Adding General Ledger Accounts

General Ledger Accounts can be added at Accounting / File / Open / G/L Accounts or by selecting the yellow File Folder and choosing G/L Accounts. Select Add on the Select a G/L Account window.

Profile

The Arrow icons at the bottom of the screen allow paging forward and backward within the account file. The icon to the far right goes to the last record in the account list. The icon to the far left goes to the first record in the account list.

  • Account ID – A unique code up to 10 characters long using numbers and/or letters is used for the Account ID. The only special characters allowed are a hyphen (-), a period (.), or an underscore (_). These special characters are most often used to separate a profit center notation from the root of the account ID (i.e. 1100-01).
  • Profit Center – If Profit Centers have been set up at Setup / Profit Centers, select the appropriate Profit Center from the drop-down menu.
  • Description – The account description entered appears on the financial statements.
  • P/L Category – Choose from thirteen predefined categories. This setting determines the placement on the financial statements (Assets, Liability, Overhead Expense, etc.).
  • Subtotal Account – Optionally indicate if this account should sometimes be totaled into another account. For example, utility expenses may be tracked separately for internal information but the banker only needs to see a total for Utilities. In this case, the Utilities account should be listed first followed by the Gas, Water, and Electricity accounts. The Gas, Water, and Electricity would all name the Utilities account as the Subtotal Account. When running financial statements, Subtotals Only may be selected to cause the dollars associated with each of the individual utility accounts to add into the one Subtotal Account.
  • Attributes – User-defined inputs are generally used as cross references to other programs or may be used as a sorting tool at the Select a G/L Account screen.
  • Classifications – Useful for grouping accounts, Classifications may be used to filter at any General Ledger Account Selection screen. The number of classifications that can be established is unlimited.

Balance

This screen is updated automatically by the computer as various transactions are entered or as the fiscal months are ended.

  • Current Balance – This is the current balance of the account. It reflects all transactions up to this point that are not posted to future or delayed (like payroll posting).
  • Beginning Year – The balance of the account at the beginning of the current fiscal year displays here.
  • End of Month Balances – As fiscal months are ended, the balances are saved in that month's entry. These numbers are used for Beginning Balances as reports are run from one fiscal month to another.

Budget

  • Budget Amount $/Unit Amount – Optionally establish a budget by entering dollar/unit amounts. Upon selecting Per Year, the figure entered is divided by 12 and the quotient is placed in the individual months. If instead Per Month is chosen, the dollar and unit figures will be copied into each of the 12 months.
  • Budget Year – There are three areas to store budget numbers: Current, Forecast, and Next Year.
    • Current – This stores the budget values for the current year.
    • Forecast – Numbers can be entered to forecast the budget. These numbers may be used on the Budget Variance and Forecast reports found at Reports / General Ledger / Financial Reports.
    • Next Year – Budget numbers for the next fiscal year may be entered in this area if the budget is done prior to ending the fiscal year. These numbers may be used on the Monthly Budget Report found at Reports / General Ledger / G/L Reports or the Budget Variance and Forecast reports found at Reports / General Ledger / Financial Reports. When ending the fiscal year, there is an option to move these numbers to the current budget area in the new fiscal year.

Activity

Choosing List displays all the journal entries that affected the account during the selected fiscal period of the current year.