Books check

The Books check answers one question: does your accounting package hold exactly what MechIQ invoiced?

It compares document by document -- each sales invoice, credit note, customer receipt, deposit and refund -- and tells you which ones match, which ones differ and why. It only reads. It changes nothing in MechIQ and nothing in your books.

Find it on Accounts → Books check. The garage owner runs a check. Front of house can read every result.

What it compares

MechIQ takes each invoice as it was given to the customer -- its lines, the VAT at each rate, its totals, and the account the customer is linked to -- and each payment as it was recorded. It compares that with what the export file holds:

Customer account -- is the document on the account this customer is linked to?
Date
Line net -- the net amount at each VAT rate
VAT code, and the VAT amount at each rate
Nominal -- is each line on the nominal your settings give it?
Total
Bank account -- for a receipt, deposit or refund
Allocation -- which invoice the money is against

Amounts are compared to the cent. There is no rounding allowance: one cent is a difference.

Run a check

Open Accounts → Books check.
Choose the period: Last month, This month or Choose dates. A period can be up to one year.
Under Upload the file, choose the export file MechIQ made for your accounts (Accounts → Export), as a .csv.
Press Check this file.

The check runs in the background. You can leave the page. The result is kept. One check runs at a time.

This shows every invoice that was changed, credited or re-allocated since that file went to your books.

The file that Sage 50 itself exports back is not read yet. If you upload one, MechIQ says "This file layout is not recognised yet". Nothing is compared.

A garage connected to Sage Business Cloud, Xero or QuickBooks

The check against a connected package is not available yet. The page says so in one line. You can still check an exported file.

Read the result

The tiles

Tile	What it means	What to do
Matches	The file holds it exactly as invoiced.	Nothing.
Differs	The file holds it, but a figure or the account is different.	Open the document and read the reason.
Missing	MechIQ sent it. The file does not hold it.	It was deleted in the package, or it never arrived. Export it again, or restore it.
Unknown	The file holds it. MechIQ has no document with that number.	It was entered in the package by hand, or it belongs to another system.
Twice	The file holds it more than once.	Delete or void the extra one in the package.
Not sent yet	It is in MechIQ and has not gone to your books.	Export it from Accounts → Export.
Not checked	This check could not tell for this document.	Read the note above the tiles.

Press a tile to list only those documents.

What this check could not tell

A box above the list says, in words, anything the check could not read -- for example supplier rows in the file, or rows that could not be read. A field that could not be read is never shown as a match.

MechIQ sent something different from the invoice

MechIQ also compares what it recorded as sent to your books with each invoice as issued. This needs nothing from your package. If MechIQ sent an invoice at another total, or recorded a payment as sent for more than it was, the document is listed under MechIQ sent something different from the invoice, with both amounts.

MechIQ will look at this -- you do not need to do anything. MechIQ is told about it at once.

Customers on more than one account

If one customer's documents sit on two accounts, a red box names the customer and the accounts. A customer has one account. Merge them in your package and put that account's reference on the customer in MechIQ (Customers → the customer → Edit → Accounting reference).

Control totals

Side by side, MechIQ and the file, for the whole period:

Sales invoices -- net, VAT and total
Sales net by nominal
Net and VAT by rate -- invoices less credit notes, as on a VAT return
Credit notes
Receipts and refunds by bank account

A document not sent yet, or one MechIQ does not know, shows here as a difference: the tiles tell you which.

Documents

Each document shows its result, kind, number, date, customer, and both totals. A document that needs attention opens by itself and lists every difference:

What differs
MechIQ has
The file has
What to do

Filter by Result, by Document, or search for a number or a customer. Download CSV gives the whole result, one row per difference -- send it to your bookkeeper.

When a check does not finish

If a check stops, it says The check did not finish and compares nothing. It never reports "everything is missing" and never reports "all correct". Run it again.

Past checks

Every check is kept under Past checks, with its period, the file it read and its result. Press one to see it again.

What is not checked

Supplier invoices and supplier payments. This check covers sales and the money from customers.
Invoices imported from your old system. MechIQ did not issue them.
How a discount is shared between nominals. The invoice gives a discount per VAT rate, not per nominal. For an invoice with a discount, the check confirms the nominals used are the right ones, and checks the amounts per VAT rate.