Link My Books creates an invoice (or journal entry for QuickBooks) for each settlement you receive. However, you might occasionally see us create more than one invoice for a single settlement. This happens to accurately reflect your financial activity within each calendar month, which is especially important for precise reporting like VAT returns.
This article explains how Link My Books splits these settlements and how to reconcile them, covering both the current automated process and the historical manual method for older entries.
How Link My Books Handles Split Settlements (General)
When a settlement spans more than one calendar month, Link My Books creates one invoice (or journal entry) for each month that the settlement covers.
To simplify the reconciliation of these split settlements, we roll the balance of the earlier part(s) of the settlement forward into the final part. This results in:
The invoice(s) for the initial month(s) having a total of £/€/$ 0.00. These zero-total entries are typically marked as paid automatically in your accounting software.
The invoice (or journal entry) for the final month having the full total of the settlement, matching the actual payout you receive from the sales channel.
This method allows Link My Books to correctly account for sales, refunds, and fees in their precise calendar months, ensuring your month-end figures are accurate, while still making your bank reconciliation straightforward.
Current Process for Settlements Spanning Multiple Months (Post-February 18, 2025)
UPDATE: Automated Rollover Support Rolled Out (February 18, 2025)
As of February 18, 2025, Link My Books has rolled out full support to automatically handle balance rollovers for all settlements, including those that span more than two months.
For New & Future Settlements: If a settlement period now spans 2, 3, or more calendar months, Link My Books automatically applies the necessary balance rollovers across all split parts. This ensures that only the final invoice (or journal entry) in the series will match the actual bank deposit, making reconciliation seamless.
For Older Affected Settlements: If you have any older settlements processed before February 18, 2025, that spanned more than two months and were not automatically rolled over, the quick fix is to rollback these settlements in Link My Books and then re-send them. The system will then apply the new, automated rollover logic.
Historical Manual Adjustment Process (For Older Settlements Pre-February 18, 2025)
This section describes the manual adjustment process that was necessary for settlements spanning more than two months before the system update on February 18, 2025. You would typically only refer to these steps if you are dealing with a very old settlement that you are unable to fix using the rollback and re-send feature.
Understanding the Problem (Historical Context):
Prior to the update, if a settlement period spanned greater than two calendar months, the split-month rollover function in Link My Books didn't always work as intended. This could lead to a situation where the deposit from the sales channel wouldn't perfectly match the Link My Books entries in your accounting software, making direct bank reconciliation difficult.
In such rare historical cases, you would need to edit the QuickBooks/Xero journals to manually account for the split-month rollover.
Settlements that Span 2 Months (Example of Rollover Logic)
Let's illustrate the rollover logic with a common 2-month split scenario.
Suppose on the 5th of September, you received a payout from Amazon.co.uk which spanned the payout period from August 22nd to September 5th.
If you View that settlement via the Action menu in Link My Books you would see two parts reflecting the split.
In the first part (August portion), there would be a line indicating a transfer:
This line represents the total of all transactions that occurred in August, which is being moved to an internal Link My Books account like LMB9: Amazon Reserved Balances.
In the second part of the settlement (September portion), you would then see the same amount being credited back:
This mechanism allows Link My Books to correctly account for all sales, refunds, and fees in their precise calendar months (e.g., August transactions correctly allocated to August, September transactions to September), ensuring accurate month-end figures. At the same time, it keeps the reconciliation of your bank statement straightforward.
Since the balance of the August transactions has been rolled into the second part of the settlement dated in September, you can reconcile the deposit into your bank in just one click, ensuring your bookkeeping is accurate month to month too.
If you are reconciling foreign currency invoices in Xero please see this article, i.e EUR to GBP etc.
Settlements that Span 3+ Months (Historical Manual Fix)
On very rare occasions, you may still encounter older settlements that span longer than two months, where the automated rollover (prior to Feb 2025) was not applied, and you are not using the rollback/resend feature. In these specific historical cases, the deposit from the sales channel might not match our summary entries.
This is a rare scenario, but if it happens, it's often best to reach out to our support team. We can help you fix it, and can even do so if you provide us access to your Xero or QuickBooks account.
However, if you're using Xero and would like to attempt a manual fix yourself for such a specific historical case, follow these instructions:
Click the 'Match' tab:
Show Spent Items: Tick the 'Show Spent Items' checkbox to ensure you see both invoices and bills that could be part of the settlement.
Tick the Invoices/Bills: Carefully tick all the invoices and bills that collectively make up the entire payout.
Once you find the correct combination of invoices and bills, the amount will go green, allowing you to reconcile the deposit.
If you have any questions about this article or feedback on how we could make it better please reach out to the support team via the blue chat icon on the bottom right of the page or via email to [email protected].