If you run more than one company, sooner or later one of them pays another. Money moves, but the family as a whole has not earned or spent anything, and booking each side on its own is where the trouble starts.
The mistake this screen exists to stop
Say Alpha wires $5,000 to Bravo.
- Alpha's feed shows $5,000 going out. The reflex is to call it an expense.
- Bravo's feed shows $5,000 coming in. The reflex is to call it income.
Each set of books balances, and both are wrong. Between them, the same $5,000 is now an expense in one place and income in another, so one company looks less profitable than it is and the other looks more, and two tax returns carry money that was never earned.
What kBooks does instead
Open Between companies from your name in the top bar. kBooks looks across every set of books you can open, finds money that left one and arrived in another, and offers the two halves as one movement.
Recording it puts both sides on an account that tracks what the two companies owe each other, never on profit and loss:
- Alpha books it to something like Due from Bravo, an asset, because Bravo is holding Alpha's money.
- Bravo books it to something like Due to Alpha, a liability, because it owes that money back.
The two are mirror images. Neither company's profit moves by a cent.
The two kinds of movement
Moving your own money is the usual one, and the default. A loan between them, money you put in, a draw you took out. Different accounts, same shape: one balance sheet account per side, never income and never an expense.
One really billed the other is different. If one of your companies genuinely did work for another and invoiced it, that IS an expense on one side and income on the other, and it should stay that way. Pick this and kBooks records the pair so a report can see the two entries belong together, but leaves both categorized normally.
What you have to decide, and what kBooks will not decide for you
Nothing is ever recorded without you. Every row is a suggestion until you open it, pick the accounts and press Record this movement.
Two refusals are deliberate:
An income or expense account is not offered on a movement of your own money. That is the exact mistake the screen is here to prevent, so it is not on the menu. Mark the movement as a real bill between them if it truly belongs on profit and loss.
A difference is asked about, never guessed. If $5,000 left and $4,975 arrived, kBooks still finds the pair and tells you they are $25.00 apart, but it will not record anything until you say where that $25.00 goes. It is usually the bank's wire fee, and usually a bank charges account, but kBooks does not assume so. Once you name it, the paying side is recorded as two lines that add back to the bank line exactly. If the paying side is already recorded, there is nothing left to post the difference against - kBooks says so, records the pair with the difference named, and leaves that entry to you.
Sending money to another of your companies by hand
You do not need a bank feed to record money moving between your companies. In any company, open a new transaction, choose Transfer, and the To tile offers two tabs: One of my accounts (a transfer inside these books, as always) and Another company I own. The second tab appears only when you can change at least one other company's books.
Pick the company the money is going to. Then say what happens on their side:
- Record it there writes the other half for them: the money lands in the bank, card or brokerage account you name, owed back to you on their Due account. If they have already told kBooks which account that is, it is filled in.
- Match an entry already there is for when the other company has already seen this money - a bank line waiting in its review list, or an entry someone typed. kBooks lists what fits (the same window as the suggestions, and exactly the amount that should have arrived: what you typed as received when a fee was kept, else what was sent), you pick one, and the two are tied together. A bank line is posted for them; an entry that already exists is left exactly as it is. The list says what it looked at, so an empty list is never a mystery.
On your side, pick My Due account (the account here that tracks what they now owe you; you can add one on the spot), and the amount sent. The amount received is the same unless you say otherwise; when less arrived, say where the difference goes before it will record. The line under the form reads the whole movement back in both companies' words before you save.
One Save records both halves. Your entry opens with the Between companies band, exactly like a movement recorded from a bank line, and can be undone the same way.
When it pays an invoice or a bill
Money between your companies is sometimes not a loan at all: one company did work for the other and billed it. Choose A payment for something billed (in the Transfer form) or One really billed the other (in the window that opens from a bank line), and kBooks lists the documents: the receiving company's open invoices to the payer, the paying company's open bills from the receiver. Tick what this money pays. Each side is then recorded as a real payment, so the invoice and the bill close, aging clears and statements are right; a bank line becomes that payment's matched line. Undoing the pair reopens both documents.
For this to work, each company has to know which of its customers or vendors the sister company is. The first time, the picker simply asks (and offers to add the payee on the spot); kBooks remembers the answer, so the next movement with that company opens straight onto the open invoices or bills.
One rule with no exception: a payment on a bill or an invoice has to match the other side to the cent. If the bank kept a fee, record the fee as its own entry and match the rest.
In the bank feed
A bank line waiting in Banking, For Review that looks like money to or from one of your other companies says so under its description: Between companies - Looks like $5,000.00 sent to Sunrise Realty, Inc on Aug 5. It appears only when the evidence is strong (see below), and one click - Book both sides, or Match to their entry when the other company has already recorded it - opens the window that records the movement. The chip is an assertion about that line, so a doubtful match stays quiet rather than suggesting something wrong.
Reading a suggestion
Each row shows both companies, both dates, the amount, the bank's own wording on each side, and small chips saying why kBooks thinks the two belong together: same day, 1 day apart, the other company named in the description, worded as a transfer, same amount to the cent, or these two accounts have paired before.
The list is a full table: strongest evidence first, sortable by any column, searchable by company or wording, and paginated. Strong only keeps the pairs kBooks would stand behind on their own: the amounts agree to the cent, and something names the movement - the other company in a description, two accounts that have paired before, or transfer wording within two days. An amount and a nearby date on their own never count as strong, however close the dates, and neither does the word "transfer" on a line five days away. Useful when a wide date range turns up hundreds of coincidences.
Two kinds of line are never offered here at all, because both ends are already inside one company's own books: an entry that moves money between two of that company's bank or card accounts (a transfer, a card payment from checking), and a bank line the Banking screen already recognizes as one of those (a payment arriving on a card, a line naming another of the company's accounts). Those show their own chip on the Banking screen and stay out of the between-companies list.
If two candidates are equally likely, the row says so rather than quietly picking one. Look at both and decide.
Already recorded separately
The Booked apart tab is for movements where you have already categorized both sides on your own. kBooks shows them and tells you plainly that it will not re-book them: correcting an entry that is already posted means undoing and re-posting it in two companies at once, and a half-finished rework of your own history would be worse than the problem. Click either company name to open its entry in that company's books, correct it yourself, or set the pair aside if they really are separate payments.
When one side records and the other does not
Two companies cannot be written to in a single stroke. Anything that can be checked up front is checked before either side records - a locked period, for example, refuses right away and nothing at all is written. But if the second side fails at the last instant (the connection drops, someone else grabs the same bank line), the movement lands in Needs finishing in red, carrying the reason. Nothing is hidden and nothing is lost: fix what is in the way and press Finish this movement, and only the missing side is recorded.
Setting a suggestion aside
Two payments of the same amount on the same day between two of your companies can be a coincidence. Not the same money puts that suggestion away, and both bank lines stay exactly where they were, free to pair with something else. If you change your mind, the set-aside is listed on the Recorded tab with an Offer again button - press it and kBooks offers the pair once more.
Undoing a recorded movement
A movement you recorded can be taken back from either entry - each half carries a band at the top of its window naming the other company, with Undo the pair on it - or from the Recorded tab with Undo. kBooks reverses exactly what recording did: the entries it posted are voided, a bank line it categorized goes back to For Review with no suggestion on it, and an entry that already existed in the other company before you matched it is left exactly as it was - the pair did not create that money. The pair itself is listed as undone, with who undid it. Undo changes both companies' books, so it needs edit access to both, and it waits if one of the entries sits inside a reconciliation or a locked month.
Why one half cannot be voided on its own
Once a movement is recorded, each half shows a Between companies chip in the register and a band in its window naming the other company, with Open their half when you can open that company's books. Each half is protected until the pair is undone. Try to void or delete either entry, undo its bank line, remove the upload it came from, or change its amount or date, and kBooks refuses with the other company's name: This entry is one half of a movement recorded with Sunrise Realty, Inc. Undo the pair first, from either side. The words on an entry - memo, reference, payee, class - can still change. This keeps one company from quietly losing its half while the other still carries theirs.
Remembering the account, and the payee
There is nothing to set up. The first time you record a movement with a sister company you pick the account each side lands on; from then on kBooks fills it in for that company. Each company keeps its own answer, so the paying side can use a due-from asset while the receiving side uses a due-to liability. The same goes for which customer or vendor the sister company is: asked once by the document picker, remembered after.
At month end
Two lines on the month-close checklist watch this. Half recorded (a movement recorded on one side whose other side failed) stops the close until it is undone and redone. Booked apart (the same money recorded separately in both companies, with nothing tying the entries together) only informs; the numbers are right, the pair is just not known to be one.
How far apart
A wire usually lands the same day; an ACH can take one to three business days. kBooks looks five days either side by default, a setting per company under Books settings, so you can widen it if your bank is slower.
The amounts must match to the cent. kBooks never guesses that a difference was a bank fee: a $222.87 charge and a $184.70 deposit the same day are two different things, whatever the descriptions say. When your bank did keep a fee on a transfer, record that movement yourself on the Transfer form, which asks for what was sent and what arrived and books the difference where you say.
What this does not do yet
- It does not correct entries you have already posted on both sides.
- It does not work across currencies. Both halves have to be in dollars.
- It never records anything on its own, on any schedule. You press the button.