Special Features The Voucher System Overview The MyBooks voucher system provides convenience, accountability, and security, so you never have to wonder where your money went—or why. Every business continually makes cash disbursements. Most of these disbursements are for overhead expenses (e.g., rent, electricity, office supplies) and inventory (goods purchased for resale). In most cases, the suppliers (vendors) send invoices to the company for the goods or services rendered. In an accrual accounting system such as MyBooks, invoices are entered as they are received, and then paid at a later point in time. Sometimes, payments are made without invoices (e.g., travel or entertainment expenses). In these cases, there is really no documented pre-approval, and a receipt is the only proof of the expense. Enter the "voucher system". A voucher is, in fact, a written authorization of an expense. The voucher system pre-dates computer-based accounting systems, and it remains the method preferred by accountants. This is the method that is built into the MyBooks accounting system. In addition to entering vendor invoices, you enter every other expense as soon as it is anticipated and approved. The voucher may then go through an approval process prior to making payment—whether or not it is based on a vendor invoice. For instance, an invoice should not be paid just because it is received. What if the goods or services were never received? What if an item was refused or returned? What if you never ordered it? What if an employee hands in a receipt for an expense that was not approved? The voucher is basically the beginning and the end of the approval-for-payment process. The voucher system dictates: no voucher—no payment. Voucher Entry In MyBooks, each and every anticipated expense is conveniently entered in the same screen, even if there is no vendor invoice. Rather than using the vendors' invoice numbers to keep track of each expense, which is impossible in the absence of invoices, every expense is assigned a voucher number. This is a sequentially assigned number so that the loss or misplacement of a voucher would be immediately apparent. In MyBooks, no voucher may ever be deleted, so no numbers will ever be missing from the register. Any erroneously entered vouchers may, however, be voided. The voiding process simply marks the voucher invalid and nullifies any quantitative effect it would have on your books. In the MyBooks interfaces, 'vouchers' are synonymous with 'vendor invoices', for the sake of simplicity (what else?).