The Autotransaction in the previous example was designed to be used from the Nominal Ledger and was therefore double-sided to produce a balancing Transaction. As was mentioned in that example, you can also use a single-sided Autotransaction in a Transaction, in which case you will need to ensure the Transaction balances yourself before you save it.

You can also use Autotransactions in Purchase Invoices and Expense records. For example, it may be that you will enter many overhead costs in the Purchase Ledger from your Suppliers' Purchase Invoices. You can enter Autotransaction Codes to the Account field of a Purchase Invoice row in the same way as illustrated above for Transactions, so in our example Purchase Invoices can also be distributed across departments. However, the Autotransaction that you use in this situation should be single-sided: it should not have the final balancing line posting to the Bank Account. When you post the Purchase Invoice to the Nominal Ledger, a balancing posting to a Creditor Account will be made automatically as normal. Payment will reach the Bank Account when the Purchase Invoice is paid. In addition, any Autotransaction used in Purchase Invoices and Expense records will not need to calculate VAT because that will be handled by the VAT Code.

An example single-sided Autotransaction is shown below:

The first row contains an exclamation mark in the Account field and a percentage in the Debit field. The exclamation mark indicates that when the Autotransaction is specified in a Purchase Invoice (or Expense record), the amount of the previous row of the Purchase Invoice is to be overwritten by a figure determined by the application of the Autotransaction (in this case, by a percentage of the original figure). In effect, that figure will be on the same side (debit or credit) as the original, as the percentage has been entered to the Debit field of the Autotransaction. In other words, the original figure entered will be reduced by 90%. If the percentage had been entered to the Credit field of the Autotransaction, the original figure entered would be reduced by 90% and made negative, thus in effect changing sides. The Object specified will be entered to the Object field of the Transaction row and the Description and VAT Code will be retained.

The second line of the Autotransaction will again refer to the original figure and calculate a percentage from it, on the same side (debit or credit) as the original, using a new line in the Purchase Invoice. The # sign in the Account, Description and VAT Code fields signifies that the Account, Description and VAT Code originally specified are to be used in the new line, which will contain "DEPT2" in its Object field. The third and fourth lines of the Autotransaction will have a similar effect, creating new lines in the Purchase Invoice with different Objects and percentages to the original figure.

When you enter a Purchase Invoice or Expense record, begin by entering the Account Number for the relevant expense category, and the amount excluding VAT. On the second row, enter the code of the Autotransaction in the Account field.

Press Return. The Autotransaction is applied to the first row of the Purchase Invoice, and the amounts are recalculated as follows:

If you know that a particular Autotransaction will always be used with an Account, enter it in the Autotrans. field in the Account record:

When you enter the Account in a Purchase Invoice or Expense record and press Tab or Return, the Autotransaction Code will be brought in to the next row automatically:

Enter the amount on the first row as normal, then press Return twice. The Autotransaction will be applied to the Purchase Invoice or Expense record as previously described.

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