Credit Card Feeds and Statements

A company credit card works like a bank account in Arcus, with one difference: its balance is what you owe, not what you hold. Charges raise the balance owed and payments lower it. Every card screen says Balance owed where a bank account says Balance. This page follows a card from connection to its first closed statement. For the ideas behind the feed, see How Bank Feeds Work.

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Before You Start

• A liability account for the card. Each card needs its own account in the chart of accounts, a credit card or line of credit liability, never a cash account. Create it in Chart of Accounts if it does not exist.
• The card’s statements, from the card issuer’s online account. You need the closing date and the new balance of each statement.
• Permission to post accounting.

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Step 1: Connect the Card Login

1. Open Finance > Close & Reconcile > Bank Reconciliation and go to the Bank Feed tab.
2. Click Connect a bank and sign in to the card issuer’s online account.

One login can carry several cards. A card issuer often lists every card on the sign-in: your company’s cards, an owner’s personal card, or a card that belongs to another company. Map only the cards this company owns. Mark the others Not ours: Arcus keeps the connection but never imports their lines. If a card belongs to another company you also keep in Arcus, map it in that company, never in this one. Give each company card its own Arcus account on its own liability account, and map each card to that account. An extra cardholder’s card that shows no balance of its own can stay unmapped or be marked Not ours. The balance shown beside a card is the balance owed.

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Step 2: Add the Card as a Bank Account

1. On the Reconciliation tab, click Add bank account.
2. Account type: choose Credit card (or Line of credit) first. The window opens on Checking, and the account list below follows this choice: it then asks for a GL liability account.
3. Account name, Institution and Last 4 digits: as the card shows them.
4. GL liability account: the card’s own account. Only accounts not linked to another bank account are listed. If the list reads “No credit-card or loan accounts”, create the account first.
5. This account is used to pay vendor bills (AP): leave it unticked for a card unless you pay vendor bills from the card. It is a label on the account only: the Pay from list on Pay Bills offers every active bank account either way, and matching is not affected.
6. Click Save account.

Which account to pick. Use the liability account your books already settle the card on, the one the card’s balance and payments are posted to now. Add bank account creates nothing in the chart of accounts: it links the card to an account that already exists. A card’s account is a liability, so it is never marked as a bank account in the chart.

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Step 3: Map the Card and Sync

1. Back on the Bank Feed tab, find the card’s row under its login. Until it is mapped, the row reads “Not mapped to an Arcus bank account yet”, with the picker Map to bank account… and the buttons Map and Not ours.
2. Pick the card’s Arcus account in the row’s picker and click Map. A card’s picker lists only card and loan accounts, never a checking account. The row then reads Mapped to the account, with the Balance owed.
3. Click Sync now, which appears once the row is mapped. The card’s history arrives as lines on Bank Transactions. Nothing is posted to your books yet.

If the card’s picker reads “No credit-card or loan accounts”, the card has no Arcus account yet. The row says to add one under Bank Reconciliation → Add bank account, choosing “Credit card” as the Account type (Step 2). Until then, leave the row unmapped or mark it Not ours: the connection is kept either way. On Finance > Close & Reconcile > Bank Transactions, pick the card. Charges are money out and each one raises the balance owed; a payment or a refund is money in and lowers it. The running figure reads owed.

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Step 4: Set the Start Point at a Statement Close

Pick a statement’s closing date as the card’s start point, and use that statement’s new balance.

1. On the card’s account card, click Set baseline.
2. Baseline (anchor) date: the statement’s closing date.
3. Balance owed at that date: the statement’s new balance, “the amount owed, entered as a positive number”.
4. When the feed can work it out, Arcus shows Suggested balance owed from your bank feed with Use this. It is a cross-check: if it differs from the statement, type the statement’s figure.
5. Click Continue to preview, then Apply baseline.

A new card account usually shows a variance the first time. The card’s account in your books has to hold the same balance owed on that day. A newly created account holds nothing, so Arcus shows the whole balance owed as the variance and does not apply. Ask your accountant for the opening entry: it credits the card’s account with the balance owed, dated on or before the start point. Then open Set baseline again (or, if the window is still open, click Back, then Continue to preview) and apply. The full checklist is Set the Start Point.

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Step 5: Work the Charges

Each charge after the start point needs its expense account.

• Rules first. Set up Categorization Rules for the merchants you see every month. A line a rule recognizes shows Approve category: read the account and approve it.
• Everything else: open Actions and click Create expense. Pick the account. The entry debits that account and credits the card.
• Stock bought on a purchase order: enter the vendor’s bill from the order, then pay it from the card line with Record vendor payment. That way the quantities and costs move in inventory. Coding the charge straight to an inventory account moves dollars only.
• A refund from a merchant is money in on the card. Give it the account the original charge used.

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Step 6: Record the Payments to the Card

A payment to the card leaves your bank account and arrives on the card. It is one transfer, never an expense.

1. On Bank Transactions, pick the bank account the payment left, and open the payment line.
2. Actions, Record transfer. Money went to: the card’s account.
3. When Arcus finds the card-side line of the same payment, it offers to link it. Confirm it. One entry is posted between the bank and the card, and both lines are matched.
4. If the card-side line was not linked, open it on the card’s feed and use Link to recorded transfer. Nothing new is posted.

Create expense to the card’s account from the bank line is refused: the card is one of your bank accounts, and money between your own accounts is a transfer.

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Moving From Statement Bills to the Card Feed

Some companies enter each card statement as a vendor bill and pay it from the bank. When you move the card onto its feed:

1. Pick the start point at the closing date of the last statement you entered as a bill. From then on, enter no statement bill: the feed’s charges replace it. Entering both books every charge twice.
2. That last bill is still unpaid at the start point, so its balance sits in accounts payable, not on the card’s account. Your accountant posts one entry dated the start point that credits the card’s account for the statement’s new balance and debits a clearing account created for the move. Then set the baseline at that balance owed.
3. Pay the last bill as usual: on the bank account’s line, Record vendor payment against the statement bill.
4. On the card’s feed, the same payment arrives as money in. Give it Record income to the clearing account. The clearing account returns to zero, and the card’s balance owed drops by the payment.
5. Every later payment is a Record transfer from the bank account to the card (Step 6).

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Step 7: Close Each Statement

Close the statements in order, starting with the first one after the start point.

1. On the card’s account card, click Start reconciliation.
2. Statement date: the statement’s closing date.
3. Ending balance owed ($): the statement’s new balance, “the amount owed, entered as a positive number”.
4. When the feed can work out the balance for that date, a box reads Balance owed on the date from your bank feed, with Use this. It is a cross-check: the statement’s figure wins if the two differ.
5. Click Begin reconciliation, clear what is left on To match, and click Complete at a difference of $0.00.

If the difference will not reach $0.00, look for a charge still on To match, a payment not yet recorded as a transfer, or a typing slip in the ending balance. Complete anyway is a last resort: the gap is stamped on that statement and never clears by itself. See Close a Month.

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