Loans & equity

Not every payment is income or an expense. When you put your own money into the business, take drawings out, receive a loan, or repay one, no sale has happened and nothing has been consumed. These movements belong on the balance sheet — the statement of what the business owns and owes — not on the profit and loss, and recording them as income or expenses would distort your profit figure in both directions.

Loans & Equity in the sidebar is where you record them. It is available on the Pro and Business plans — see Plans & billing.

Recording an entry

Go to Loans & Equity → New Entry:

• Date and amount.
• Direction — Money received by business or Money paid out by business.
• Category — a balance-sheet category (asset, liability or equity) that says what the movement is. A standard set is created for your organisation: Director's Loan and Credit Card Liability under liabilities, Owner's Equity and Owner's Drawings under equity, and asset categories such as Computer Equipment and Vehicles. Add your own under Settings → Categories.
• Description (required) and an optional reference — a loan reference or agreement number.
• Currency — an entry in another currency takes an exchange rate to your base currency; see Multi-currency.

Like everything else in PulseBooks, each entry posts a balanced journal entry behind the scenes — see Journals.

The common movements

• Capital introduced — you put your own money in: direction received, category Owner's Equity.
• Owner's drawings — you take money out for yourself: direction paid out, category Owner's Drawings.
• Director's loan — a director lends the business money: direction received, category Director's Loan. The business owes it back, so it sits in liabilities.
• Loan repayment — the business pays some of a loan back: direction paid out, against the same loan category. The liability shrinks with each repayment.

The same shape covers anything else that is a balance-sheet movement rather than trading — paying down a credit card balance tracked as a liability, for example.

How they appear on the balance sheet

Because these entries are neither income nor expense, they never appear on the profit and loss. Instead, each category's running balance builds the matching section of the balance sheet: asset categories under Assets, loan and credit categories under Liabilities, and equity categories under Equity, alongside retained earnings (the profit the business has kept over its life).

Run the report at Reports → Balance Sheet, as at any date you pick. It also carries the net book value of your fixed assets, and it should always balance: assets equal to liabilities plus equity.

Managing entries

The Loans & Equity list can be searched, filtered by category and date range, and exported to CSV. Summary tiles show total money in, total money out, and the net movement for whatever filter is applied. Individual entries can be edited, duplicated, or deleted.

Plan availability

Loans & equity tracking, balance-sheet categories, and the balance sheet report are part of the Pro and Business plans. On the Free plan, the Loans & Equity pages show an upgrade prompt, and the balance sheet sits with the other advanced reports, which are gated the same way.