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 in the Finance group of the left-hand navigation.
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 Finance during guided setup
Section titled “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
Section titled “Who can do this”- Turning Finance on and changing its settings needs the
finance:manage_settingscapability. Owners, Admins and the Finance role have it. - Bank account changes need
procurement:manage_bank_detailsand a second administrator to confirm them. - Seeing money depends on three view capabilities: prices, cost and profit. See Who sees what.
Turn Finance on
Section titled “Turn Finance on”- Open Settings > Organisation Settings and choose Finance setup.
- 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.
- Choose Turn on Finance.
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.
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
Section titled “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 documents in later releases will need the entity, tax and bank steps done.
Finance setup
Section titled “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.
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.
Billing entities
Section titled “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.
Tax rates
Section titled “Tax rates”Tax rates lists the rates for the billing entity. Each rate has a name, a percentage (or components that add up to the rate), and an active flag. Add a rate with New tax rate, either from a jurisdiction preset (Add from preset) or by hand with its components. A rate that has been used on a document can no longer have its percentage changed; Archive it and add a new one instead.
Numbering
Section titled “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
Section titled “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
Section titled “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
Section titled “Bank accounts”Bank accounts are printed on documents so clients know where to pay. They are protected by dual control:
- A person with
procurement:manage_bank_detailsproposes the account or a change to it under Bank accounts. - A different administrator with the same capability confirms it within 24 hours. The proposer cannot confirm their own change.
- Until it is confirmed, the previous account stays in force and documents keep using it.
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
Section titled “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.
Invoice document templates
Section titled “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
Section titled “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. 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.
See Budgets for how templates and the catalogue are used when building a budget.
Who sees what
Section titled “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
Section titled “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
Section titled “Next step”Create your first budget: Budgets.
Help from Ru
Section titled “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
Section titled “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.