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Fastbase Accounting System - Online Manual

GL Account Types

Document 103409/1

Entered Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:33 by Peter Campbell
Updated Wed, 20 May 2020 11:06
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Enter the type and description for each general ledger account classification.

FastBase provides some default types which you can then manipulate to suit your own requirements. By default the system adds the following types:

Shareholders Funds (SH)
Current Assets (CA)
Current Liabilities (CL)
Fixed Assets (FA)
Term Liabilities (TL)
Directors Current Account (DA)
Income (IN)
Expenses (EX)

The following fields are also set by default for each type, these will only need to be maintained if you add your own account types;

Default Balance:
Specify Debit or Credit. Only income and liabilities should be defined as 'Credit'.

Trading Account:
Whether the section is on the Balance Sheet or P/L Report. Enter 'Yes' for trading accounts, this means this GL type belongs to the P/L Report. 'No' means the GL type belongs to the Balance Sheet report.

Accumulator Effect:
Set the method for calculating accumulators and sub-section totals. Accumulators are defined in Report Action and are calculated from all the balances in a section of the report (e.g. 'A'). Sub-section totals are automatically generated on both the Profit & Loss Report and the Balance Sheet from all the balances of a sub-section(e.g. 'A1'). Accumulator effect can be either add or subtract.

Total Effect:
Set the method for calculating totals on the Profit & Loss Report and Balance Sheet . 'Totals' refers to any totals which are calculated across sections -- i.e. those defined in report action, as well as any automatically generated grand total on a report. Compare with Accumulator Effect. Total effect can be either add or subtract.

Report Account:
Either display individual account balances as normal (i.e. as they are under GL Account Enquiry) on the financial reports, or with the sign reversed. Changing this value will have no effect on any totals or accumulators on the financial reports.

Report Sequence:
Enter a 2 digit sequence code, the first character is a letter which defines a section, the second is a number, which defines a sub-section.
For profit and loss (trading) accounts use the following sequences:

A1 = sales income
A2 = cost of sales, action "Gross Profit" (optional).
B1 = expenses

For balance sheet types use the following sequences (example only):

A1 = current assets
A2 = fixed assets, action "Total Assets"
B1 = current liabilities
B2 = term liabilities
B3 = shareholders funds

Report Action:
Fastbase has a feature for structuring the Balance Sheet reports. Each GL Type has one sub-section of the report, eg. Assets or Liabilities. The sub-sections are grouped together into sections. Sub-sections (ie. GL Types) are identified by a letter-number code, eg. A1. This is set in Utilities - Types - GL - Report Sequence. All GL Types with the same Section Code letter belong to the same section.

-accumulator {A "Total Assets"}

is to sum up all the figures in section A. -accumulator {B "Total Liabilities"}is to sum up all the figures in section B.

-accumulator {B "Total Liabilities"} -total {"Net Assets" 1}

means at the same place summing up section B and also working out the Net Assets' amount.

If a total is supposed to go at the end of this type then include the following syntax:

-total {"heading" 1}

Replace "heading" with the description to report, eg: "Total Assets". The 1 means reset the totals to zero, use a 0 to keep the current total. The next type will keep accumulating.

See Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Report for details about running financial reports.

More details about the Report Action option:
By default the reports already have a total for each sub-section. You can't add any extra totals for a sub-section. There are no totals for a Section by default. The report structuring feature allows you to add additional totals for a Section. You can also total across prior Sections.

In Utilities - Types - GL you can set a "Report Action" per each GL Type, as follows.

-accumulator {Section "Heading"}

The Section refers to the Section Code you want to total up. This must be the same code as the current GL Type's Report Sequence. This creates a new line-item on the report, summing up the prior GL Types for this Section (and the current one). Normally you would put this on the last GL Type for the section.

Examples:

-accumulator {A "Total Assets"}        Sum up all the figures in section A

-accumulator {B "Total Liabilities"}    Sum up all the figures in section B

"Total Assets" and "Total Liabilities" are typical headings.

-total {"Heading" Reset}

The total feature is for accumulating across prior sections. This creates a new line-item on the report, the total of all prior sections in the report (including the current one). The total is affected by the "Report Effect" field in each prior GL Type (ie. sub-section).
Reset is 0 or 1. If reset is 1 the running total is reset to zero after the line-item is produced. If reset is 0 (false) the running total keeps it's value and the next section will keep accumulating.

Example:

-total {"Net Assets" 1}    is to calculate Net Asset = Total Asset - Total Liability = Section A + Section B(neg)

-total {"Working Capital" 0}

You can only have one -accumulator per GL Type. You can only have one -total per GL Type. You may have both -accumulator and -total.