Business reimbursements

If you pay for a business expense from a personal account — software for the business on your personal credit card, a client lunch on your own debit card — the business effectively owes you that money. When it pays you back, that transfer isn't income: it's your own money returning.

keel tracks what each business owes you and recognises the repayment when it arrives, so reimbursements never inflate your income or distort your savings rate.

How it works

The running balance

keel keeps a running balance per business, per personal account: the business expenses you paid from that account, minus any refunds from merchants, minus anything the business has already paid back. It appears on the business's own page as an "Outstanding to personal accounts" card — "FTS Ltd owes Victoria's Amex £280".

There's no matching of individual repayments to individual expenses. The balance is the answer most people actually want — "what does the business owe this card?" — not "which £50 covered which Adobe charge".

The prompt

When money arrives into a personal account from a business with an outstanding balance, keel asks softly rather than assuming:

Could this be a reimbursement? FTS Ltd owes £280 on this account for business expenses you paid personally. If this transfer is paying you back, we'll reduce the balance — not count it as income.

• Yes, reimbursement from {business} — the transaction is classified as a reimbursement. It reduces the outstanding balance, stays out of your income, and keel learns the merchant so future transfers from the same source classify automatically.
• No, it's income — the prompt goes quiet for this transaction and it flows through the normal income classification instead. Money from your business genuinely can be income — salary, a dividend, a draw — so the escape hatch is always there.

The prompt only fires when keel is confident which business is paying you back: either you tagged the transaction to a business, or it arrived from an account mapped to one in your business settings. It never guesses from payment patterns — a transfer that merely looks business-ish won't trigger it.

Why reimbursements aren't income

Income is money that increases what your household can spend. A reimbursement doesn't — you already spent that money, and now it's coming back. Counting it as income would inflate your income figure and make your savings rate look better than it is. Classifying it as a reimbursement keeps both honest: the original expense was excluded as a business cost, and the repayment cancels the loan rather than counting as new money.

Good to know

• Refunds handle themselves: if a merchant refunds a business purchase you made personally, the refund reduces what the business owes you automatically — no extra action needed.
• If a refund lands after the business already paid you back, the balance flips negative — you now owe the business. keel shows this honestly; settling it is up to you.
• Reimbursements appear on the business's page alongside its other numbers, so the "Outstanding" card always reflects the current position.

FAQ

keel asked if a transfer was a reimbursement but it was my salary. What do I do? Tap "No, it's income" and classify it normally. The prompt is a question, not a classification — keel asks precisely because money from a business could be either.

Why didn't keel ask about my reimbursement? The prompt needs two things: an outstanding balance for that business on the receiving account, and confidence about which business sent the money (a tagged transaction or a mapped business account). If the sending account isn't mapped, tag the transaction to the business and classify it as a reimbursement from its detail page.

Does keel match the repayment to the specific expenses it covers? No — it's a running balance per business and personal account. If you need line-level matching, that's a job for your accounting software.

What if the business paid back more than it owed? The balance flips negative: you owe the business. You can leave it as a running balance or square it up in your accounting software.

I confirmed a reimbursement — will keel recognise the next one? Yes. Confirming teaches keel the merchant, so future transfers from the same source classify as reimbursements automatically.