How to add expenses in MYOB

First make sure spend money is the right place for it. Paying a bill you've entered, or making a payment tied to one of your suppliers, is done from the Purchases section instead. Spend money covers the other money that leaves the business, such as withdrawals, everyday expenses, bank charges and donations.

Have the details to hand: how it was paid, who was paid, what each part of the payment was for, and the receipt if you'd like it kept with the transaction. MYOB's help on money in and out notes that these payments can be entered by hand when your bank accounts aren't connected, and that connecting them or importing statements does that work for you.

Know which category each part belongs in. If you're unsure, check with your accountant. A missing category can be added while you work, from the Category dropdown.

1. From the Banking menu, choose Spend money.
2. Choose the account the money came out of. Only a bank account or credit card category can be picked. For a payment made straight into a supplier's bank account through an electronic payment file, choose your electronic clearing category, which opens the Bank statement text field. What you type there appears on the payee's bank statement.
3. If you want, choose the Contact you paid. To add a new one, click the dropdown arrow in the Contact field and choose Create contact.
4. Enter a Description of transaction that sums up the whole payment, such as a monthly invoice covering several items.
5. Check the Reference number and the Date, and change them if needed. Changing the reference number resets the automatic numbering, so the next transaction follows on from it.
6. On the first line, choose the Category the amount goes to and enter the Amount. Add a Description, and a Quantity or a Job if you need them. To add a category, click the Category dropdown arrow and choose Create category.
7. Add a line for each further kind of cost in the same payment. To remove a line, click its delete icon.
8. To keep the receipt with the transaction, upload or drag the file into the Attachments section.
9. Check the total at the bottom of the page matches what you paid, and correct the amounts if it doesn't.
10. Click Record. To carry on, choose Record and create new for a blank transaction, or Record and duplicate to start a new one with the same details.

The spend money transaction is recorded as money out of the account you chose, spread across the categories on its lines, with any attachment saved alongside it.

To change it later, choose Find transactions from the Banking menu, open the Transactions tab, set the Transaction type to Spend money and narrow the list by dates or description. Click the Reference number to open it, make your changes and click Save. Before it's matched or reconciled, every detail can be changed. Afterwards, the account it was paid from, the date, the reference number and the total are fixed, though line amounts can move as long as the total stays the same.

Deleting starts with the same search, then Delete at the bottom of the transaction and Delete again in the confirmation. Removing a reconciled one affects your next bank reconciliation, and if the transaction was created from a bank feed transaction, that bank transaction needs matching again.

Can't change the paying account, date or total? The transaction has been matched or reconciled. Unmatch it, or undo the bank reconciliation, before editing those details.

MYOB's desktop notes say that on an account linked to a bank feed, spend money is only needed when you want to record a payment before it shows up in the feed. Otherwise the feed's own transaction details can be used to record it, or a rule can record it for you.

If you use AccountRight on the desktop, open the Banking command centre and click Spend Money. There you choose the account in the Pay from Account field and the contact in the Card field, then allocate the payment by account on each line. Before recording, Recap Transaction on the Edit menu shows the journal entries it will create. If the Record button is missing, your user role may only give you read-only access to the Spend Money window.