Nominal Ledger

Ramdata Ledger Accounting System

Nominal Ledger User Manual

This manual explains the general facilities available in the Ramdata Ledger Accounting System and does not necessarily correspond in detail to any particular installation.

This manual contains confidential information and must not be transmitted to third parties in any form, nor copied except strictly for use on the installation for which it was supplied.

Introduction

The Ramdata Nominal Ledger is a powerful and flexible accounting system that provides a full set of facilities for the maintenance and management of nominal ledger accounts. It is fully compatible with the Ramdata Sales and Purchase Ledgers with which it may be integrated for automatic posting of transactions.

Account Structure

Each account in the Nominal Ledger maintains period balances for the current year of 12 or 13 periods, with comparative balances for the periods of the previous year. There is a provision for entering period budgets for each account which can be included on reports. Transactions posted automatically from the Sales and Purchase Ledgers and those posted directly into the Nominal Ledger may be retained individually in the ledger for enquiry and reporting, or may be consolidated by batch into a single transaction for each account. Transactions may be retained in the ledger for the full year if required, or may be consolidated by period in selected accounts to conserve disc space.

The Ramdata Nominal Ledger accounts may be set up, identified as either revenue and expense accounts (Profit and Loss), or control accounts (Balance Sheet). Each Nominal Code consists of four parts; a company code of 3 alphanumeric characters, a department code and a section code each of 2 alphanumeric characters, and an account code which may be up to 6 numeric characters or up to 10 alphanumeric characters. Thus the full Nominal Code may be up to 17 characters long and may be analysed at 3 levels. The Trial Balance report prints all Nominal Codes in Code sequence, the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports may consolidate any required selection of Nominal Codes onto a single line.

Transaction Posting

Direct transaction entry routines are provided for Journals, Standing Journals, and Accruals/Prepayments. Standing Journals automatically post into the specified account for the specified number of periods. These can be used for example to automatically allocate a quarterly bill as an expense to each of the three periods of the quarter. Accruals/Prepayments are automatically reversed in the period following entry and can be used for example for entering a purchase reserve.

All transactions are entered in batches which may be checked and amended before finally posting to the ledger. A batch may not be posted to the ledger unless the total of the credits in the batch equals the total of the debits in the batch, and the total of the credits equals a control total entered with the batch header. Thus the Nominal Ledger will always be in balance.

Accounting Periods

The age of a transaction is determined by the batch period specified in the batch header and not by any date entered with the transaction. Period end dates are provided for reference and may be set up as required. Obviously the period end dates used in the Sales and Purchase Ledgers must correspond.

Normally two periods are considered as open for posting in the Nominal Ledger (except in the last period of the year when only that would be open). The final period reports and statements would be available only for the periods prior to those two. The Nominal Ledger Period End Routine checks that the ledger is not closed for a period that is still open in the Sales or Purchase Ledgers. Normally the Sales and Purchase Ledger will close for a given period before the Nominal Ledger. They should not be allowed to get further ahead than that, and at the end of the year it is necessary that the Sales and Purchase Ledgers should not be allowed to post into the first period of the new year, while the Nominal Ledger is still in the old year.

Reports

The main outputs from the ledger are a complete audit trail of all transactions posted, listings of complete account details and balances, a listing of the retained transaction history by account, the Trial Balance, Profit and Loss Report, and Balance Sheet. The format of the financial statements may be customised to individual requirements and does not depend in any way on the structure of the account codes. Screen enquiries may be made on account details and transactions.

Data Security

Full provision is made for taking regular security copies of the Nominal Ledger data, and if necessary, for the data to be restored.

General

The Ramdata Nominal Ledger is written in compiled Data Basic to run on the PICK operating system. It makes full use of the flexible PICK file structure and its data files are accessible to the user orientated ACCESS enquiry and report writing system, under password control if required.

This manual should be read in conjunction with the Ramdata Ledger General Operations Manual, particularly with regard to screen handling, printer management, file security, and file sizing.

Nominal Code Structure

The Nominal Ledger can maintain a complete set of accounts for each of a number of companies, and each company may be sub-divided into departments, and departments into sections. Each section can then have any number of nominal accounts. The Complete Nominal Code consists of four parts:

Company Code 3 AN

Department Code 2 AN

Section Code 2 AN

Account Code 10 AN or 6 N

Each part of the code may be of any length up to its maximum, and the system automatically brings the codes into a standard format, so that reports will be neatly columnised in the following way:

If the account code contains any non-numeric chaacter (any character other than the digits 0-9) then it is standardised to a length of 10 characters

If the account code is purely numeric then it is standardised to a length of 6 digits

If any code contains any non-numeric characters, it is left justified and filled at the right with asterisks to its maximum length

If any code is purely numeric, it is right justified and filled at the left with zeros to its maximum length

Thus a complete nominal code is either 13 or 17 characters long, but it is only necessary to key-in significant characters and digits.

In designing the nominal codes for a particular application it is best to decide whether each part of the code should be numeric or alpha-numeric as a rule, and if any part is determined to be alphanumeric, all codes in that part must contain at least one non-numeric character. A trailing asterisk will serve.

In many cases each section will have a similar set of account codes, the same code should preferably be used for the same account in each section, so that wages for example in Department A, Section 2, will have the same account code as wages in Department B, Section 3.

When entering nominal codes, in most cases each part of the code is entered separately and the description relevant to that code is displayed for verification. The code is automatically brought to the standard format. In some cases the whole nominal code is entered as a single field.

There will be many nominal accounts which would not normally be thought of as being within a section of a department; Financial Costs and Purchase Control for example. These could be set up in section 1 of department 1 called Head Office, of Finance Department. However the structure of Nominal Ledger is completely flexible and under the control of the user.

File Maintenance

Company Divisions

Each Company, Department, and Section in the nominal ledger has a code and a description which must be set up in Company Divisions Maintenance before the nominal accounts are created.

Enter Company Division Code Records

Company 3 AN

Description 30 AN

Department 2 AN

Description 20 AN

Section 2 AN

Description 20 AN

After completing an entry the option is given to Accept or Reject the entry. If accepted the cursor returns to the Company prompt and the previous entry displays as a default. Press escape to exit from the screen, return to enter a further department or section for the same company, or enter a new company code.

Press escape at any point to skip back one field to amend (or accept) a previous entry. If escape is used to exit from the screen without having accepted the current entry, the current entry is rejected.

Statement Line Definition

The financial statements produced by the Ramdata Nominal Ledger, the Profit and Loss Report and the Balance Sheet, cam be customised by the individual user to produce the report layout required. The layout can be changed at any time. In order to accomplish this, every nominal account is given a line number which specifies where it will print on the statement and each line is given a line definition which defines its type and format. Any number of nominal accounts may be given the same line number, which means that they will all print as a single total on that line.

Statement Line Types

There are three types of statement line:

Type L This is a normal value line that prints the total balance of one or more accounts.

Type H This is a heading line that only prints a heading to begin a particular section of a statement.

Type Tn The statement print routines maintain nine separate accumulations. Every account balance that is printed is added into all nine accumulators. When a Tn line is printed the value in accumulator number n is printed on that line, and that and all lower numbered accumulators are cleared to zero. They then resume accumulating as further type L lines are printed.

To take a simple example, if a profit and loss statement is to consist of three groups of type L lines, for Sales accounts, purchase accounts, and overhead accounts, then T1 could be used to print the individual sub-totals for sales, purchases and overheads, T2 could print the gross margin , and T3 could print the profit. There would probably also be type H lines before each of the three groups to provide headings.

Statement Line Definition Maintenance

There is a separate menu line for line definition for the Profit and Loss Report and the Balance Sheet. Both are maintained in exactly the same way. Options are provided to enter new line definitions, amend existing definitions, or to delete existing definitions. A complete listing of each of the statement line definition files can be printed by selecting the options on the Reports Menu. Statement line definitions must be set up before a line number is entered on an account record.

Enter Statement Line Definition Records:

Line Number 1-9999 Line numbers are allocated separately on the Balance Sheet and the Profit and Loss report. Lines print consecutively on the statements but gaps may be left in the sequence so that new lines can be added in the future if required.

Line Type H Line prints a heading only

L Prints the total balance for one or more accounts

T1-T9 Prints the total contained in the specified accumulator and clears that and all lower numbered accumulators to zero

Narrative 25A The narrative, if any to print

on this line. If the line is Type H the narrative prints as a heading. If type L the narrative prints alongside the balance figure.

Line Advance 0-3 Skip 0-3 lines before printing

this line

N Throw to a new page before printing this line

The following entries are skipped for a type H line:

Print Column R Print value in right hand column

L Print value in left hand column. Applies only to Balance Sheet lines.

Zero Suppress Y Omit this line if value is zero

N Print zero values

Schedule Y After printing the statement

print a schedule of all accounts

included in this line.

N No schedule for this line

Normal Sign D Normal sign of this line is

Dr (+)

C Normal sign of this line is

Cr (-)

Signs do not print on the statements, but if the value on this line does not have the normal sign, then the figures will be enclosed in parentheses.

Nominal Ledger Account Maintenance

Any number of nominal accounts may be set up and the account structure within each company in the ledger need not be the same. The layout of the financial statements does not depend in any way on the account codes, (with the exception of the Trial Balance which prints in Nominal Code order), so these may be allocated freely as required. There is no necessity that the codes for the same account in different companies should be the same, although it is usually convenient and helpful to users if they are.

The Account Maintenance screen has three options; to create new accounts, to amend and to delete existing accounts. Enter option 1 to create new accounts.

Enter Nominal Account Records:

Company Company Code 3 AN

Department Department Code 2 AN

Section Section Code 2 AN

On entry of each part of the code the description from the Company Divisions record displays for verification.

Account Code Up to 10AN or up to 6N. a prompt is given if the account already exists.

Account Name 20AN. This name appears on screen enquires, the Trial Balance, and on schedules to the statements. It does not appear on the statements themselves where the Narrative from the statement line definition is used.

Account Type Balance Sheet accounts must be type 0. Profit and Loss accounts may be given a type number from 1 to 99. The type number may be used to select accounts for ad hoc reports and it is used as a selection criterium when printing operating statements. The account type may be changed at any time.

Statement Line Number 1-9999 This is the line, defined in Statement line definitions, on which the balance of this account will print on the Balance Sheet or Profit and Loss Report, consolidated with any other accounts having the same line number.

Consolidated Indicator Y/N All transactions are posted to the nominal ledger as individual records which may be retained to the year-end if required and if storage capacity allows. After posting there is an option to consolidate the transactions into a single transaction in each account for each source ledger batch. This a Sales Ledger invoice batch in which all nominal analyses were to the same nominal account, would consolidate to three records; one each for the Sales Revenue, Sales Control, and VAT Control accounts. The consolidated transactions are identified by source ledger and batch number.

The consolidate indicator allows individual accounts to be excluded from the consolidation process if run. Thus the purchase analysis records could be individually retained, while the sales analysis and other accounts are consolidated.

A complete listing of the Chart of Accounts showing the account definitions (not balances) can be printed by selecting that option in the reports menu.

Amend Nominal Account Records

Option 2 on the Account Maintenance Menu provides for the amendment of existing account details. Enter the full nominal code and the account details display. Enter line number to amend any individual field and then accept the record as amended or reject the amendments and retain the record unchanged. Once an account has been properly set up it is only possible to change the account name, statement line number, and the consolidate indicator.

Delete Nominal Account Records

Enter option 3 on the account maintenance menu. Enter the full nominal code and the account details display and the screen prompts for confirmation that the account should be deleted. An account can only be deleted if the current balance is zero, all of the period balances are zero, and there are no transactions. Normally an account will only be deleted after a year end unless it was set up by mistake.

Account Balance Maintenance

Account Balance Maintenance provides for the entry of the period balances for the previous year, for comparative purposes, the opening balance for the previous year and this year, and for the budget figures for this year. Previous year balances will normally only be entered on initially setting up the ledger. This year’s balances can only be entered by posting journals in normal transaction entry.

Note that period balance are always the total balance posted for the period. The current balance on the account in the sum of the year opening balances and the period balances. This current balance is automatically calculated by the system when required.

On entry from the menu the screen goes directly into Account Balance Maintenance. Enter each part of the required Nominal Code separately and the existing account details display. The cursor skips through all fields, except current year period balances, allowing the balances to be entered. The maximum value that may be entered is �999 million. Note that the year opening balances for a Profit and Loss account must be zero.

When all the details have been entered the option is given to accept or reject the entry or to enter a line number to amend any individual field.

Amendment of account balances is carried out in the same screen. Any balances that have already been entered are displayed and may be accepted or amended.

Posting Transactions

Separate menu options and screens are provided for posting Journals, Standing Journals, Accrual and Prepayment Journals, into the Nominal Ledger. In addition the Batch Maintenance Menu provides options for posting into the Nominal Ledger transaction batches automatically passes across by the Sales and Purchase Ledger. The following sections refer only to posting journals directly into the Nominal Ledger.

Batch Control

All transactions are posted into the Nominal Ledger in batches, each batch controlled by a Batch No. and a control total of the values being posted in the batch. The Batch No. may be entered by the operator or it may be automatically generated from a sequence number generator maintained by the system. In either case it is validated as not duplicating any batch no. already existing in the ledger. A batch may contain any number of journals and the journal reference numbers are derived from the batch number followed by the sequence number of the journal within the batch.

As the journals are being entered a control total is accumulated of the total of the debits in the batch. The batch may not be posted to the ledger unless this accumulated total agrees with the control total entered with the batch header, and unless the total of the debits in the batch is the same as the total of the credits. The entered control total may be amended bur amendment is protected by a security code.

Until a batch is posted to the ledger it may be re-entered and journals may be added, amended or deleted, and the whole batch may be deleted.

The status of all batches may be displayed on an enquiry screen or may be printed on a report.

After posting to the ledger the batch header record remains on file and may appear on the batch status report until the year end. Each type of journal must be entered in a separate batch. Note that journals in an unposted batch do not appear in any way on the ledger itself.

Batch Preparation

Journals should be prepared for entry to the Nominal Ledger by being collected into batches, each batch containing only one type of journal. A batch may contain any number of journals, but it is advisable to keep the number reasonably low so that it is easier to ding any errors that may occur, and so that the batch entry may be easily completed in a single session. The balancing nominal analysis and control account postings should both be in the same batch, so that the actual net batch total value is always zero. For each batch a control total should be calculated which is the arithmetic sum of all the debit (for all the credit) journals in the batch.

If the batch number is allocated before entry this should be written on the batch control total tally roll. If the system generated batch number is used, this should be written on the tally roll when the batch is entered. In either case the sequence number of each journal in the batch should be written on the journal document so that the journal document will be identified with the same reference number as the journal record within the Nominal Ledger. Enter the details of each batch in a batch book showing Date, Batch No. and Type, number of transactions, and Batch Control Total.

Post batches to the ledger regularly so that a backlog of work does not build up, and there is an even flow of work through the system.

Journal Types

Nominal Journal Posts a value to a Nominal Account for the batch period.

Accrual/Prepayment Posts a value to a Nominal Account for the batch period and automatically generates a journal of equal value and opposite sign to be posted to the following period. This type of journal is used so that an accumulating charge may be apportioned to a number of periods although the actual lump sum invoice may be posted in advance (prepayment) or in arrears (accrual).

Standing Journal Automatically posts a journal for a given amount, for a given number of periods. Would be used instead of an Accrual/Prepayment where the periodic charge is fixed. The automatic posting is effected in the period before the one in which it is first to be posted. A Standing Journal cannot be run over the end of a year.

The internal reference number generated by the system for each automatic posting of a standing journal is the normal reference number of Batch number: Sequence number, suffixed by an asterisk followed by a sequence number of the posting.

Batch Header Entry

Select a menu option for posting the type of journal required. The batch header screen will display and the following fields are entered.

Batch Number 4N Enter Null to obtain the next system generated or enter a 4 digit batch number. If a batch number already exists in the ledger as an open batch, that batch header will display and may be rejected or accepted and the batch processed. If the batch number exists as a posted or deleted batch, it will be rejected.

Batch Period Defaults to the current Nominal Ledger period and may be amended to any period which has not been closed in the Nominal Ledger.

Batch Date Defaults to the end date of the batch period and may be amended to any date within the batch period.

Control Total �7.2 The calculated total of the debits in the batch.

Company Code 3A The company to which this batch is to be posted.

Operator 10A A field that may be printed on reports identifying the operator.

For an Accrual/Prepayment batch an entry is also made for the journal type:

Accrual/Prepay A Accrual

P Prepayment

For a Standing Journal an entry is made for the last period for which the journal is to remain in effect. This cannot be beyond the end of the current year.

Last Period Enter period number,

The screen also displays:

Current Nominal Ledger period

Current Period end date

Number of Transactions in the batch

Accumulated batch debit value

These fields may not be amended. The last two are initially zero.

After entering the batch header details the screen prompts:

Accept Y/N/E or field number to amend

Y to accept the screen and proceed to transaction entry

N to reject the screen without recording the batch header and return to the Batch Number prompt. Enter Escape to exit from the screen

E to accept the screen and record the batch header, but exit from the screen leaving the batch open for further entries.

Field Number to Amend Any amendable field on the screen may be amended by entering the field number.

Journal Entry

Journals are entered into the batch line by line on the screen – 15 journals to a page. The screen automatically pages as required during journal entry. The journal internal reference number is the batch number followed by a 4 digit sequence number of the journal within the batch, from 0001 up, so the internal reference number is always automatically generated. The sequence number displays on the journal entry screen as the line number. The following entries are made on each line.

Nominal Code The Company Code defaults to that entered in the batch header and may not be amended. Enter the Department, Section, and Account Codes separately, and the code descriptions display for confirmation.

Amount �7.2 Normally entered without sign and the Dr/Cr indicator is set according to the normal sign of the account. If a negative sign is entered the indicator is reversed.

Dr/Cr Indicator This field automatically displays depending on the type of the account and any sign entered with the journal amount. Normal signs are, Expenses and Assets are debits, Revenues and Liabilities are credits.

Transaction Date Defaults to the end date of the batch period and may be amended to any date. This date does not affect the period to which the transaction will be posted, which depends only on the batch period.

Comment 25A Any comment may be entered, which may appear on reports.

Enter null at the Department Code prompt to terminate entry. The batch may be accepted or rejected or any line may be amended. The line number to amend need not be currently displayed on the screen, the system will automatically display the correct page when a line number is entered. Further lines may be added to the batch by entering the first vacant line as line number to amend. A line can only be deleted in effect by amending the value to zero.

A batch may no be accepted unless the total of the credits entered equals the total of the debits. If this is not so, the amount of the imbalance is displayed. If it is necessary to leave the batch while the cause of the discrepancy is found, enter a temporary balancing transaction for this amount. This can be amended later. On accepting any journal entry screen the batch header is redisplayed showing the accumulated batch total and the number of transactions in the batch.

Batch Amendment

If a batch number that already exists as an open batch is entered on the batch header screen, the details of that batch will be displayed. No amendment may be made to the batch header details except for the Control total which may be amended on entry of a security code. If the screen is accepted with ‘Y’ the transaction entry screen displays showing any transactions that are already entered in the batch. These may be amended and further transactions entered. A batch may be entered and amended any number of times until it is posted.

Batch Maintenance

Post Batches

As batches of transactions are posted into the Sales and Purchase Ledgers, posting batches are automatically created in the Nominal Ledger to carry the transactions through to the Nominal accounts. Each nominal batch is given a batch number from the Nominal Ledger sequence and each transaction is identified by the sequence number within its batch. Thus all transactions within the Nominal Ledger have a consistent reference number. However, the original Sales or Purchase Ledger transaction reference number is recorded on each transaction in the Nominal Ledger, and can be used for selection and reporting. The Nominal Batch Maintenance Menu provides a separate lien for posting Sales, Purchase, and direct entry Nominal batches to the nominal accounts. In this way the currency and period ending of the three ledgers can be individually controlled.

In each case posting is by a range of batch numbers. On entry from the Maintenance Menu the screen prompts for the first and last batch numbers to be entered, the same batch number may be entered to both prompts to post a single batch. Enter A to the first prompt to post all available batches. An audit listing of all transactions to be posted is printed.

Nominal Ledger Audit Report

This report is automatically printed as batches are posted into the Nominal Ledger. It is sorted by transaction reference within nominal code within batch, with sub-totals for the batches.

The report shows the following transaction details:

Nominal Code

Account Name

Transaction (Internal) Reference

Transaction Date

Source Ledger

Source Batch Number

Comment

Debit Amount

Credit Amount

The report cannot be reprinted and a back-up of the data files must be taken before any post to the Nominal Ledger is run.

As the batches are posted, the batch transaction records are deleted and the batches can no longer be amended. The batch header records are retained on file with status POSTED until the year end.

Batch Status Enquiry

An enquiry on the status of all batches in the ledger can be made at any time. On entry from the menu the screen prompts for a range of batch numbers to display, enter ‘A’ for all batches. This selection prompt is useful since batch headers are retained until the year end and the whole year’s batches may be displayed if required. Batch headers are displayed by batch number within batch type, and the following information is shown:

Batch No.

Batch Type

Control Total

Accumulated Total

Number of Transactions

Source Ledger, SL, PL, NL

Operator I.D.

Status, OPEN, POSTED, DELETED

Delete Batch

An open batch may be deleted by entering this option. The screen displays the batch header details and prompts for confirmation that the batch should be deleted. All transactions are deleted from the batch file, but the batch header record is retained on file, marked as deleted, for reference until the year end.

Reports

Nominal Ledger Daybooks

Four Daybook options are provided on the Reports Menu; Sales Ledger postings, Purchase Ledger postings, Nominal Ledger postings and All postings. For each report there is an option to print all postings for the period to date, or only postings entered since the Daybook was last printed. This second option can only be taken once for a given set of transactions. Thus there are three levels at which listings of postings can be taken; the individual Batch Audit listing, the Daybook listing for postings since the last report, and the Daybook listing for the period to date. Whatever reports are taken it is important that a complete listing is retained for audit and security purposes, of all postings to the Nominal Ledger, and it is recommended that a complete Daybook listing is taken as part of the regular month end procedure.

Note that if consolidation is run, the individual transactions are deleted and so the Daybooks should be printed before consolidation.

The Daybooks print by Internal Reference within Batch within Source Ledger, and show the following information:

Period No.

Internal Reference

Date

Source Ledger

Source Transaction Reference

Comment

Company

Department

Section

Nominal Account

Account Description

Debit Amount

Credit Amount

Sub-totalled for account.

Ledger Listing

This report lists all transactions posted during any period showing for each Nominal Account the period balance brought forward, the transactions posted, and the period balance carried forward. On entry from the menu the required period is entered. The report may be printed for any period at any time. If consolidation has been run for the selected period only the consolidated balances will appear. The information printed on the report is the same as for the postings reports.

Chart of Accounts List

This report lists all Nominal Accounts in Nominal Code sequence showing the following details:

Nominal Code

Account Name

Type

Statement Line

Consolidate Indicator

Schedule of Accounts

This report lists all Nominal Accounts in the order in which they would appear on the statements, but showing each account on a separate line. It lists the following information for any period:

Company Code

Department Code

Section Code

Account Code

Account Description

Opening Balance

Posting Total for Period

Closing Balance

Financial Reports

The Financial Report consists of the Trial Balance, the Profit and Loss Report and the Balance Sheet. The reports may be printed for any period at any time and may be printed for any individual company, or for all companies combined. The Trial Balance lists all accounts in the ledger in nominal code sequence, but the format of the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet can be designed for the individual user as described in the section ‘Statement Line Definition’.

Trial Balance

The Trial Balance lists all accounts in the Nominal Ledger in nominal code sequence showing for each account:

Nominal Code

Account Name

Balance Brought Forward

Amount Posted for Period

Amount Accrued in Period

Closing Balance

Sub-totals are shown for Section, Department and Company. The Company Total and the overall total must of course be zero.

The Trial Balance may be printed for any period and for all or any individual company. Before any period is closed in the Nominal Ledger the Trial Balance should be printed and checked so that any incorrect postings can be put right by journals before the period is closed. Since all postings to the Nominal Ledger are necessarily balanced, a non-zero Trial Balance implies a serious fault in the Nominal Ledger which cannot be corrected by normal postings.

On entry from the Reports Menu the screen prompts for a range of company codes, enter the same code as the first and last of the range to print a single company, or ‘A’ as the first code to print all companies. Enter the period number required, which may be any period in the current year up to and including the current period, and select the option to print or suppress accounts with a zero balance.

Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet may be printed for all companies or for any single company, and two periods may be shown side by side to show a comparison, perhaps with last period or with the first period of the year. The format in which the Balance Sheet prints is determined by the Statement line Definition file as described in that section, and this format may be changed at any time.

Regardless of how many companies are included in the Balance Sheet print, all accounts from all companies that have been given the same line number will print in a single total on that line. If that line has been marked for scheduling on the Statement line Definition, then after printing the Balance Sheet a schedule of all accounts on that line will be automatically printed.

On entry from the Reports Menu the screen prompts for two period numbers, and a company code and the Balance Sheet is printed. Enter ‘A’ to the company code prompt to include all companies.

As the Balance Sheet is printed the total balance in all non-Balance Sheet accounts is accumulated and this is printed on the line defined as ‘P & L Line on Balance Sheet’ in the System Parameters. This completes the balance and brings the total of all balances printed to zero.

Profit and Loss Report

The Profit and Loss Report may be printed for all companies or for any single company, and for any required period. Subsidiary reports, or operating statements, may be printed by selecting a single department to print and or a range of account types. The Format in which the Profit and Loss Report prints is determined by the Statement line definition file as described in that section. In addition to this the Profit and Loss Reports Menu provides four alternative layouts which can be freely selected at any time. These are:

Actual Actual period balances only

Actual-Budget Two columns showing actual period balances and the corresponding budget figures.

Actual-Last Year Two columns showing actual period balances and the corresponding balance from last year.

Regardless of how many companies are included in the Profit and Loss Print, all accounts from all companies that have been given the same line number will print in a single total on that line. If that line has been marked for scheduling on the Statement line Definition, then after printing the Profit and Loss Report, a schedule of all accounts on that line will be automatically printed.

On entry from the Reports Menu the Profit and Loss Reports Menu is displayed and the format required is selected. All formats may be printed in a single session if required. The screen then prompts for a period number, a company code, enter ‘A’ for all companies, a department code, a section code, (A for all) and a range of account types. After completing these entries the report prints.

Enquiries

Nominal Account

The full details of any nominal account can be displayed on the screen by selecting this option. The first screen shows the accounts period balances, press return to display subsequent screens listing the accounts individual transaction details.

Date File

The Date File enquiry screen shows the period end dates set for each of the periods of the year, and also indicates the periods that are currently open in the Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledgers.

Period End

The Period End menu provides the routines for closing one period in the Nominal Ledger and opening the next. Once a period has been closed, no further transactions or journals may be posted to it, but all reports and enquiries can still be produced. Note that batch header records are retained in the ledger until the end of the year – there is no facility for purging them, and all transactions, either individually or consolidated, are also retained until the end of the year.

Before running Period End it is necessary that a security back-up in a separate period cycle both to provide a separate, long term data security back-up, and to enable a review to be made of a period at some time in the future if required. This is especially so if consolidation is used.

Consolidate Transactions

This routine consolidates all transactions, not already consolidated, posted in the current period in all accounts not marked for No Consolidation in the Account definition, into a single transaction for each account. The consolidated transaction then acts just as the individual transaction would in reports and enquiries.

Consolidation conserves disc space while still allowing the ledger accounts to be reconstructed from the transaction file.

On entry to the consolidation routine and confirmation to proceed, no further operator action is required.

Ensure that all required period listings have been posted before consolidation is run.

Close Period

Before closing the period the Trial Balance must be printed and checked to ensure that all transactions have been posted correctly, and that all required journal entries and adjustments have been made. Also check that all batches for the period have been posted in from the Sales and Purchase Ledger, and that these ledgers are properly closed for the period. Check that the Nominal Ledger daybooks for the period are complete and correct. Take a data security back-up.

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