When you take on a new client, the first week of coding feels like every transaction is a fresh decision. By week three, you've coded most of the recurring vendors enough times that you're just clicking through. The fast path is to skip from week one straight to week three — build the rules upfront for the patterns that show up in every Australian practice, before the bank feed even arrives.
Here are the five vendor-rule patterns I save on day one for every new client, with the rule shape and the GST code each one expects.
1. Utilities — gas, electricity, water, telco
These hit every client every month. The descriptors are usually clean enough to match on: AGL, ORIGIN ENERGY, ENERGY AUSTRALIA, RED ENERGY, AUSGRID, SYDNEY WATER, TPG, OPTUS, TELSTRA, VODAFONE.
Rule shape: descriptor contains (AGL|ORIGIN|ENERGY|AUSGRID|SYDNEY WATER|TPG|OPTUS|TELSTRA|VODAFONE) → code to 6-1100 Utilities (or your equivalent) with GST.
The trap to avoid: residential clients (sole traders working from home) need a private-use percentage adjustment. Don't let the rule auto-commit for sole-trader clients without flagging — leave it as "suggested" so the bookkeeper applies the home-office split.
2. Payment processors — Stripe, PayPal, Square
For any client doing online sales, these vendors show up in the bank feed not as expenses but as net settlements — gross sale minus fees. Per the "PayPal / Stripe holding-account drift" piece, the correct treatment is to route them through a holding account so the gross sale and the fees show separately.
Rule shape: descriptor contains (STRIPE|PAYPAL|SQUARE|TYRO) → code to 1-1200 Stripe Holding Account (or equivalent), do NOT auto-commit, queue for manual settlement reconciliation.
Why no auto-commit: the bookkeeper needs to pull the processor's daily settlement report to split gross from fees. Auto-committing the net amount as revenue understates both income and expenses.
3. Fuel cards and vehicle fuel
Australian businesses that run vehicles invariably end up with a fuel card — most commonly BP Plus, Caltex StarCard, Shell Card, or Ampol Cards. These have the convenient property that the descriptor is consistent and the merchant category is always fuel.
Rule shape: descriptor contains (BP PLUS|CALTEX|SHELL CARD|AMPOL CARDS) → code to 6-2100 Motor Vehicle Fuel with GST.
The trap: if the same vehicle is used privately, fuel needs a private-use percentage. For sole traders and small companies where the directors drive the vehicle personally, apply the FBT-equivalent logbook ratio. Don't bury this in the rule — save it as a per-client policy and apply at end of quarter.
4. Payroll-related transactions
If the client uses an outsourced payroll service, two patterns recur: the monthly subscription fee for the service itself (a clean software expense) and the bulk transfer that funds net pays (which needs to land in a clearing account, not directly in wages expense).
Rule shape — software fee: descriptor matches the payroll-platform name → code to 6-3100 Software & Subscriptions with GST.
Separate rule — payroll funding: descriptor contains (PAYROLL FUNDING|NETPAY|PAY RUN) → code to 1-2300 Payroll Clearing, do NOT auto-commit, flag for payroll-period reconciliation.
The second rule is the one that catches errors. Auto-committing payroll funding directly to wages expense double-counts when the actual wage journals are posted separately (e.g. from STP-driven journals).
5. Software subscriptions
Every modern practice client has a long tail of SaaS subscriptions — Xero, Office 365, Adobe, Notion, Slack, the lot. They're individually small but cumulatively significant, and they're easy to lose track of.
Rule shape: descriptor contains (XERO|MICROSOFT|OFFICE 365|ADOBE|NOTION|SLACK|ZOOM|DROPBOX|MAILCHIMP|HUBSPOT) → code to 6-3100 Software & Subscriptions with GST.
The trap: foreign SaaS vendors. Some of these (particularly the smaller US-based ones) won't charge GST and shouldn't be coded as GST — they're FRE or N-T depending on the supply. Add a sub-rule: if the invoice is under $1,000 and the vendor is in the US/EU and there's no GST line, code as FRE.
The other trap: subscriptions that include a small consumer-grade product hidden inside (e.g. an Adobe Creative Cloud plan that includes a personal Cloud Storage allotment). For mixed personal/business subscriptions, flag for review rather than auto-committing.
The principle
Five rules, none of them dramatic. The win is in saving them on day one. A new client onboarded with these rules already in place codes a meaningful chunk of their first month's transactions automatically — which means the bookkeeper's actual work in week one is the interesting coding decisions, not the same fifteen utility payments every month.
The same rules build by hand in any modern accounting platform in about 20 minutes per client; save them once, copy them to the next client. Build the boring rules first. Save the human attention for the codings that actually need it.