General Ledger

Summary

General Ledger Accounts determine the setup of your financial reports

Details

       Databuild now holds detailed balances for all accounts over 3 years, rather than for last year, current year and next year. These balances make reporting over odd period ranges much simpler.

       The accounts are now displayed in a "tree" format with buttons to control their visibility and relationship

The system sets up 8 pre-defined GL groups:

1 Assets

2 Liabilities

3 Income

4 Expenses

5 Cost of Sales

6 Equity

7 Other Income

8 Other Expenses

All other accounts are sub-accounts of these major GL groups.Use the arrow keys and to set the hierarchy of all accounts. This hierarchy determines whether an account is "rolled up" into it's parent account when compressed reports are requested

Account codes are numeric and divided into 8 General Ledger (GL) classifications with 4 levels (default) of reporting.  The code comprises one classification digit followed by a stop (.) then 4 to 10 trailing digits.  The account codes are user defined, however you may decide to use the sample Chart of Accounts as the basis of your own, or input the account codes which correspond with the external Accountant's system, e.g. Solution Six.

The Chart of Accounts Report  lists the GL accounts in numeric order and indents them according to their nominated Level, and indicates whether each account is a Heading or Postable.  An account can also have a specific Division nominated against it, which allows for separate divisional reporting.

General Ledger Accounts are created according to classification or category, together with Opening Balance or Budget amounts where applicable.

Balance Sheet accounts:

It is suggested that Level 1  be used exclusively for Major Headings in the Balance Sheet account categories and be non-postable.

Level 2 would be typically assigned to Headings or Main Postable accounts e.g. Work-In-Progress, Petty Cash Float, etc.

In a detailed or comprehensive chart of accounts Level 2 may be used for Minor Headings, e.g. Motor Vehicles and below this account heading would be Level 3 Postable accounts, e.g. Motor Vehicles at Cost and Less: Accumulated Depreciation.  A Level 3 report would show both accounts with their respective balances, whereas a Level 2 report would show the account heading Motor Vehicles with a net amount comprising the balances of the lower level accounts.

n.b.  when creating a new GL account the system will give a default Level according to the account code used (depends whether or not the individual digits are zero), this of course can be amended to suit you own requirements, e.g. 1.1000 would default to be a Level 1; 1.1100 Level 2; 1.1110 Level 3; and 1.1111 Level 4.

A new GL account is also assumed by the system to be Postable, which of course can be altered to being a Heading if appropriate.

Expense accounts:

Level 1 would typically be Major Headings and be non-postable, utilising digit 1 of 4.  Level 2 would be typically used for other Main Headings or Main expense accounts, e.g. Advertising, etc., and utilise digits 2 and 3.  In a detailed or comprehensive chart of accounts Level 2 would be used for minor headings and Level 3 for postable sub accounts.

Budgets and Last Year Amounts on GL accounts:

Enter either individual Budget amounts for each period or input an amount in the Total (press Enter) and confirm a spread over the periods.  The same can be done for Last Year amounts for set-up purposes.  Note that the Budgets in the GL section are quite different to Budgets relating to Jobs and Cost Centres.  The Job Budgets are generated through the Quantities function, or can be manually entered through Load Jobs or Invoice Posting screen.

Toolbar

       File menu

               Import                Loads GL Import module

               Export                Exports current Accounts to a .GLX file

       Edit Menu

               Significant

               Digits                By default, the system has 4 trailing digits. This can be set to up to 10

               Divisions        Selected Accounts can be set to a Division to allow for divisional reporting

               Delete Budgets        Deletes budgets on selected Accounts

               Copy Budgets                Copies budgets on the current GL account

               Paste Budgets                Pastes budgets already copied on another account to the current GL account

               Increment Budgets        Adjusts budgets of selected accounts by an input percentage

               Spread Budgets                Spreads an annual budget evenly over all periods

               Transfer Budgets        Budgets from earlier Databuild systems can be transferrred to the new multi- year format

               Creates a new GL Account

               Select or DeSelect ALL GL accounts in this group

               Deletes the current or Selected GL Account(s)

               Edit Control Accounts

               Loads GST & BAS module

               Edit System Dates and Periods

               Loads GL Reports module

               Closes the routine