Work out the tax when you only have the total

Some receipts show one number and no breakdown. Rather than doing the division by hand, let TALISK_HQ work backwards from the total.

1. Open the bill or receipt in Ledger › Expenses (or the confirm screen after a phone scan).
2. Click Only have the total? Work out the tax, just above the amount fields.
3. Check the amount, pick where it was bought, and tick the taxes it includes.
4. Click Insert.

The subtotal and each tax land in their own fields, and they always add back up to the total exactly.

Ticking the right taxes

The province sets the rates, so British Columbia offers GST and PST while Ontario offers a single HST line. The tick boxes say which of those this particular purchase actually paid.

Untick one when the purchase was exempt from it. Services and goods you bought to resell are usually PST-exempt but still carry GST, and ticking both would invent PST that was never charged.

If nothing is ticked, the whole amount becomes the subtotal as a tax-free purchase.

If some amounts are already filled in

Freight, duty, a bank charge or an other-tax amount you have already entered are left exactly as they are and kept out of the calculation, so they are never counted twice. You'll see them listed under the amount, and they still count toward the total at the bottom.

Back-dated bills

The rates used are the ones in force on the bill's own date, not today's. Enter the date first if you're catching up on an old document.