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Primary Accounting Settings

  • Updated

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Overview

Primary Accounting Settings is where values for the main Configuration Settings are selected. Each field is described in more detail below. To access Accounting Settings, navigate to Accounting Home. Under the General Ledger section, click the Accounting Settings tab.

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Note: A safeguard has been introduced to ensure that each required GL Account on the Accounting Settings' Configuration Settings tab references a unique GL Account. 

General Ledger Settings

  • Default Ledger is the transactional ledger for the organization.
  • Current Year Earnings GL Account is used to track the current year’s earnings/net income in the Balance Sheet. When an accounting period is closed, the net income from the P&L will flow through to this Balance Sheet GL account. Once transactions are posted to the system, this setting cannot be changed. This is a required system account and a user cannot post transactions directly to this account.
  • Retained Earnings GL Account is used in the month end close process at year end (automatically posted when the final Accounting Period of the year is closed) to roll the prior year’s net income into the balance sheet. Once transactions are posted to the system, this setting cannot be changed. This is a required system account.

Billing Settings

  • Enable Billing Period Sensitive Aging allows for the creation of AR Aging reports as of the end of any given prior Accounting Period.
    • The default setting when Accounting Seed is installed is set to Off. Most clients will want to enable this setting if they expect to be audited by external auditors or investors.
    • This utility tracks the balances of all unpaid billings at the end of a specific accounting period. 
    • If enabled later it requires extra steps to re-open and then re-close any accounting periods that had been closed.
  • Default Revenue GL Account should be set to the main revenue account associated with your Billings. This is just the organization-wide default, and other Billing functionality will override this like the Revenue GL account associated with a product, and the Revenue GL account entered on the Billing Line.

Accounts Receivable and Cash Receipts Settings

  • AR Control GL Account should be set to the Accounts Receivable GL Account. Once transactions are posted to this GL account, this cannot be changed.
  • Unapplied AR GL Account is used as a clearing account when cash is received but not yet applied to a billing/customer invoice. This is a required account. It should be a balance sheet account, with Sub Type 1 of Assets and, most likely, a Sub Type 2 of Current Asset. Non-profit organizations may want to set this GL Account to a revenue account if they do not use Accounting Seed’s Billing functionality.
  • Customer Payment Adjustment GL Account is used when taking payment discounts.

Payable and Cash Disbursement Settings

  • Enable AP Period Sensitive Aging allows for the creation of AP Aging reports as of the end of any given Accounting Period.
    • The default setting when Accounting Seed is installed is set to Off. Most clients will want to enable this setting if they expect to be audited by external auditors or investors.
    • This utility tracks the balances of all unpaid payables at the end of a specific accounting period. 
    • If enabled later it requires extra steps to re-open and then re-close any accounting periods that had been closed.
  • AP Control GL Account should be set to the Accounts Payable GL Account. Once transactions are posted to this GL account, this cannot be changed.
  • Vendor Payment Discount GL Account is used when taking payment discounts due to vendor terms in the cash disbursements process.
  • Prepaid Expense GL Account is used as the default for the Debit GL Account on the Cash Disbursement in the case when the Cash Disbursement is not originated from one or many Payables and the Debit GL Account field is left blank upon entry.
    • As of the Geranium release, a GL Account with the Bank checkbox checked cannot be saved in the Prepaid Expense GL Account field on Accounting Settings.

Project Accounting Settings

  • Labor Clearing GL Account will be the GL Account that is credited when a time card is posted. The design for Labor GL Account on Accounting Settings is to be a liability account like accrued payroll or payroll clearing. You would relieve this liability when you post your payroll entry from your payroll provider. When a time card is posted, a debit to the Labor GL Account on the project task and a credit to this Labor Clearing GL Account is created for each time card day.
  • Default Project Task Labor GL Account is used to set the labor GL Account automatically on the project task. When a time card is posted, a debit to the Labor GL Account on the project task, (or if blank this Default Project Task Labor GL Account) and a credit to the Labor Clearing GL Account is created for each time card day.

Note: Highlighted information will be effective with the Hibiscus release. 

Product Costing Settings

  • Enable Product Costing is enabled when Accounting Seed’s Orders and Inventory module is installed.  Product Costing enables the weighted-average cost system in Accounting Seed. For more information on this system, please see Inventory Valuation - Weighted-Average Cost. It also posts the cost of goods sold at weighted-average cost during the sale fulfillment process.  For more information on the debits and credits behind product transactions, please see Debit & Credit Entries Created When Posting.
  • Vouchers Payable GL Account is a clearing account used for received inventory that does not yet have a related Payable transaction. Once transactions are posted to this GL account, this cannot be changed.
  • Inventory Variance GL Account is used as the purchase price variance account between standard cost and the actual price paid for inventory. If your company is using weighted-average cost, then this Inventory Variance GL Account will not be utilized. Although the system still requires this account in Accounting Settings, it will not be utilized. This will be addressed in a future release.

    Note: With the Hibiscus Winter 2019 release, Accounting Seed supports a weighted-average cost inventory valuation method. Organizations that have already installed Accounting Seed prior to its Hibiscus Winter 2019 release have been grandfathered though it is highly encouraged that they migrate to the new weighted-average cost methodology. Please contact Support to develop a plan to migrate to weighted-average cost.
  • Work in Process GL Account is used as the WIP account in Accounting Seed’s manufacturing process when building inventory.

Time Card Settings

  • Label for Time Card Variable 1-2 is simply how the Time Card Variable will appear on the Time Card Entry Screen. For example, instead of Time Card Variable 1, it could be called Location.

Cash Flow Statement Settings

  • Enable Cash Flow Statement allows a company the ability to run the cash flow statement. When enabled, it will populate the default cash flow categories. It provides a consolidated view of your cash flow in one screen.
    • NOTE: Thought needs to be put into categorizing cash flow transactions to make them meaningful. Also, additional time and consideration will be taken at the time of entry to tag transactions correctly. The cash flow statement also drives additional data consumption that will be a nuisance for customers not using the data (refer to Cash Flow Settings). 
  • Default Cash Disbursement Category will default as cash disbursements are created, but can be overridden.
  • Default Cash Receipt Category will default as cash receipts are created, but can be overridden.
  • Default Journal Entry Line Category will default on a journal entry line that is populated with a GL account that has the bank checkbox checked but can be overridden.
    • NOTES:
      • Once cash flow statements are enabled, that setting cannot be changed. All cash flow transactions will require an associated cash flow category. Consequently, we recommend that cash flow statement settings only be enabled when initially implementing Accounting Seed or at the beginning of your fiscal/calendar year. If you have questions around this functionality, please submit a case to Accounting Seed Support prior to enabling cash flow statements.
      • Enabling Cash Flow Statement Settings is suggested if you have any of the following circumstances in your accounting:
        • You have many events in your books that drive a large difference between cash and accrual accounting such as:
          • A large value of deferred revenue and/or expense transactions
          • Large-valued accruals
          • A long collection cycle for billings (Over 30 days)
          • A long payment cycle for payables (Over 30 days)
        • You have cash coming in and going out with many sources outside of customers and vendors, such as:
          • Many different investors funding your operations
          • Many different distributions frequently being paid to owners
          • Frequent repurchase and selling of stock
          • Frequent debt issuance, refinancing, and payments 
      • In these situations, the cash flow report is very helpful to have a consolidated view of your cash flow activity. In absence of these events most customers who have smaller and more simple operations can simply run the balance sheet or trial balance and view a standard profit and loss to get an understanding of the cash balance change in their business.

Bank Direct Connect Settings

  • Default Vendor will populate in the bank direct connect screen when the Find Matching Data  button is clicked and there is not a related customer/vendor account. This is helpful for transactions that an account does not need to be created for. For example, a traveling salesperson that eats at many different restaurants and you do not have the need for a new vendor account for each restaurant.

Cash Disbursement PDF Offset Settings

  • The following fields can all be used to alter the positioning of the check when printed to allow for slight differences in printer and PDF alignment.
    • Date Top Offset
    • Date Right Offset
    • Amount Top Offset
    • Amount Right Offset
    • Amount Words Top Offset
    • Amount Words Left Offset
    • Payee Top Offset
    • Payee Left Offset
    • Payee Address Top Offset
    • Payee Address Left Offset
    • Memo Top Offset
    • Memo Left Offset

 

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Release Notes and Schedule

  • Only users with AS Full Permissions can make the changes described in this article.
    Any user that does not have this profile can only read data.
  • A safeguard has been introduced to ensure that each required GL Account on the Accounting Settings' Configuration Settings tab references a unique GL Account.
  • A GL Account with the Bank checkbox checked cannot be saved in the Prepaid Expense GL Account field on Accounting Settings.

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