General ledger

Nothing is bolted on: an invoice, a payment, a payroll run and a stock adjustment all land in the same ledger, and every report drills back to the transaction that made it.

• Key a journal entry across any number of accounts, with debits and credits balanced before it will post.
• Department and project on any line.
• Reference, description, source and memo on the entry and on each line.
• Recurring journal entries on a schedule.
• Search the ledger by account, date, reference, source, memo or amount.
• Reports subtotal by account, and every figure links to the entry behind it.
• Post-dated and future-dated entries, with the books closable up to a date.
• Attach reference documents to an entry and keep them with it.
• Year end closes the books and rolls the balances into retained earnings.
• Reconcile any bank or cash account against the statement, ticking off cleared items and carrying the outstanding ones forward.

Where to find it General Ledger › Add Transaction  ·  General Ledger › Reports  ·  Cash › Reconciliation  ·  System › Chart of Accounts  ·  System › Audit Control  ·  System › Yearend

Keying a journal entry

1. Open General Ledger › Add Transaction. Enter a reference (or leave it for the next number), the date, and a description.
2. One row per account: choose the account, enter a debit or a credit, and a source and memo if you want them on the report. Update adds rows and shows the running totals.
3. Debits and credits must balance before Post will accept the entry. Department and project can be set on the header.
4. Reopen a posted entry from the report to correct it, Post as new to copy it, or Schedule to repeat it (an accrual, a depreciation run).

Reading the ledger

1. General Ledger › Reports: filter by date, account range, amount range, reference, source or memo; tick the columns; Continue.
2. Limit the account range to one account and the report becomes that account’s ledger with a running balance.
3. Click any column heading to re-sort; click a reference to open the transaction that made the line.

Reconciling the bank

1. Open Cash › Reconciliation, choose the bank account and the period, and press Continue.
2. Every posting to the account is listed. Tick the ones that appear on the statement; the running balance and the difference to the statement balance update as you go.
3. Enter the statement balance. When the difference is zero, press Done — the ticked items are marked cleared and drop off the next reconciliation.

Closing a period

1. System › Audit Control sets the date the books are closed to; nothing dated on or before it can be posted or changed.
2. System › Yearend posts the closing entry: income and expense accounts are cleared to the retained earnings account you choose, with a reference and description of your own.

Double entry in four lines

You only need this for journal entries; every other screen does the double entry for you.

1. Assets and expenses increase with a debit; liabilities, equity and income increase with a credit.
2. You invest 1,000 to start: debit Bank, credit Equity. You pay 100 rent by cheque: debit Rent expense, credit Bank.
3. You bill a customer 200 on 20-day terms: debit Receivables, credit Sales. They pay: debit Bank, credit Receivables.
4. Every entry must balance — the screen will not post until the two columns agree. See How SQL-Ledger works for how the modules post the same way.