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Entering a G/L account number in Macola® ES

Adapted from the Leahy Consulting white paper "ES — Entering a General Ledger Account Number", March 2005.

Before you add an account to the chart of accounts, have your journals and categories set up, and have decided how the chart of accounts should be structured. Macola® ES displays the chart of accounts graphically as balance sheet and profit and loss statements, so the structure you choose is the structure your financial statements take.

Go to the G/L menu, and under General ledger select Chart of Accounts. Click New on the action bar; the Maintain accounts screen opens.

The screen has a Simple and an Advanced mode and opens in Simple. Advanced mode adds the analysis and configuration fields described below.

Basics tab

  1. Key the main segment of the account in G/L Number — up to 9 numeric characters.
  2. Key a Description — up to 25 alpha characters. This is what appears on most entry screens when the account number is keyed. The button to the right adds a description in another language.
  3. Choose a Subadministration. This is the most consequential field on the screen: it decides which journals the account can be linked to and where the account can be entered. Only a bank subtype can be linked to a bank journal, and only a customer subtype to a sales journal. When you enter an A/P voucher, the account in the account no. field must be a vendor account, and the account in the main field must not be a vendor or customer account. The codes are listed below.
  4. For a customer or vendor type, tick Default to use this account as the default when entering sales or purchase invoices.
  5. Tick Blocked to keep the account out of general journal transactions. It can still be used in other packages.
  6. Tick Presentation: Compressed to compress transactions for this account by period in the card view. The card then shows totals per period, and you drill into a period for the full list. Leave it clear and the card lists every transaction. This only changes the view, never the transactions.
  7. Tick Matching to allow transactions booked on this account to be matched during cash flow processing. Customer and vendor accounts have this ticked and greyed out.
  8. Choose a Subtype — Profit & Loss or B/S. This decides which financial statement the account prints on, and whether the account is closed when you process profit and loss at year end.

Matching is worth turning on for receiving accrual

Ticking Matching puts a Link button on the G/L card. From there you can select, link and match multiple transactions, provided the selected transactions balance to zero; Macola® assigns a reconcile number to the linked set. On a receiving accrual account this is the equivalent of comparing the account card against your Received/Not Invoiced report, and it is much quicker.

Categories

Categories decide where accounts appear on the financial statement.

  • Classification is the highest category — Asset, Liability, Revenue, Expense.
  • Sub-classification groups accounts beneath a classification — Cash, Receivables, Payables, Sales, Costs.

Set both for every account. New values are added by clicking the search button and then New on the categories screen. Fill in any of the other three categories, and the three secondary categories, that you use.

The remaining Basics fields

Field What it does
Notes Free text against the account
Ratio Type Classifies the account for ratio calculations
SAF type Classifies the account for the statement of cash flows
Quantities Requires a quantity during general journal entry
Resource Requires entries to be linked to a human resource
Allow Revaluation Allows foreign-currency amounts in this account to be revalued when exchange rates change
Item Requires entries to be linked to an item
Project Requires entries to be linked to a project

Cost Centers / Cost Units tab

Tick Cost Center if a cost center is required for this account during journal entry. Once ticked you must either key a Default Cost Center — the system offers 00000000 — or link a cost center on this tab, or the account cannot be used in journal entry at all. The Search button next to the cost center list finds a cost center to link. The Copy button copies the cost centers from another account; copying adds to the existing links rather than replacing them.

Cost Unit works the same way, with a default of 0000. If no default is keyed here and one is defined on the company settings financial entry screen, that one is used during journal entry. If neither is set, no cost unit defaults.

Budgets tab

Shows the budget information defined for the account. Budgets are set up from the Chart of Accounts.

Extra tab

Nine alphanumeric fields, five currency fields and five check boxes for your own reference information, plus:

  • Period closing account
  • Cash flow statement
  • Inv. Register type
  • Reward type
  • BWA-class
  • Tax code, Percentage private amount, External balance (Credit) account
  • Presentation — Standard, Subtotal or Empty

Standard presentation prints the account name, number and balance on the financial statements, and the account can be used during transaction entry. Subtotal prints a subtotal of every account above it back to the previous subtotal or empty account, and cannot be used during transaction entry. Empty is a heading on the financial statement and cannot be used during transaction entry either.

The Non-ded VAT and Non ded VAT account fields are not used in the US.

Click Save.

After saving: check the debit / credit code

A wrong debit/credit code makes financial statements and budgets wrong

Once the account is saved, verify it is coded as a debit or credit balance account. A green check mark appears in the balance column — D for debit, C for credit — and each account should carry its normal balance.

In Macola® ES the code means the account's true normal balance. In Progression the same indicator controlled parentheses on financial statements, and some users deliberately set it backwards for certain accounts to get the presentation they wanted. Carry that habit into ES and your financial statements and budgets will be wrong. The Budgets package also reads this code to decide whether an entry on the budget screen is a debit or a credit.

To correct it, double-click the appropriate column — D or C — from the Chart of Accounts.

Subadministration codes

Subadministration What it is for
Asset Account Fixed asset accounts — equipment, buildings — if you run the Macola® ES Assets package. Attaching an account to an Asset Group switches the subadministration to Asset Account automatically
Bank Account Accounts that track bank accounts. Required for bank reconciliation and for processing cash receipts and payments, whether checks or EFT
Vendor Account Typically your A/P account. Macola® requires a vendor number on entry — if you do not key one it pulls one in — and transactions appear on the vendor cards. Do not use this code for an account with no subsidiary ledger
Customer Account Typically your A/R account. Macola® requires a customer number and transactions appear on the customer cards. Again, not for accounts with no subsidiary ledger
Stock Your default inventory asset account, defined when the Macola® ES Distribution packages are set up, must be coded Stock
Revenue Entries appear as sales in the Sales Analysis report and in Customer Maintenance statistics. For miscellaneous charges you do not want counted as sales, use Neutral
Expense Entries appear as cost of goods sold in the Sales Analysis report and Customer Maintenance statistics. For freight and similar charges you do not want counted as COGS, use Neutral
Neutral Everything not covered above. Most of your accounts will be Neutral

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