How to Find Any MoneyWorks Transaction in Seconds (Not Hours)

We've all been there—staring at endless transaction lists, knowing the answer is somewhere right in front of us.

The Problem Every Bookkeeper Faces

Serene stared at her computer screen, frustrated. She needed to check a recent contractor bill to confirm she'd used the correct item or account; she scrolled up and down the transaction list, but couldn't find the record anywhere—Had she chosen the wrong supplier? She remembered the amount was roughly $777, but the transaction list only showed invoice totals—not the detail she needed.

MoneyWorks stores thousands of transactions in its database, like a massive digital filing cabinet. Finding one specific detail can feel overwhelming, especially when you're searching period by period.

Sound familiar? Without a keyword—a reference number, date, name, account, item, or amount—there's little anyone can do to help. Fortunately, Serene had her keyword: $777.

The Basic Search That Solves 80% of Problems

She opened the purchase invoice list and typed '777' into the search bar at the top right corner. The system found every transaction containing '777' in either the gross amount or line item totals. She just needed to open the transactions within her date range to check the details.

When You Need to Get More Specific: Find Transactions by Field

However, the search returned results from several years, which Serene didn't need. To refine the list, she clicked the dropdown beside the search bar and selected 'Find by Field' to add more conditions. Filtering by item description—searching for 'Widget' in the 'Detail.Description' field—narrowed her results considerably.

Export Your Results for Analysis

Serene could double-click each transaction to check posting details, but doing this for hundreds of results would take hours. Instead, she selected her search results, clicked the 'Details' icon above the list, and chose to print a transaction detail report. Rather than printing, she decided to export the data to Excel.

The exported data appeared accurate: accounts were split into debits and credits. Scrolling through the spreadsheet, she verified postings. However, creating a pivot table was challenging—each transaction was exported as a block with the first two rows as headers, which complicated the analysis.

The Version 9 Game-Changer

MoneyWorks version 9 offers a better solution. After performing her search, Serene clicked the 'Related' icon from the icon bar above the transaction list. The Related wizard opened, and she selected 'Detail line item.' She then chose 'Ledger Lines' from the 'Show in View' dropdown, displaying the individual account lines from each transaction.

The data now appeared in proper table format—columns showed transaction fields (which she could customise) and rows represented the accounts used in each transaction. This format exported cleanly to Excel for pivot tables and analysis.

Your Search Toolkit Summary

Quick reference for MoneyWorks searching:

• Use the basic search bar for simple keyword searches

• Try 'Find by Field' to add multiple search conditions

• Export search results via the 'Details' icon for analysis

• In version 9, use 'Related' > 'Detail line item' > 'ledger lines' for table-format exports

Every transaction tells a story. These search tools help you find exactly the story you need, whether you're doing a quick fact-check or investigating your company's financial patterns in depth.

What's your biggest MoneyWorks search challenge? Have you discovered any clever search tricks of your own? Share them in the comments below—we'd love to hear from you.