LiveCash is the engine room behind inniAccounts: it provides a real-time forecast of your current financial position based on the transactions you’ve entered and your upcoming taxes.
You’ll find LiveCash on your company’s dashboard. It shows you three numbers: the amount of cash you have coming in, the amount going out, and the amount available to spend. You can drill into the details simply by clicking on a pie chart.
You can then click once again on a smaller pie chart to see the individual items behind the figure. In this example, you’ll see that we’re owed £10,922 for two invoices which are yet to be paid.
Excluding items
You’ll notice that part of the ‘In’ chart is light green. That’s because we’re excluding invoices that we’re yet to receive payment for. This way you can be sure you’re not overspending.
It’s easy to customise which items are excluded. In this example, simply click on the ‘invoices owed’ pie chart and uncheck the ‘exclude’ checkbox. You’ll see that the available cash has now increased by £10,922.
Why should I exclude items?
LiveCash is designed to be customised to match how you prefer to run your company. You can include and exclude items and LiveCash will remember your settings for next time.
We recommend that you exclude unpaid invoices from LiveCash – this means you can meet all of your tax payments should a client be late paying, or not pay at all. If you’d prefer to include your unpaid invoices, simply uncheck the ‘exclude’ checkbox.
It’s also possible to exclude your outgoings. Some advanced users may wish to exclude some of their tax outgoings, especially those not due for some time. This is straightforward with LiveCash, but do remember to ensure you have enough cash once your tax bills arrive.
Director’s loans
If you have an overdrawn director’s loan account (which means you’ve borrowed money from your company) this will appear in the ‘In’ pie chart. That’s because it’s money your company is expecting to receive. We recommend that you exclude director’s loans from your LiveCash calculation. Otherwise, should a large bill be due (such as a corporation tax payment), you could overspend and have to repay your loan back at short notice.
Why does my cash drop when I create an invoice?
You may find that your available cash will drop when you create an invoice – whereas you may have expected it to increase. This is because the tax due on an invoice (VAT and possibly corporation tax) is normally due at the point the invoice is raised – not when it’s paid. When you create an invoice the available cash will drop to take into account the increased VAT and corporation tax due, however when you receive payment for the invoice your available cash figure will increase.
What is the difference between ‘due’ items, and those ‘not yet on a return’?
For VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax you may see two figures: an amount due, and an amount not yet on a return.
The amount due is the final calculation that has been submitted to HMRC, and must be paid at some point in the future. The amount not yet on a return is a live forecast of your tax liability, as is the amount due if we filed a return today. This figure will increase and decrease as you record invoices and transactions.
