Rules in Mayday Recharger describe the logic behind how transactions are recharged between your entities. It's a simple process to create the rules, but it’s important to do this with care. Mistakes in your rules can lead to mistakes and oversights in your recharge calculations, and these could cost you more time further down the line.
There are four types of rule in Recharger:
Expense rules dictate how expenses incurred by the entity are recharged to other entities in the recharge group
Revenue rules dictate how income generated by the entity is recharged to other entities in the recharge group
Balance sheet rules are used to recharge costs in balance sheet codes (most likely asset codes) rather than P&L codes. This would mean that these costs wouldn't hit the P&L of the original entity when they were wholly for the benefit of another.
Mayday rules are for regular, fixed-amount recharges - for example, a management charge - and they don't look up from source transactions in Xero in the same way as Expense, Revenue and Balance Sheet rules do.
We'll look at these in more detail below.
Recharger creates three 'Don't recharge' rules by default for each entity in the recharge group. These apply to all transactions in that entity (expense, revenue, and balance sheet) so they won't be recharged to any other entity in the group, unless you create rules which supersede them.
Note: Rules are indifferent to debits and credits. If a transaction hits an account code included in a rule then it will be picked up by the rule. For example, a refund to an expense code would be picked up by an expense rule involving that account code.
Expense Rules
You can create an expense rule using the '+ Add new' button under the 'Expense Rules' tab:
This takes you to the New Expense Recharge Rule page:
There are three types of expense rule you can create:
At Cost: The whole transaction value is recharged
Cost plus: The whole transaction value is recharged, plus a fixed percentage on top, which is agreed by transfer pricing or internal agreement. If you choose this option, two additional inputs will appear:
One asks you to define the percentage which should be added to the value of the transaction
Since that additional percentage is revenue for the entity, you'll also need to specify what account code that revenue should be assigned to
Don't recharge (expenses): The transaction is not recharged anywhere
Once you've chosen the type of rule you're creating, you'll need to set up the transaction matchers in section 2 for cost rules or section 3 for cost plus rules. This is described in the Transaction Matching section below.
Section 3 for cost rules or Section 4 for cost plus rules, lets you define which entities should be recharged for the expenses:
You can add whichever entities are required using the '+ Add another entity' button. The figure you enter in the first box is what apportionment of the transaction's value will be recharged. Finally, the last column is the account code the costs will be assigned to in that entity.
For more information please see this helpful video.
Revenue Rules
You can create a revenue rule using the '+ Add new' button under the 'Revenue Rules' tab:
This will take you to the New Revenue Recharge Rule page:
There are two types of revenue rule you can create:
Percentage of Revenue: A percentage of the revenue generated will be passed to other entities as income. Since the percentage is a cost to the entity which generated the revenue, you'll also need to specify the account code that cost should be assigned to
Don't recharge (revenue): The transaction is not recharged anywhere
Once you've chosen the type of rule you're creating, you'll need to set up the transaction matchers in section 2. This is described in the Transaction Matching section below.
Section 4 lets you define which entities should receive the recharged revenue:
You can add whichever entities are required using the '+ Add another entity' button. The figure you enter in the '%' column is what percentage of the transaction's value will be recharged. Finally, the last column is the account code the revenue will be assigned to in that entity.
For more information please see this helpful video.
Balance Sheet Rules
You can create a balance sheet rule using the '+ Add new' button under the 'Balance Sheet Rules' tab:
This will take you to the New Balance Sheet Rule page:
There are two types of balance sheet rule you can create:
At Value: The whole transaction value is recharged
Don't recharge (balance sheet): The transaction is not recharged anywhere
Once you've chosen the type of rule you're creating, you'll need to set up the transaction matchers in section 2. This is described in the Transaction Matching section below.
Section 3 lets you define which entities should be recharged the transactions:
You can add whichever entities are required using the '+ Add another entity' button. The figure you enter in the first box is what apportionment of the transaction's value will be recharged. Finally, the last column is the account code the recharges will be assigned to in that entity.
For more information please see this helpful video.
Mayday Rules
You can create a Mayday rule using the '+ Add new' button under the 'Mayday Rules' tab:
This will take you to the New Mayday Rule page:
Then you follow these simple steps to set up a Mayday rule:
You specify the amount to be recharged
You specify the revenue code of the entity raising the recharge
You specify how the cost should be apportioned between your entities and which account codes the recharges should be posted to
You give the rule a name
For more information please see this helpful video.
Transaction Matching
For all expense, revenue and balance sheet rules, you'll need to define parameters to configure exactly which transactions in that entity the rule will be applied to.
Make this the Default Rule
The first option is to apply the rule to all transactions under that entity. Choosing this will mean the rule becomes the default rule for that entity, and it will be applied to all transactions which do not match other rules you've configured. You can only have one rule with this option set - if you wish to change which rule that is, you'll need to edit that rule's configuration first.
Recharge Specific Transactions
The second option is to define matchers to tell Recharger how to identify the right transactions for this rule. You can define as many of these as you'd like, and configure whether to match all or any of them:
Choosing all means that a transaction must match all of the defined criteria in order to have the rule applied to it
Choosing any means that a transaction needs only to match one of the defined criteria in order to have the rule applied to it
You can create matchers based on the following transaction properties:
Account code matches transactions that are (or are not) in one of the specified account codes
Tracking category matches transactions that are (or are not) in one of the specified tracking categories
Contact matches transactions that have (or do not have) one of the specified contacts assigned
Assigned to matches transactions that have (or do not have) one of the specified assigned to contacts
Line Item Description matches transactions that contain (or do not contain) the specified text in their description
Reference matches transactions that contain (or do not contain) the specified text in either the narration field from a journal or the invoice reference
In the event that a transaction matches more than one rule, Recharger will pick one of the rules based on a set precedence order, shown at the bottom of the page.
Configuring the Apportionments
Once the transaction matchers are set up, you can define how the matched transactions will be apportioned between other entities in the recharge group. There are two ways of doing this.
Pre-defined Apportionments
You can use the Apportionments page to define commonly-used apportionments. This is handy if you'd like to use the same methodology to apportion several different recharge rules. Doing this means you'll only need to update them in one place if they change in the future. See this article for more info.
When you choose a pre-defined apportionment, the list of entities and the numbers will be pre-filled for you. You only need to set the account codes: this is where the cost from this recharge rule will be posted in that particular entity's accounting system.
Custom Apportionments
Choosing 'Custom' gives you much more flexibility in defining the apportionments.
You can choose whichever other entities you'd like from your recharge group, and then adjust the apportionment percentages using the apportionment and 'total apportionment units' boxes. The 'total apportionment units' is a whole number from which you create fractions using the 'apportionment units' above.
You will then need to set the account codes: - this is where the cost from this recharge rule will be posted in that particular entity's accounting system.
Intra-entity Apportionments
With Recharger, you can split costs and revenues between account codes or tracking categories both within and between entities. If you want to create inter-departmental recharges, follow the steps in 'How to create Intra-entity Recharges'
Conflict Resolution
In the event that a transaction matches more than one rule, Recharger will pick one of the rules based on the following precedence order:
Line Item Description: if the transaction matched a rule based on its description, that rule will be applied
Reference: otherwise, if the transaction matches a rule based on narration, that rule will be applied
Assigned to: otherwise, if the transaction matches a rule based on assigned to, that rule will be applied
Contact: otherwise, if the transaction matches a rule based on the contact assigned to it, that rule will be applied
Account Code: otherwise, if the transaction matches a rule based on the account code it is assigned, that rule will be applied
Tracking Category: otherwise, if the transaction matches a rule based on the tracking category assigned to it, that rule will be applied
Default: finally, if no other rules match, the transaction will have the default "Apply all" rule applied to it