\HiFinance 4


 

SECTION 6 - GENERAL LEDGER MENU

 

The General Ledger is designed for use as part of the integrated HiFinance system. It can also be used in stand-alone mode, although some functions, such as BANKING must be accessed through the DEBTORS MENU.

 

The General Ledger provides a means whereby the other sub-systems (eg Debtors, etc.) can be summarised for reporting purposes. Entries can be posted directly into the General Ledger for transactions that do not involve Debtors or Creditors. These include Bank charges, interest payments, Directors’ fees, etc. The information is collated and organised so that HiFinance can produce Profit & Loss Statements and Balance Sheets.

 

The GENERAL LEDGER MENU is accessed as item 6 or <F6> from the MAIN MENU. On selecting this menu the following menu will be displayed:

 


 


To return to the MAIN MENU, press <ESC>.

 

Fields available on the GENERAL LEDGER MASTER file.

 

Name                  Comments

 

ACCOUNT CODE  This is the General Ledger code. This is the code by which the account will be referenced throughout HiFinance. It is of the format 9999.99. Any number from 0000.01 to 9999.99 may be used. Normally, accounts only use the whole number portion of the code. The fractional portion is usually reserved for sub-accounts. This structure allows you to, for instance, split up expenses with, say, account 1000.00 being a heading for CARS and 1000.01 being the first car, 1000.02 being the second, and so on. 1000.99 can be inserted as a sub-totalling account for reporting in the PROFIT & LOSS report.

 

NAME       The name or description of the account, eg. CARS. It may be up to 50 characters long. This field must not be left blank.

 

PERIOD BALANCES    These are the account balances for each by period for this account. They are the sums of all the transactions posted to this account.

 

TOTAL YTD or CLOSING BALANCE HiFinance will display the total of each year at the bottom of the column. (See SECTION 6.2.) Profit & Loss accounts will only show the total of that year. Balance Sheet accounts show a running balance with OPENING BALANCES at the top of each column.

 

EXPECTED SIGN It is normal, in a General Ledger, to show transactions and balances as Debits and Credits, rather than positives and negatives. In HiFinance, every transaction and carries its true sign. This means that every Debit balance is a positive and every Credit balance is a negative. To save clutter on the screen, you are required to enter the expected sign of the account. This is the sign the account will normally have, eg expenses are normally Debit accounts. The field must be D for Debit or C for Credit. HiFinance will display DB after a balance if the balance is negative and the expected sign is Debit. Similarly, CR will be displayed if the balance is positive and the expected sign is Credit. In either case, neither CR nor DB will be displayed if the balance is zero.

 

ACCOUNT TYPE  This field describes to the system what type of account this is. This information is used in certain reports and is also tested in some transaction entry programs. The available options are: A, L, P, R, E, N, M, H, S, T and G. These stand for Asset, Liability, Proprietorship, Revenue, Expense, Appropriation, Main-Heading, Heading, -Sub-Total, Total, Grand-Total respectively. Types M, H, S, T and G represent non-posting accounts. They are used for reporting and internal totalling. HiFinance will stop you from posting to these accounts.

 

DISPLAY WARNING ON USE  This causes certain transaction entry programs to display a warning that the account is not normally posted to, without actually stoping the posting.

 

ASK FOR EMPLOYEE NUMBER This field is only used in certain installations to tell HiFinance that this account should carry an employee number.

 

TAX RATE   HiFinance allows for several tax rates to be defined. Here you define to the system, which rate is to be used. You do not enter the percentage rate here, rather you enter the rate’s number (0 - 9) as defined in the TAX RATES, see SECTION 7.2.7. This allows you to change the percentage rates without having to go back to every General Ledger account.

 

DATE LAST POSTED   This displays the date of the last posting to this account.

 

MODIFIED ON/AT/BY  This displays the last time this record was modified (eg description). It is stamped with the date, time and the usercode of person who did the modification.

 

NOTE                  This is a field that allows you to attach a comment to the account. For instance, you might use this to store details of an asset.

 

If you enable the multi-bank function (see SECTION 7.2.1) the following fields will also appear:

 

IS THIS A BANK If this account is a bank account, you should enter Y here. Otherwise enter N. The default bank (as specified in the CONTROL ACCOUNTS (see SECTION 6.5.2) must be flagged as a bank. If you have tagged the account as a bank, you must enter the following fields. Otherwise the fields are all automatically cleared.

 

BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER Here you enter the bank account number or BSB. There is space for up to 10 digits here although most bank accounts are shorter. Note that only the last 4 digits are significant when searching for a bank account. This field is compulsory if the account is flagged as a bank. Otherwise it is left blank.

 

BANK ACCOUNT NAME      This field contains the name of your cheque account, which might be different to your company name. The field is up to 50 characters long. This field is compulsory if the account is flagged as a bank. Otherwise it is left blank.

 

BANK NAME      This is the name of your bank, eg ANZ, BOM, etc. The field is 3 characters long. This field is compulsory if the account is flagged as a bank and you have enabled the printing of bank deposit slips. Otherwise it is left blank.

 

BRANCH             This is the name of your branch (usually the suburb). The field is 15 characters long. This field is compulsory if the account is flagged as a bank and you have enabled the printing of bank deposit slips. Otherwise it is left blank.

 

ALLOW CHEQUE NUMBER RANGE          Here you enter the lowest and highest cheque numbers you can enter into this account. By default the range is 000000 through to 999999. However, to avoid accidentally entering a cheque number outside the range of your chequebook, you should enter the starting and finishing ranges of your chequebook here. You can always change the numbers when you start a new book. Only one range can be entered here so you cannot run two chequebooks (for the one bank) unless they are in sequential ranges.

 

DATE BANK DEPOSIT      This displays the date of the last deposit to this account. This might be different to the last transaction date.

 

DEPOSITS PENDING        This field will be N initially. When deposits are made (and you have enabled printing of BANK DEPOSIT SLIP see SECTION 1.3.4.3) HiFinance automatically changes this field to Y. When the deposit slip file is cleared, the field is returned to N again. This is a quick reference to see if a DEPOSIT SLIP is printable.

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