Tutorial 1 "Getting Started with your ledger"


Introduction

The first thing that you will need to do is setup your books in the program. The books for one entity such as a company or a person are called a Ledger. The ledger can be divided into sub entities such as departments or business/personal. This tutorial will use a company called "Fred's Flowers" as its entity. Fred will break his ledger(entity) into Business and Personal Sub Entities. The sub entity feature is optional and can be ignored for a person or business without departments.


1. Creating a Ledger

  1. Open your browser to the URL where the program was installed.

  2. Login with your user name and password.

The Main Menu screen will appear. We will create a ledger for a fictitious company called Fred's Flowers.


  1. Type Fred's Flowers into the edit field next to the Add New button and click it. The program does not like special characters in the name.

Note: You cannot use punctuation, special characters, or spaces in your name.

  1. Press the back button on your browser and take out the ' and the space so that the name is FredsFlowers.

  2. Click Add New.


If successful the program will state that the ledger was created. If not, check your name and try again.


2. Ledger Options

The next screen is where you will enter information about the ledger. The database name is shown first, and then there is an edit field for the Ledger Code. This code will be printed on reports that are generated from this ledger as well as other items in the system.


  1. Type an FF in the Ledger Code field.

  2. Next, choose any color that you like for the ledger. The color will be another way to identify this ledger.

  3. Choose the radio button next to Cash for this company. If your company was on an accrual basis you would choose Accrual. (For more information on Cash vs. Accrual basis check out the glossary included with the documentation for this program.)

  4. Fred's Flowers is a Sole Proprietorship. Choose this option from the drop down combo labeled Business Type.

  5. The last items deal with the end of the company year. If Fred were on a normal calendar year we would enter the first year that we will open the books for:

Fiscal Year 1999 ends on: Month 12 Day 31 Year 1999

But, Fred is not on a calendar year so we will enter his fiscal year data:

Fiscal Year 1999 ends on: Month 1 Day 31 Year 2000

(for more information on fiscal years see the glossary and user manuals)


Notice the Reset button. Any page in the program can be reset to the original state by clicking the Reset button.

  1. Click Create Ledger and wait....It should not take very long.


If not successful, the next screen will tell you the problem with the information. Back up your browser and correct it.


3. Assigning Accounts

If successful, the next screen will tell you that the ledger has been created and you need to assign accounts to it. This system is design so that more than one ledger can use the same account list. For example, Fred also owns a small corporation that grows the flowers that he sells at Fred's Flowers. Fred can create another ledger called FlowerGro Inc. and use the same account names for both ledgers. Fred must assign the accounts to be used by a particular ledger to that ledger. This keeps Fred from seeing all the accounts in the system; he just sees the ones used by the ledger he is in.


To assign accounts click the link "here" or follow the links from the Main Menu in this order:

Program Configuration

Account Configuration

Assign Accounts to Ledgers


The next screen has two options: Assign accounts to ledger or Assign ledgers to Account. The first shows a list of available ledgers for any chosen account. The second shows a list of available accounts for the chosen ledger.


  1. Choose FredsFlowers from the Select Ledger list and click the Select button below.


A list of all accounts in the system is displayed. Fred does not have any employees at Fred's Flowers so the employment accounts will not be necessary, but the sales account is necessary.


  1. Select the Yes button next to these accounts:

Accounts Rec, Accounts Pay, Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS), FICA Pay, Inventory, Mcare Pay, Other Rev, Other Exp, Retained Earnings, Sales Rev

  1. Click Update Ledger


These accounts are now assigned to the ledger FredsFlowers.


4. Creating Accounts

Next we will create some accounts that are specific to Fred's Flowers.

  1. Click on the Main Menu link to go back to the Main Menu and follow these links:

Program Configuration

Account Configuration

Create New Account

  1. Type in the following data:

Account Name: Bank of Fred

Account Number: 1234

Account Type: Cash Account(1)


This is the bank account that Fred uses. It is title accordingly and given an account number to be used by the system. Since this is an account of type "Cash Account" the account number must start with a '1'. In the accounting trade, asset accounts begin with the number 1. Notice that the account types in the drop down list include the first digit requirement with each type.


  1. Click Create Account. If the data is valid the program will announce that the account has been created successfully and that the account should be assigned to ledgers.

  2. Click the text (here) instructing us to assign the account.

  3. Find the account in the Select Account list and click Select Account. A list of the available ledgers will appear under the account name.

  4. Click Yes next to FredsFlowers and then click Update Ledgers.

  5. Create another account called Supplies Exp - 5444 of type Expense and assign it.


Fred's bank account has now been assigned to the FredsFlowers ledger.


5. Changing Accounts

What if Fred does not like the way that we have name the Bank of Fred account. In order to change it click on Main Menu then follow these links:

Program Configuration

Account Configuration

Edit Account


  1. Find the bank of Fred account in the Select Account to Edit list and click Modify Account.


Notice that you are only able to change the account name. The account Number and Type are fixed. Caution! If you need to change the account number or type, it can be done by a very skilled technician, but remember that if the account is being used it may completely change your books and mess them up. It is probably a better idea to just create a new account using this name after changing the name of this one to something else.


  1. Change the Account Name to be Freds Bank and click Modify Account.


If successful the program will state it. If not, the page should tell you the problem so you can fix it.


6. Sub Accounts

Fred will sell bouquets and corsages. He will place the revenue in his Sales Revenue account but he wants to be able to see the amount of income for each item. Fred can either create two separate sales accounts or use sub accounts under the Sales Revenue account.

Note: If Fred were selling many different items, we would recommend giving each item its own sales revenue account (Bouquet Revenue, Corsage Revenue, etc...). In Fred's case there are only two items, so we will just use Sub Accounts to differentiate.


  1. Click on Main Menu then follow these links:

Program Configuration

Account Configuration

Work with Sub Accounts

  1. Choose the Sales Rev account from the list and click Select Account.


A table showing the sub accounts for Sales Rev is displayed. There probably wont be any, so we will create one.

  1. Click Create New Sub Account.

  2. Type in this Data:

Sub Account Name: Bouquet

Sub Account Number: 100

  1. Click Create Sub Account. You will see message stating that the sub account was created successfully.


To create another sub account you can follow the links:

Account Configuration

Work with Sub Accounts


Note: a shortcut to creating more accounts is to press the back button on your browser and type in different names and numbers then click Create Sub Account.

  1. Create another two sub accounts for the sales revenue account using:

Sub Account Name: Corsage

Sub Account Number: 200

Sub Account Name: Boutonniere

Sub Account Number: 300


  1. Follow these links:

Account Configuration

Work with Sub Accounts

  1. Choose the Sales Rev account from the list and click Select Account.


The table will show up again only this time it contains the three sub accounts that we just created.

  1. Click the radio button in the Edit Column next to Bouquet.

  2. Click the Edit button.


Fred has decided to call the sub account "Bouquets". (We know it is trivial, but Fred is the boss.)

  1. Change the name of the sub account to Bouquets and click Update Database.

  2. If successful click Back twice on your browser.

  3. Click Refresh on your browser and the page should refresh the data to the current state.


Fred has decided against selling Boutonnieres. They are not big enough to make money on and besides, most guys don't appreciate them anyway.

  1. Click on the Check box in the Delete Column next to Boutonniere.

  2. Click Delete.


The next screen should state that the delete was successful.


Review

Try creating another ledger for FlowerGro, Inc. with these settings.

  1. Options

Name: FlowerGroInc

LedgerCode: FGI

Color: Green

Basis: Cash

Business Type: Corporation

Fiscal Year: 1999

Ends on: 12-31-1999


  1. Create These Accounts

Name Number Type

FGI Bank 1987 Cash Account(1)

Electric Exp 5444 Expense


  1. Create These Sub Accounts

Account: Inventory

Rose Bulbs 100

Babys Breath 200

Lilies 300

Account: Sales Rev

Rose Bulbs 100

Babys Breath 200

Lilies 300


  1. Assign these Accounts to the Ledger

Account Rec

CoGS

Electric Exp

FGI Bank

Inventory

Other Exp

Other Rev

Sales Rev


  1. Create These Sub Entities

Name Code

Corporate Sales C

Public Sales P




Copyright (c) 2001 HLR
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1; A copy of the license is available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL.

Updated: $Id: ledger_tutorial.html,v 1.1.1.1 2001/08/09 19:03:04 moreejt Exp $