Registers

Registers represent the bank accounts, cash drawers, and other financial accounts where your business receives payments. Every payment must be assigned to a register before it can be validated.

Why Registers Matter

Registers answer the question: where did this money land?

When you validate a payment, you assign it to a register — this tracks which account received the funds and keeps your bank reconciliation clean. Without a register, a payment cannot be validated or posted to QuickBooks.

Register Types

Type	Description	Examples
Bank	Bank accounts	Chase Business Checking, Savings
Cash	Physical cash registers or drawers	Store register, event cash box
Cash Equivalents	Digital wallets and transfer services	Zelle, Venmo
Other	Any other account type	Escrow accounts, special-purpose funds

Register Fields

Field	Required	Description
Name	Yes	Account name (e.g., "Chase Business Checking")
Type	Yes	Bank, Cash, Cash Equivalents, or Other
Currency	Yes	Account currency (default: USD). Must match the payment currency when assigning.
Description	No	Internal notes about this register
Default	No	Mark one register as default — it will be pre-selected during payment validation
Active	Yes	Active registers appear in the selection list. Deactivate registers you no longer use.

Managing Registers

Adding a register

Navigate to Registers
Click Add Register
Fill in name, type, and currency
Optionally mark as default
Save

Setting a default register

Mark one register as default so it's pre-selected when validating payments. This saves time if most of your payments go to the same account.

Deactivating a register

When you stop using an account, deactivate it instead of deleting. Deactivated registers:

Don't appear in the register selection during payment validation
Keep their association with historical payments (audit trail preserved)
Can be reactivated later

Registers and Payments

The typical flow:

Payment created — no register assigned yet
During validation — you select a register (or the default is pre-selected)
Payment validated — register assigned, payment posted to QuickBooks

A payment must have a register assigned before validation. The confirm button remains disabled until a register is selected.

Currency matching

When assigning a payment to a register, the register's currency must match the payment's currency. If you work with multiple currencies, create a register for each one.

Manual Transactions

In addition to payment-linked transactions, you can record deposits and withdrawals directly on a register. This is useful for cash movements that don't originate from a customer payment — bank fees, cash deposits, manual adjustments, and external transfers.

Manual transactions:

Update the register balance atomically (safe for concurrent use)
Appear in the register's transaction table alongside other transactions
Require admin permissions
Are local to SettleWise (not synced to QuickBooks)

See Record a Register Transaction for the step-by-step guide.

QuickBooks Sync

Registers can be linked to QuickBooks bank accounts via the externalId field. When connected, payments validated against a register are posted to the corresponding QB account.

Best Practices

Create one register per real account — match your registers to your actual bank accounts and cash drawers
Set a default — if 80% of payments go to one account, make it the default to save clicks
Name clearly — use names like "Chase Business Checking" rather than "Account 1"
Deactivate, don't delete — when closing an account, deactivate the register to preserve history