Finance Setup

Finance adds budgets to Runnit: what you sold, the work against it, change orders when the scope moves, time approval and the uninvoiced work queue. Before anyone can create a budget, an administrator turns Finance on and completes the setup checklist. Everything in this guide lives under Settings > Organisation Settings. Settings are grouped into Budgets and pricing, Finance setup, Expenses and purchasing, and Invoicing and payments. Items are alphabetical within each group. Use Search settings to find a section by name or related words, such as receipts for expense categories. See Find a setting.

Finance is included in the Pro and Enterprise plans. The Finance setup section stays available on other plans so you can see what it needs, but the Finance pages themselves are not.

Choose optional tracking

Time and expense tracking follow Finance by default. In-house teams, non-professional-services organisations and agencies that do not want finances start with task tracking only. Ru identifies this during guided setup.

You can choose either feature independently in Settings > Tracking. Your explicit choices stay in place when Finance changes. Turning a feature off retains existing records. Expense claims still need a billing entity and expense categories; enabling the switch alone does not complete that setup.

Choose Finance during guided setup

If you work with external clients, Ru asks whether you want invoices, purchase orders and detailed budgets, or resource planning only. Working as an agency does not automatically enable Finance.

To enable it through Ru, confirm your legal name, jurisdiction and tax registration. Supply your tax identifier if registered, such as an ABN for an Australian business. Ru can collect your billing address and email too. Turning Finance on still requires the right plan and access, and the checklist below shows any details still to complete.

Resource planning hides the financial workspace and money settings while keeping clients and capacity planning available. Financial records are retained. You can change your choice later here in Finance setup or ask Ru for help. Enabling Finance again restores commercial planning and reuses your billing entity.

Who can do this

• Turning Finance on and changing its settings needs the finance:manage_settings capability. Owners, Admins and the Finance role have it.
• Bank account changes need procurement:manage_bank_details and a second administrator to confirm them.
• Seeing money depends on three view capabilities: prices, cost and profit. See Who sees what.

Turn Finance on

1. Open Settings > Organisation Settings and choose Finance setup.
2. Choose Turn on Finance to open the form.
3. Check the legal name, jurisdiction, tax registration and default currency shown in the panel. Runnit suggests the jurisdiction from your organisation’s country and uses the organisation currency.
4. Choose Turn on Finance to save.

Runnit creates, in one step:

• a billing entity from your organisation profile (the legal entity that issues documents);
• the tax rates for your jurisdiction (for example GST 10% and GST-free for Australia);
• activity codes: one hourly code for each active rate card role, plus third-party codes such as Print, Media, Photography and Subcontractor;
• expense categories, each mapped to an activity code; and
• number sequences for budgets, quotes, invoices, credit notes, purchase orders, supplier bills and reimbursements.

If you enter an Australian ABN, Runnit checks its digits and checksum before turning Finance on. A rejected ABN leaves Finance off and keeps your form details. Correct it and try again, or leave the identifier blank to add it later. The tax checklist stays incomplete for a registered entity until a valid ABN is saved.

Turning Finance on is safe to repeat. If it was already on, nothing changes.

After it is on, the panel shows Finance is on for [organisation] with who turned it on and when, and a Setup checklist with a Walk me through it button that opens a chat with Ru for the remaining steps.

The setup checklist

Step	What it needs	Where
Billing entity details	Legal name, address and contact details for the entity that issues documents	Billing entities
Tax registration and identifier	Whether the entity is registered for tax and its identifier (an ABN in Australia, validated when you save)	Billing entities
Tax rates	At least one active rate	Tax rates
Bank account for documents	A confirmed bank account to print on invoices	Bank accounts
Logo	A logo on the billing entity	Billing entities
Approval rules	Who approves change orders and at what amount	Settings > Approvals, see Approvals
Rate card check	The organisation’s rate cards are set up, see Rate Cards	Rate cards

You can create budgets before the checklist is complete. Issuing a document checks its required billing and tax details. Follow any validation messages before trying again.

Finance setup

The Finance setup section also holds the organisation-wide defaults.

Reporting

• Reporting currency is read from Regional settings.
• Default billing entity is the entity documents are issued from. There is one billing entity per organisation for now.
• Financial year starts sets the month used by numbering that resets each financial year.

Budget defaults

• Warn at (percent of sold) lists the thresholds at which a budget or a line tells its owner it is being used up. New organisations start at 80% and 100%. Add or remove thresholds with Add threshold and the cross beside each one.
• Target margin (percent): budgets, lists and the overview flag any margin below this figure. Leave it blank for no target.
• When a line goes over chooses what happens once a line or budget is fully used:
  • Warn and keep tracking: the line turns red, the owner is told, work continues.
  • Block new tracking: nobody can log more time or expenses against the line until it is extended.
  • Block approval: time and expenses keep coming in but cannot be approved until a change order lands.

Who sees what

• Members see hours only: members and freelancers see budgets as hours and percentages, never as money, whatever their other grants say. This is on for new organisations.
• Segregation of duties: the person who raises a quote, change order or invoice cannot approve it, and bank details always need a second person.

Choose Save changes after editing this panel. The enablement card and the checklist save on their own.

Time

The Time block on Finance setup sets the timesheet policy:

Setting	Effect
Round billable time	Not at all, to the nearest step, up or down. Rounding applies to billable minutes when time is approved; worked minutes are kept as entered
Rounding step	6, 15 or 30 minutes
Time approval	The organisation default: Needs approval or Approve on submit. A budget can override it
Approver policy	Any one approver or All must approve
Every entry needs a note, Every entry needs a task or a budget line	Required fields at submission
Expected hours per week	Shown against each person’s week
Timesheet lock	Not at all, Weekly or Monthly, with Grace days before the lock advances. Locked time needs the “Edit locked time” permission and a reason
Soft close day	The day of the following month on which open periods are soft closed automatically
Convert confirmed schedule into draft time	Turns confirmed bookings in the resource plan into draft time entries at the end of each day, ready to edit and submit. Off by default
Overhead rate	Per billing entity: an hourly amount added to cost on top of each person’s cost rate, effective from a date. Shown only to people who can see cost

Choose Save time settings after editing this block. See Time Tracking for how people log and submit time and Month End for periods and access to saved checklists.

Billing entities

A billing entity is the legal entity that issues documents. Runnit supports one per organisation for now. Open Billing entities to edit its legal and trading names, jurisdiction, tax registration and identifier, address, contact details, default currency, and two document settings:

• Rounding: tax rounded per line or once per subtotal.
• Price entry: whether prices are entered excluding or including tax.
• Payment terms: days from the issue date or from the end of the month.

Choose Save after editing the billing entity. A rejected identifier keeps your draft so you can correct it and save again. Saved beside the identifier means it matches the stored value. It does not confirm tax registration or a check against an external register. Other identifier types are stored without an external validation check.

Tax rates

Tax rates lists the rates for the selected billing entity. Each rate has a name, code, kind and percentage, with up to five components. Finance seeds the jurisdiction presets when you turn it on; Add from preset is unavailable.

Choose Add rate to create a rate, or choose a rate’s name to edit it. Give each component a name of up to 40 characters and a percentage from 0 to 1,000. Zero is valid. Missing, negative or unreadable percentages show guidance beside the field and prevent saving. Correct the value, then choose Save. If the server refuses the save, the reason stays in the form with your entries so you can correct them and retry.

A rate used on an issued document has locked components and kind. You can still edit its other details. To change its percentage, Archive it and add a new rate with an effective date instead.

Numbering

Numbering shows one sequence for each document kind with a live preview of the next number. Choose a sequence to edit its format and reset rule.

Format tokens, all lower case:

Token	Meaning
{yyyy}, {yy}	Year
{mm}	Month
{q}	Quarter
{fy}	Financial year, using the month set in Finance setup
{n} to {nnnnnn}	The counter, padded to the number of letters
{client_code}	The client’s code, when the sequence counts per client

Reset rules are never, yearly, each financial year, or whenever the date part of the format changes. Separate counter per client keeps a counter per client. Start counting from can be changed only before the first number is issued.

Numbers are never reused and never skipped: a budget discarded as a draft keeps its number in the audit, marked as discarded. Choose View audit on a sequence to see every number, what it was given to and its status.

Activity codes

Activity codes are the vocabulary for budget lines: what kind of work or purchase a line is. Turning Finance on creates one code per rate card role and a set of third-party codes. Open Activity codes to rename a code, change its short code or archive it, and use Seed from rate card after adding new rate card roles to create their codes.

Expense categories

Expense categories group purchases and each one maps to an activity code so a purchase lands on the right kind of budget line. Categories marked as disbursements pass through at cost and cannot carry a markup. See Expenses.

Bank accounts

Bank accounts are printed on documents so clients know where to pay. They are protected by dual control:

1. A person with procurement:manage_bank_details proposes the account or a change to it under Bank accounts.
2. A different administrator with the same capability confirms it within 24 hours. The proposer cannot confirm their own change.
3. Until it is confirmed, the previous account stays in force and documents keep using it.

For an Australian account, enter a six-digit BSB as 123456 or 123-456. If the format is wrong, the proposal form keeps your entries and shows what to correct. This checks the format only, so still verify the details with the bank.

An older pending proposal with an invalid BSB cannot be confirmed. Withdraw or reject it, then propose the corrected details. Your current account stays in force. Existing confirmed details and issued documents are not changed by this check.

Only masked identifiers are shown on screen. Revealing the full details is recorded in the organisation’s finance events, and every bank account change notifies the organisation’s administrators.

Custom fields

Custom fields adds fields to budgets (and, in later releases, quotes, invoices, expenses, purchase orders and suppliers). Types are text, number, date, select, multi-select, money and user. A money field carries a currency and is hidden from people who cannot see prices. Select fields can be used to filter the budgets list.

Mark a budget field Required when it must be completed before activation. Spaces alone and an empty selection do not count; zero number or money values do. A refused field save leaves the budget’s other changes in that save unchanged. If fields are being saved or checked by another action, wait and retry. See Budgets for completing the activation checklist.

Invoice document templates

Open Document templates to create an invoice layout for your organisation. You need finance:manage_settings or finance:manage_integrations. Open a built-in layout and choose Customise template, or Make a copy beside a template. The copy has independently editable branding.

Edit the blocks and style, review Live preview, then choose Save template and Save style. Select the saved template on a draft invoice or in a client billing profile. See Edit invoice templates for the full workflow. Already issued invoices keep their original layout.

Budget templates and the catalogue

Budget templates holds reusable budget shapes: sections, lines with a rate card role, a schedule pattern and thresholds. You can build one here or save any budget as a template from its More menu. Saved budgets retain quantities, fixed prices, discounts, caps, estimated costs and their currency, billing entity and tax pricing basis. Role-priced lines refresh from the effective rate card. Manual budgets can be saved with their existing pricing behaviour. If a budget came from an older quote, complete its recorded pricing review first when asked. A failed save keeps the name so you can correct the problem and save again. Preview a template, choose Edit lines, then Save to commit your edits. New budget from this opens a draft creation dialog with that template selected. A failed creation leaves no partial budget.

Catalogue holds reusable priced lines that can be dropped into any budget from the line editor. If an activity code is archived, existing catalogue items keep its code and name. Open the item to see the archived status. You can save other changes without replacing that code, or choose an active code and select Save. Archived codes are not offered for new selections.

See Budgets for how templates and the catalogue are used when building a budget.

Who sees what

Three capabilities control money on every finance page and on the project Money tab:

Capability	Shows
finance:view_prices	Sold, rates, prices and invoiced figures
finance:view_cost	Cost rates, cost and committed cost
finance:view_profit	Margin (needs prices and cost as well)

Without prices, a person sees hours and percentages only. These capabilities are granted per role under Settings > Permissions, and they can be scoped to particular projects or clients like any other grant. Roles that could already see financial reports were given the three view capabilities when Finance arrived, so nobody lost access.

The Finance role preset holds every finance, expense and procurement capability plus time approval, with delivery permissions such as task updates removed, so a finance person can work in Finance without touching delivery.

Approval rules for change orders

Change orders on active budgets go through the approvals engine. Under Settings > Approvals, the Budget change order gate accepts policies with rules, for example “amount of 5,000 or more needs Finance approval”. Every rule in a policy must match for it to apply. When more than one policy matches, each one adds a stage, and the same person can owe a decision in more than one stage. A policy can be limited to one client or one billing entity.

See Approvals for how policies, approvers and decisions work.

Next step

Create your first budget: Budgets.

Help from Ru

Ru can explain the setup and help with supported changes using your access. Bank details, signatures and statutory confirmations stay with you. See Finance with Ru.

In Supplier defaults, internal suppliers can select a providing internal budget and non-billable credit line. New draft bills keep that destination. See Internal unit chargebacks for setup, approval and corrections.

Add a billing-entity logo

Open Billing entities, then find Logo. Choose Upload logo and select a PNG or JPEG up to 500 KB. Review the preview, then select Save to apply it. To clear it, select Remove logo, then Save.

The file is added to your organisation’s assets. It must be available to the organisation to use as a logo. New invoices, quotes and change orders use the saved image; issued documents keep their original image. If an upload fails, the panel shows the error and keeps the current logo.

In Finance setup, Walk me through it opens Ru for help with the remaining setup steps. Finance stays enabled so you can continue accessing its records.

Review document layouts

On a narrow screen, choose the Finance section from the searchable settings picker above the panel. Selecting a section brings its heading and fields into view.

Review a saved quote, purchase order, statement or self-billed invoice with Document preview on its page. Drafts use current saved values; sent and issued documents keep their saved contents. Previewing does not number or send them. See Quotes, Purchasing and Self-billing.

In Numbering, select the document kind to edit its format and review the next number. Self-billed invoices and reimbursement runs have their own sequences.

Set purchasing tolerances and bank-file details

Open Purchasing policy and select the billing entity. Enter the percentage and cash tolerance, then choose Save tolerances. Both limits must pass for a supplier-bill line to match its purchase order.

For bank-file exports, enter the Direct entry originator details supplied by your bank: institution, user name, APCA user ID, description and remitter. Choose Self balancing only if your bank requires it, then Save originator. The payer account is the entity’s confirmed account in Bank accounts; this form does not change its account details.

Each form saves separately. If a save fails, correct the reported problem and retry with your entries still in place.

Review statutory rules

In Finance setup, choose Billing entity for rule review and Rule review date. Use the date of the invoice or credit note you want to issue. For a self-billing agreement, use its effective date before filing its signed evidence.

1. Find the rule named by the blocked action and choose Review rule.
2. Read its value, jurisdiction, source and effective dates. Confirm its applicability before proceeding; the button does not verify the source for you.
3. Add a Review note if useful, then tick the acknowledgement and choose Confirm rule. This needs finance:manage_settings.
4. Wait for Confirmed for this billing entity. Expand the rule to see the saved confirmation date and note, then return to the blocked action.

An invoice’s Review these rules opens the same review directly in the invoice, using its billing entity and issue date. Confirm each required rule individually. The invoice checks refresh afterwards; issuing still needs its own action.

If the rule changed while you were reading it, review the refreshed value and acknowledge it again. If the saved state cannot be read, choose Reload rules. A lost response does not automatically send another confirmation. Missing rules and rules that are not yet effective cannot be confirmed for that date. Other validation and permission requirements remain in place. See Tax Rules by Jurisdiction.