General Ledger

The AccountMate General Ledger module is designed to allow:

Flexibility in setting up periods for a fiscal year.

This includes the ability to:

oDefine up to 52 periods for your fiscal year.

oDefine the beginning date of a company’s fiscal year and its fiscal-period date ranges.

oAutomatically populate an extra year-end adjustment period to which prior year-end adjusting entries created in GL will be posted. The year-end adjustment period will have for its posting date the last day of the fiscal year.

Ease in creating and amending GL Account IDs to suit your company’s unique operations.

This includes the ability to:

oSet up GL Account IDs with up to 9 segments.

oRedefine account segments at any time. You can add new segments; lengthen existing segments; change segment names, types and sequence; assign a new major segment; and review the effects of your changes before you save them.

oCopy GL Account IDs from an existing account segment to a new segment. You can also copy chart of accounts from another existing company to your current company, provided your target company has the same segment definition as that of the source company.

oSet up a GL Account ID as either a posting account or an allocation account. Amounts can be entered directly into posting accounts or they can be automatically distributed among the designated distribution accounts according to a fixed percentage (fixed allocation) or based on a variable ratio (variable allocation).

Flexibility in posting journal entries and transferring data from the integrated modules to the General Ledger.

This includes the ability to:

oSet up data transfer from other integrated modules to GL in detail or summary.

oRestrict the transfer of data to any period in GL from specific modules. This protects the GL period from further changes when financial statements are being prepared.

oSet the system up to use auto batch numbering and specify the next batch number to use when transferring data from subsidiary modules or creating journal entry batches in GL.

Diversity in generating financial data and analysis.

This includes the ability to:

oView each GL account ID’s period-change amount and balance for each period of the selected fiscal year.

oGenerate financial and performance ratios based on standard, generally accepted formulae. These ratios will help in the analysis of the company's performance and its comparison to that of other companies and to industry standards for any period of the current or prior year.

oDefine the format for your Income Statement and Statement of Cash Flows. For your Income Statement, you can choose between the Standard and Alternate formats of presenting the report. For your Statement of Cash Flows report, you can customize the line captions and choose between two Cash Flow Methods, Direct or Indirect.

oCustomize the look of your reports. All financial reports in GL are generated using Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services technology (SSRS). With SSRS, you can modify reports so they look exactly as you would want them to look. Some of the GL reports provided to help you better manage your business are Income Statements, Balance Sheets, Statements of Cash Flows, Budget Reports and Ratio Analysis Reports.

GL does not require you to close each period to keep all periods of the prior, current and following year open for posting.

When you close a fiscal year, the current year becomes the prior year and remains open for the posting of adjusting entries unless the period has been restricted.

Set up multiple sets of budget data.

You can also import/export budget files from/to spreadsheets and text files. The data and format of the exported files can be modified and included in other documents. The system provides you with various Budget Reports, which include a comparison of the budgeted amount against the actual amount as well as a separate column showing the resulting variance.

GL functions, fields and reports are automatically modified for fund accounting when the user selects the Non-Profit accounting option for a new company.

Maintain an unlimited number of years’ worth of account balance history.

Account summary balances as well as transaction history is limited only by the amount of free space in your hard drive. It is available as long as the records are not purged from the system during Fiscal year-end closing.

To give you an idea of what is possible with the AccountMate General Ledger module below is a listing of some of its major features:

•Supports Various Journal Entry Types

Using the Journal Batch Entry function, you can create a standard journal entry. Reversing entries will be generated automatically during posting of the original journal entry batch. This saves time and reduces errors.

You can also post adjustments to any unrestricted period in the prior fiscal year or to an unrestricted adjustment period in a historical year using the Historical Restatement function.

Journal entries can be edited before posting; they can also be viewed, printed and, for those batches posted from GL, voided after posting. You can also create correcting entries to adjust GL for erroneous data entered in the subsidiary modules that have been permanently transferred to the General Ledger and are, therefore, not available for voiding.

Journal entries in AccountMate are entered by batches. Saving journal entries in a batch provides a convenient and efficient method of posting journal entries to your general ledger. You can group journal entries for similar or related transactions in a batch and you can include any number of journal entries in a batch.

•Import Journal Entry

The system allows you to import journal entries from text files through the Import Journal Entry function. Importing journal entries from text files enable you to speed up the creation of journal entries as you can create many entries at one time in your text editor program instead of entering it one by one in the Journal Entry function. It is also a convenient means to bring data over from another accounting system that you are using to handle specialized processes and reduces keystroke errors during the transfer of data.

•Copy Journal Entry from Existing Batch

You can copy the journal entry details of a previously saved batch into a new batch through the Create JE from Existing Batch function and just amend the journal entry details, if necessary. This saves you time and reduces data entry errors. This feature is useful in cases where you need to post journal entries that are the same or similar to those in a saved batch.

•Set Up and Generate Recurring Journal Entries

You can set up multiple journal entry templates for recurring journal entry transactions to be posted to a range of periods. The creation of the actual journal entry to be posted is done through the Recurring JE Setup function. This allows you to generate journal entries from the template on a weekly, bimonthly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis.

•Set up and Create Statistical Journal Entries

You can create statistical entries using the Statistical Batch Entry function. This feature allows you to record non-financial transactions to track variable information that will become the basis for your variable allocation accounts. Creating these entries is very similar to creating a standard journal entry making it simple and easy, thus saves you time.

•Post Journal Entry Batches

You can conveniently post transaction data entered through GL by just choosing from any of the saved unposted journal entry batches that you want to post using the Post Batch to GL function. Statistical batch entries on the other hand, are posted using the Post Statistical Batch function. Limiting access to these functions protects integrity of your data.

•Enhanced Drill Down Feature

This facility provides the means by which you can reconcile the GL financial statement information with the balances in the subsidiary modules. You can drill down on the amounts in the Income Statement and Balance Sheet to the composition of these balances as shown in the General Ledger Listing. From the account balance details, you can further drill down to view the source batch's posting entries and ultimately drill down to a report showing the details of the source transaction that gave rise to such entries.

With this feature, reconciliation of the major GL Account ID's balances with the balances shown in the subsidiary ledgers (i.e., Customer, Vendor, and Inventory) can be done with tremendous ease and flexibility.