Classic Billing - Accounting Preferences

Overview

The account preferences determine the way your system is configured to be in line with the way your business operates.

To configure your Accounting settings go to Admin > Accounting > Account Preferences and edit the details as required

Primary Settings

You will see the screen below after clicking on Account Preferences.  This screen contains the Primary Settings.

Description of each of the Primary Settings seen on the Primary Settings Screen

Base Currency

This is the base currency for your system, this will be used for all reporting (although if an item was sourced in another currency that will show as a reference point).

Multiple Currency Support

• This should only be enabled if your business uses foreign currency (i.e. having foreign currency bank accounts).
• If you enable this option, you must ensure you keep the foreign exchange rates up to date which can be edited via the Currency menu.

GL Transaction delete

We recognize that at times an entry may pass through incorrectly and need deleting. You can either set this as a fully enabled function; or you could leave it disabled and change this setting when the ability to delete a transaction is required.

Where a transaction is deleted, an audit trail will record when it was deleted and by whom. Not all transactions can be deleted - for example if a Bank Rec has been completed a transaction included will now be locked from deletion.

Accepted Credit Cards

This will populate the remittance advice on our old PDF output for Invoices and Debtors statements

Finance Charge %

If your company will be charging clients a Finance Charge this is where you would set the System wide default. This is only used for reporting purposes - it will not automatically calculate a finance charge on an invoice.

Finance Charge Period

Is this rate per annum or per month?

Financial Year Start

This is the date which will determine your Financial year end - and thus move your "Current Year Earnings" into "Retained Earnings". This date should be set to the start date of the year before you move to Actionstep to allow the entering of opening balance debtors (should you choose to age them). For example, if you moved to Actionstep on July 1 2013, but your financial year starts on January 1 we would expect this date to show 1/1/2013 - or even 1/1/2012 (it doesn't matter how early the date is but it must truly reflect the day and month of Financial Year start and it must not be a date after your first transactions)

 Once your system is up and running and everything balances, this date should NEVER be changed. It is not a place where you enter a date for a "Rollover" - Actionstep does not need a "Rollover" process.

Sale\Purchase relations

Within each of your sale purchase transactions there is a tab which shows the relationship of the transaction to another eg: an invoice may be the direct relation of a sales order (the order would have been converted into a sale). By choosing Direct relations you would just see this. In extended relations, if that sales order had come from a quote - the invoice would show the extended relationship.

We recommend choosing Direct relations for this setting.

Accounting Mode

Select which accounting method you use.

• Cash-based accounting recognizes income when money is received.
• Accrual-based accounting recognizes income when goods are shipped or services are rendered.
• Under the cash method, an expense is recognized when it's paid. Under the accrual method, an expense is recognized when the business is invoiced for it.
• So, for example, if in a given period you collect little or no receivables and you pay lots of bills, under the cash-accounting method, you have expense without income — you've lost money. On the other hand, if you collect a lot of money and don't pay your bills, you have big income.
• Accrual-based accounting doesn't care whether you've collected or paid your bills. Income (received or not) is matched to an expense (paid or not), resulting in a proper match of revenue, with the expense generated to produce the revenue.

Cash Allocation Method

This setting determines what will happen if an invoice is part paid under the cash allocation method.

Cash Allocation Natural Order

If you have set the Cash Allocation Method as "Natural Allocation" you then set the order of the allocation (again, only affects part paid transactions)

If using Cash Accounting method, your system may require further set up. See Setting up for Cash Accounting

Accounting Lockout Date

• This field is used to lock the system down to prevent users changing accepted accounting data. This should be used once you "close" a financial period and no longer want any transactions to be posted to the ledger for this period. This affects ALL areas that can post data to the General Ledger. You will not be able to create, edit or delete any Sale, Purchase, Client Payment, Supplier Payment or make any adjustments to the General Ledger before this date.
• We advise that this date is updated by the Administrator on a regular basis to prevent entry error.
• If your GST period covers a lockout date, the return will not be able to generate. You will need to get your administrator to unlock the period while you run the return.
  
  

For Companies with a "Divisional Structure" each time this screen is modified it will update every division,we recommend setting this date for each individual division via Divisional preferences (which will hold if the system account settings are changed)

Opening Balances Date

This sets the date the opening balances are for - so if you do move mid year you would put your start date here. Do note though, that any transactions entered before this date will be ignored. If you are wanting to enter debtors or creditors which are older than this date we recommend setting it as an earlier date,.

Default Shipping Address

This determines which address to use where you may be ordering goods.