Accountant's Page




Overview

This menu contains the functions of the MyBooks Professional General Ledger system for both the Service-based Business and Inventory-based Business interfaces. These functions are placed here in a separate menu because in many small businesses the person, or people, using the computer system are not knowledgeable, or directly concerned about general ledger accounting, and they often leave these tasks to their accountants. However, these functions remain vital to a complete accounting system like MyBooks.


Click on any of the following to learn more about the particular functions on this menu: Reports & Lists


Accountant's Drill Down

This function is one of the most powerful features of MyBooks, in that it allows you to access all accounting information from the perspective of any account in the Chart of Accounts in an organized and logical drill down.

Begin your inquiry by specifying the account you wish to view. If you don't know the number you may either click on the Select Accounts button and choose it from the list, or, use the Appgen Cross-Reference feature. Then specify the beginning and ending periods for your inquiry in a YY-PP format (e.g., 00-12 means period 12 in the year 2000). You will then see all the distributions made to the account in that fiscal period range. The following information may also be viewed easily on the same screen:

  • Periodic summary of account with opening balances, total debits, total credits, net change, and closing balance

  • Periodic summary of account with net change, budget, and difference

  • General account information
Click on any of the distribution lines on the first screen and you will drill down to the original journal entry on which that distribution appeared. Click on any of the distribution lines on the journal entry and you will drill down to the accounting document on which this distribution was made. From there, click on the Original Document button (if there is one available) and view the original invoice, check, etc. All information is available all the time.

When you select a control account in this inquiry screen, a summary of all sub accounts (detail and control) with total debits and total credits is displayed. From there, you may select any sub account for detailed inquiry and further drill down.


Make Journal Entries

Use this function to make journal entries directly into the general ledger. This is a three step batch entry process.

To make a new entry, click on the New Transaction button and the program will automatically assign a unique entry number to the transaction. This is a unique sequential number with its integrity maintained by the absence of a 'Delete Transaction' capability. If any transaction is so erroneous that it needs to be discarded, you can use the 'Void' option to nullify its effects. In this manner all transaction numbers are always accounted for. Unlimited distributions of debits and credits are allowed on any one transaction, however, you will not be able to complete the transaction successfully until the total debits and total credits are equal.


Auto Reversing Entries

Journal entries may be automatically reversed out by entering a reversal date on the transaction. A mirror-image entry is automatically created using the next available transaction number. The reversal transaction itself may not be accessed in the 'Change' or 'Void' options. Any changes to the original transaction will automatically be reflected in the reversal (including voiding).


Integrate Distributions

Entries of sales, purchases, payroll, and bank transactions do not automatically go into the general ledger. You must pull them in with these functions.

You simply specify a cutoff date and all those transactions (that have never been integrated before) that are dated on or before that date will be pulled into new journal transactions by period. You must then post these new journal transactions before the ledger is actually updated. You would probably want to inspect these transactions first, while you have the opportunity to correct any errors on them.

You may perform these integrations at any point in time, and as often as you need.


Maintain Chart of Accounts

Use this function to add, change, or delete accounts in the current Chart of Accounts. All account numbers must be of the format described in the Master Company Controls maintained in the Maintenance ToolBox (refer to the help in your Maintenance ToolBox).


Maintain Fiscal Calendar

MyBooks has been designed to accommodate any type of fiscal year up to thirteen periods in length. The beginning and ending dates for each period for the previous, current, and next fiscal year can be generated automatically based on the fiscal year starting date in the Master Company Controls record (see the help in your Maintenance ToolBox). Use the Auto Create Fiscal Calendar option to accomplish this.

As an alternative, you may manually enter the beginning and ending dates for each period individually using the Maintain Fiscal Calendar option.

MyBooks uses this calendar to keep period summaries for each general ledger account. The fiscal period information for last year is used to provide comparative financial statements from period summaries. Setting up next year's fiscal periods allows posting of January's data before December has been completely closed out.

You do not need to know the fiscal period cutoff dates when entering transactions; the system searches the Fiscal Year Calendar to find the correct fiscal period for posting. You are warned when entering transactions outside of the current fiscal period, and prevented from entering transactions outside of the fiscal calendar. You may block entry into closed periods by specifying a flag next to the period in the calendar (using the Maintain Fiscal Calendar function).

The fiscal periods are assigned three periods to a fiscal quarter. In the event a thirteen period fiscal year is selected, the fourth quarter contains four fiscal periods.


Maintain Budgets

Each account in the G/L Chart of Accounts may optionally have an assigned budget amount allocated by fiscal period.

Each year, new budgets must be entered as needed into the Budget file. This information may be viewed in the Budget Variance report, and may also be included on financial statements for actual vs. budget comparisons. The budget amounts for each period may be entered individually or automatically. Enter the annual budget for an account manually or calculate the annual amount based on a prior year.

If you use the Auto Create by Year option, the entire year's budget for an account is then either allocated to each period equally or allocated based on the number of days in each period.

If the budget is automatically calculated based on the prior year's balances, you must specify the percentage of change and one of two methods of allocation: 1) based on the prior year's period balances, or 2) based on the prior year's annual balance. If the annual balance method is chosen, you must further specify whether the new budget is to be allocated equally by period or based on the number of days in each period.

You may use any combination of the above methods by specifying the range of accounts to be budgeted.


Maintain Financial Statements

THE STATEMENT PRINTING PROCESS

The general ledger financial statements are computed and printed after all journal entries for the fiscal period have been entered and posted. Figure 2.10 is an overview of the statement printing process.





There is a single record in the Statement Header file for each statement to be produced: Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, Statement of Cash Flow, etc. You may have an unlimited number of statements or variations of statements.

The Statement Header record for each statement is identified by a unique name up to ten characters in length; it contains the statement title text and the column formatting data for the columns on the statement. The Statement Header record is discussed in more detail below. The steps of computing and printing a statement as shown in Figure 2.10 are as follows:

  1. Enter a new Statement Header record to define the title, format, and date ranges of the statements. You may set up one record for each different statement and modify the date ranges of that record every fiscal period rather than entering a new Statement Header record each fiscal period.

  2. Compute each statement. You must enter both the name and the Statement Number of each statement to be computed. The computing process then reads the statement layout formatting information from the statement layout in the Statement Detail file and the fiscal period amounts from the General Ledger Chart file. This information is then grouped together to build the formatted statement image* in the Statement Data file.

  3. Print each statement. You must enter the name of each statement to be printed. The printing process will then read the formatted statement image* in the Statement Data file and print the statement. You may reprint the statement as many times as you desire.

* This "statement image" is only a partially complete image. The final formatting information is added by the Statement Print process as the statement is being printed.


Recomputing Statements

Notice that the data in the statement image in the Statement Data file comes from journal entries that are in the Chart of Accounts file at the time you compute the statement. Sometimes, after running statements, you will discover that an adjusting entry for a fiscal period has been omitted. You may then enter that data and recompute and reprint the financial statements. Any journal entries that are posted to the Chart file after the statement is computed will not be included in the statement image until you re-execute the Compute Statement step.


THE STATEMENT HEADER RECORD

The Statement Header record in the Statement Header file controls the column formatting and date ranges of its particular statement. You must either enter a new Statement Header record for every statement each fiscal period or modify the record from the previous period to change the date range on the statement. Figure 2.11 is an example of a Statement Header record for a Profit and Loss Statement.

The name of the Statement Header record is P&L. This is an arbitrary name that you assign and use when computing and printing the statement. The actual title text that will appear on the statement is entered in prompts 8 through 11. Note that you must insert leading spaces to center the lines of text on the statement. 


       *1.Statement Name     P&L
        2.Statement Number   1002
        3.Statement Format   1
                                                  Codes:
                                                  Period    =   PYY-MM
        4.Column 1 Code      P95-03               Quarter   =   QYY-Q
        5.Column 2 Code      Q95-1                Year      =   YYY-MM
        6.Column 3 Code      Q94-1                Budget    =   B
        7.Column 4 Code      V                    Variance  =   C
                                                  None      =   N

        8.Header Line 1      Your Company Name
        9.Header Line 2         Your Address
       10.Header Line 3       Profit and Loss
       11.Header Line 4         March, 1995



Figure 2.11
Statement Header Record
Prompt 2, Statement Number, indicates which statement layout format is to be used when formatting the body of the statement. Different types of statements (Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, etc.) require different layouts; there will be several layouts contained in your Statement Detail file.

Prompt 3, Statement Format, indicates how the columns and totals should be positioned on the statement. These formats are as follows: 


STATEMENT (COLUMN) FORMAT     DESCRIPTION

1                             Up to four columns across the page. 
                              The actual number of columns to be 
                              included is determined by the number 
                              of entries in the Column Code prompts. 
                              If only three column codes are 
                              entered, only three columns will be 
                              printed.

2                             Up to two columns with indented totals 
                              to the right of each column.

3                             A single column of balances with up to 
                              four additional columns of percentages.

4                             Up to two columns across the page. This 
                              format is similar to format 1 except 
                              that there is more spacing between the 
                              columns.

Column Codes

The entries in the column code prompts 4 through 7 determine the number of columns on the statement, the date ranges for the balances in each column, and the type of data in each column. In the example in Figure 2.11 there are four columns of data as follows:

    Column 1. P95-03, the period balances for fiscal period 03 of 1995.

    Column 2. Q95-1, the quarter-to-date balances for the first quarter of 1995.

    Column 3. Q94-1, the comparable balances for the first quarter of 1994.

    Column 4. V, the variance between the balances in the two preceding columns (column 3 minus column 2).

The different types of column codes and their meanings are as follows: 

COLUMN          MEANING

P95-03          period balances for fiscal period 03 of 1995

Q95-1           quarter-to-date balances through fiscal 
                quarter 1 of 1995

Y95-04          year-to-date balances through fiscal 
                period of 04 of 1995

C               This is to indicate a cash flow statement. Column three 
                must contain the letter 'C' for cash flow statements.

B               Budget figures. The date range will be the same 
                as the date range of the previous column. For 
                example, if the column 2 code is Y95-04 and the 
                column 3 code is B, then column 3 will contain the 
                budget figures for the first four months of 1995.

V               Variance. A column with a column code V will contain 
                the variance between the two previous columns (Column 
                2 minus Column 1).

N               None. Enter a column code of N to print a blank
                column.


DIFFERENT EDITIONS OF STATEMENTS

You may prepare a different edition of a statement simply by changing the fiscal periods in the column codes of the Statement Header record. In the example of Figure 2.11, you may produce the April 1995 edition of this statement by changing P95-03 to P95-04, Q95-1 to Q95-2, Q94-1 to Q94-2, and changing Header Line 4 to "April 1995".

You may prepare different editions of a statement either by changing the current Statement Header record or by adding a separate Statement Header record.

After changing the Statement Header, the statement will have to be recomputed; this is because the computed statement image in the Statement Data file is not updated until you recompute the statement.


DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF STATEMENTS

You may set up other versions of a statement by entering additional Statement Header records which use the same Statement Number. For instance, the Profit and Loss Statement described in the section above may have an accompanying "Period Performance versus Budget" version and a "Quarter Performance versus Budget" version. The differences between these three statements are the type of data in the columns and the date ranges of that data.

To produce these statements, three separate Statement Header records are set up with different column codes as shown below: 


                                 Period         Quarter
                     Profit    Performance    Performance
                     & Loss     vs. Budget     vs. Budget

Statement Name       P&L          P-BUD          Q-BUD
Statement Number     1002         1002           1002
Column Code 1        P95-03       P95-03         Q95-03
Column Code 2        P94-03       B              B
Column Code 3        V            V              V
Column Code 4        Q95-1


VARIATIONS OF STATEMENTS

You may produce a variation of a statement by changing the statement layout format of that statement. This layout format defines how many lines are on the statement, the text of those lines, which accounts make up the balances shown on each line, etc.

The layout format of a statement is defined by records in the Statement Detail file. These records are grouped together by the same Statement Number; it is used to reference this particular statement layout format when the statement is being computed.

Once a statement layout is set up, it will not normally be changed for routine usage. If you want to set up a new statement layout or modify an existing layout, you must add or change records in the Statement Detail file.


Recurring Journal Entries

MyBooks provides a Recurring Journal transaction file which holds complete transaction entries for recurring transactions such as rent, fixed periodic license fees, etc. These transactions do not have to be reentered each month. At the desired posting time, you simply select which transactions are to be copied to the regular journal transaction file for further processing. The "last period posted" is maintained in each Recurring Journal transaction to prevent accidental double posting during the same fiscal period.


Consolidate Companies

If you are keeping G/L books for two or more companies, at the end of any period you may want to see a consolidated ledger. This General Ledger package allows you to consolidate up to 30 companies into one ledger. Although the Chart of Accounts for each should be set up in a similar manner they need not match. The consolidation function will combine balances for common account numbers.

To see a consolidated picture of your companies, first, a consolidating company needs to be set up. The Master Company Controls record (see the help in your Maintenance ToolBox) has a flag - Consolidating or Subsidiary. The answer to this of course should be 'C'. All other companies should have this set to 'S'. This company should not have any data set up in it except for the fiscal calendar.

Next, you would run the consolidation program (found on the main menu). This function builds a brand new Chart of Accounts file in the consolidating company and then copies in all the accounts found in the subsidiary companies, combining the balances of common account numbers. A report showing any anomalies found in the process is automatically printed. This process may be run as many times as you need - it rebuilds the Chart every time.

Once this function is completed you may run the Trial Balance reports and any statements defined in the consolidating company. The General Ledger report itself is not particularly useful here because no details of transactions are brought into the consolidating company.

Note that any activity in the subsidiary companies is not reflected in the consolidating company unless it occurred before the consolidation process was executed.


Close to Retained Earnings

Use Compute & Post Closing Entry function to close the profit & loss accounts to retained earnings. This process sums all P&L accounts and posts the result into the specified retained earnings account. No entries are made into the P&L accounts themselves. This would prevent the ability to generate statements for the previous year. Instead, all the programs in the MyBooks General Ledger system view all P&L type accounts as having a year opening balance of zero, regardless of the closing balance of the prior year.

If you close out erroneously, use the Reverse Closing Entry option to undo the close-out.


Vendor 1099s

Use this set of functions to produce the government required forms for those vendors who are specified to be reported on this basis. Instead of producing hard-copy 1099's on pre-printed forms, you may choose to file electronically using a Mag Media (magnetic media such as floppy diskettes) file.

All year long, the total amount purchased from each 1099 vendor is accumulated automatically in the vendor records. Before producing the 1099s, you have the opportunity to review those totals and even make changes manually, if necessary. After the 1099s are produced you must use the last option to clear those accumulated amounts so that the programs can begin accumulating the totals for the new year.


Employee 1099s

Use this set of functions to produce the government required forms for those employees who are specified to be reported on this basis. Instead of producing hard-copy 1099's on pre-printed forms, you may choose to file electronically using a Mag Media (magnetic media such as floppy diskettes) file.


W-2s

Use this set of functions to produce the government required forms for those employees for whom you have withheld and paid taxes. Instead of producing hard-copy W-2's on pre-printed forms, you may choose to file electronically using a Mag Media (magnetic media such as floppy diskettes) file.



Accountant's Page: Reports & Lists


Transaction Register

This is a numerically ordered list of all posted journal transactions.


Chart of Accounts

This is a simple list of your Chart of Accounts with all the data set up using the Maintain Chart of Accounts function.


Trial Balance

This report is directly associated with the Chart of Accounts and is available in detail or summary format. The detail lists all regular (non-control) accounts with debit, credit, and balance totals. The summary Trial Balance shows only the control accounts with debit, credit, and balance totals. You specify the date range of the Trial Balance.


General Ledger

This report prints the detailed transaction entries for each account and provides the audit data needed by accountants. It is available for operator selected fiscal period and account number ranges.


Profit & Loss

This report is based on what was set up using the Set Up Financial Statements programs, and is considered a standard accounting tool in measuring the financial health of your company. When you create a new company, the initial version of this report is automatically generated for you, but you may modify it as needed. This statement shows the results of your company's activities in terms of revenues, expenses, and net income for a specific period of time.


Balance Sheet

This report is based on what was set up using the Set Up Financial Statements programs, and is considered a standard accounting tool in measuring the financial health of your company. When you create a new company, the initial version of this report is automatically generated for you, but you may modify it as needed. This statement reflects the company's financial position in terms of assets, liabilities, and owner's equity at a given point in time.


Cash Flow Statement

This report is based on what was set up using the Set Up Financial Statements programs, and is considered a standard accounting tool in measuring the financial health of your company. When you create a new company, the initial version of this report is automatically generated for you, but you may modify it as needed. This statement shows the flow of cash into and out of a business for a period of time. It will help answer the guestion of "where did the money go?" by reporting activities that have a direct effect on cash.


Budget Variance

This report shows budget and actual amounts per period for specified accounts. This report also shows the difference between the actual and budget as an amount and a percentage.


Sales Taxes

This report shows, for each taxing authority, a tax summary line for each date on which taxes were collected. The summary line includes the date, the total sales amount, total freight, total taxable amount, total tax, and the total for each part of the tax code (e.g., state, county, local). This report may be printed on demand for any date range. The amounts of all the dates are totaled for each taxing authority.