the following article: Using the Airbnb Payment Clearing Account to automatically pay invoices in Bnbtally and how to set up a bank rule in QuickBooks
DONE!
This concludes our guide to setting up a bank rule in your accounting software for your Payment Clearing Account. Refer back to your checklist for next steps.
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DISCLAIMER: Bnbtally is a software product that automates bookkeeping processes defined by you, the user. We are not your accountant or financial advisor and any information we provide does not bind us into an accountant-client relationship. Any template, guide, tips, software preset or recommendation provided in any of our correspondence, within the Bnbtally product, within our support documentation or within our publications are for informational purposes only and must not be considered individualized advice. This includes, but is not limited to, any information about your general ledger, chart of accounts, how to allocate transactions, how to classify financial events; any information about balancing, reconciling or auditing any bank account, payment clearing account, undeposited funds account or any other kind of account. While Bnbtally may, at its own discretion, support users in their learning of the Bnbtally software product itself, we are not obligated to provide individualized or one-on-one training. In any case, we do not recommend that you act upon any information you do not fully understand and we strongly advise you to seek the advice of a third-party accountant, CPA or tax advisor to interpret, understand and validate any information, accounting strategy, bookkeeping method, Bnbtally setup or any software configuration.