Cash Pool: One Bank Account for Several Companies

In a company group, one company often holds the bank account and the sister companies pay their suppliers and collect from their customers through it. The bank statement then names the account holder, while the invoice behind a payment belongs to another company.

AI Finance Team handles this with a shared bank account: the account stays with the company that holds it, and you list the other companies that use it. From then on, a bank transaction on that account can carry the company it economically belongs to.

If no account in your workspace is shared, nothing here applies.

What Declaring a Pool Does, and Does Not Do

Two things decide whether this feature does anything for a client, and both are easy to miss.

• It is not retroactive. Declaring the pool changes no transaction that is already there. A transaction takes its company when its match is created, removed or re-pointed, so only matching done after the declaration attributes anything. For what is already matched, see Fixing a transaction that predates the pool.
• It binds to the bank feed by account number. You declare the pool on the account number under Master data → Bank accounts. It reaches actual transactions only when a connected bank account (or a statement import) has the same IBAN. If the group's account is connected but its number is not also recorded under the holder in master data, the badge appears and nothing else happens.

Before You Start

• All the companies must be in the same workspace.
• Setting up a shared account needs "Edit master data", which is a firm-side permission: an accountant does it, not the client.
• The section is not shown at all in a workspace with only one company.
• Do not add the same account number under a second company. AI Finance Team refuses it and, on the Bank accounts page, offers to share the existing account instead.

Setting Up a Shared Account

1. Open Master data → Bank accounts.
2. Click the pencil next to the account the group pays through.
3. In Used by other companies (cash pool), tick every company whose payments and receipts run through this account.
4. Click Save companies.

The account now shows a Shared with N companies badge, and on each member company's page it appears read-only, labelled Shared, held by with the holder's name.

Once an account is shared, its Company field on the form is locked: the holder is changed only in the cash pool section.

When the account already exists

Adding a number that already belongs to another company of the workspace is refused. On the Bank accounts page you are offered a way forward:

This account belongs to (account holder). Use it as a shared (cash pool) account for (company)?

Use as shared account adds the company to the existing account; no second copy is created. Elsewhere, on a company's own page or when editing an existing account, you get the same message as a notice without the button, and you do it from Bank accounts instead. Someone without "Edit master data" is told to ask their accountant.

Changing the account holder

The holder is the company the account was first added under. To change it, open the account, choose one of the companies using it under Change the account holder, and click Change holder. The previous holder stays on the list of companies using the account, and a connected bank account with the same number follows the new holder.

Turning it off

Unticking every company and saving removes the pool, and that is a one-way door. Transactions already attributed by a match or by hand keep their company, the Company row disappears from the transaction page, and there is no way to set a company again until the account is shared once more.

Which Company a Transaction Belongs To

On a transaction from a shared account, the Company row shows a pill saying where the company came from, and a dropdown of the pool's companies (the holder is marked as such). Members without "Edit bank transactions" see the pill only.

You can pick a company on any transaction of a shared account, matched or not. On a matched transaction your choice overrides the invoice's company, and it sticks.

Every change is recorded in the transaction's activity as Company changed.

The Ledger's company filter and the exports follow this company, not the name on the bank account.

Fixing a transaction that predates the pool

A transaction matched before the pool existed still reads as the account holder. To correct it: pick any other company in the Company row, then click Reset to default. That re-runs the rule, which now finds the matched invoice and lands on From matched invoice.

How Matching Behaves on a Shared Account

Matching already looks at the invoices of every company in the workspace. Three rules apply on a shared account:

• One payment, one company. A bank transaction can settle invoices of one company only. This is refused outright, not merely avoided, and a bulk confirmation skips such a suggestion rather than failing.
• Companies that do not use the account. If the best match is an invoice of a company that is not on the account's list, it is offered as a suggestion rather than matched automatically.
• The company name in the reference. A customer paying the account holder often writes the name of the company that issued the invoice. On a shared account that name no longer blocks the automatic match, as long as it is the company the invoice belongs to. Another group company's name still holds it back.

Paying Suppliers from a Shared Account

A shared account can pay the approved supplier invoices of every company that uses it, in one payment file.

• Choosing it. A member company can make the shared account its Default for payments for the currency, or pick it for a single invoice under Payment instructions. It is listed as (shared, held by the holder**)**.
• One file for the group. On the Payment file page, a shared account's group holds the invoices of all its member companies. Each line of another company is marked For that company.
• Whose invoice it is. The payment reference becomes invoice number; company name, so the supplier sees which company paid. The bank file (pain.001) also names the company as the ultimate payer (Tényleges fizető). The spreadsheet has a Company / Cég column.
• Companies outside the pool. An invoice of a company that is not on the account's list cannot go into its file.

See Paying Approved Invoices.

The Cash Pool Settlement Report

From the bank account list, click Cash pool settlement next to a shared account. The report needs the permission "Run accounting exports", and members without it get a not-found page even though the link is visible.

It opens on the current month and has its own period picker, independent of the workspace's focused period. For each company and currency it shows:

• Paid out: what the account holder paid on that company's behalf
• Collected: what it received on that company's behalf
• Net, and the number of transactions

An account used in two currencies lists a company once per currency, each with its own total. Duplicates are left out.

Clicking a company filters the transactions list underneath; clicking it again clears the filter. The list shows at most 500 lines and says so when there are more, so narrow the period or pick a company to see the rest.

Download XLSX builds the file from exactly what is on screen, so it follows the same 500-line cap and the company filter. It has a summary sheet and a transactions sheet, and the transactions sheet names where each company came from.

The account holder books every movement on its own bank account. What it paid or collected for a sister company is an intercompany settlement item against that company, and this report gives the amounts for that booking. AI Finance Team does not post it to your accounting system.

Related Articles

• Connecting Bank Accounts
• Managing Companies
• Paying Approved Invoices