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Peak InfoSystems, Inc. ==================================== Peak InfoSystems, Inc. ---------------------- 727 Manitou Avenue Box 992 Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829-0992 ==================================== (719) 685-1137 GENERAL LEDGER II Release 3 August 16, 1988 Copyright (C) 1986-1987-1988 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 727 Manitou Avenue Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829 SHAREWARE by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. All of the programs in this package, and the manual that accompanies them are copyrighted by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. All rights are reserved. If you intend to use the software in this package on a regular basis, we require that you register your copy of GENERAL LEDGER II with us by sending a copy of the information on the registration form at the end of this preface. A second copy of the registration form is included with the software under the name, "invoice". Your registration application must be accompanied by the specified fee, payable in United States currency. We accept Master Card or VISA, and we will accept your personal check. WHAT NON-REGISTERED USERS ARE PERMITTED TO DO Non-registered users are hereby granted a limited license to use Peak InfoSystems, Inc. GENERAL LEDGER II programs on a trial basis, and to copy the full package for trial use by others. This permission is subject to the following limitations: 1. A complete copy of all disks, including documentation, must be provided. It is a violation of our copyright to supply a less- than-complete copy. 2. Each disk containing Peak InfoSystems, Inc. software must be labeled with the following notice: Copyright (C) 1986-1987-1988 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 3. No charge may be solicited or accepted for any part of Peak InfoSystems, Inc. GENERAL LEDGER II. 4. No commercial or governmental use may be made of unregistered Peak InfoSystems, Inc. GENERAL LEDGER II software. WHAT REGISTRATION ENTITLES YOU TO Each registered user will receive the following: 1. A current copy of Peak InfoSystems, Inc. GENERAL LEDGER II. 2. Notices of updates as they become available. Notices will be mailed to the address you furnish on your registration form. There will be a charge for each update. 3. Telephone support. Each registered user is entitled to 15 minutes consultation time. If additional time is required, it may be purchased at a rate of $50 per hour. 4. Information on other Peak InfoSystems, Inc. shareware. PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST BE REGISTERED IN ORDER TO RECEIVE TELEPHONE SUPPORT. PLEASE DON'T ASK FOR HELP UNTIL YOU'VE REGISTERED WITH US. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY Peak InfoSystems makes no representations or WARRANTIES with respect to the contents of this publication or with respect to the computer software it describes, and specifically DISCLAIMS any IMPLIED WARRANTIES of MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Further, Peak InfoSystems reserves the right to make changes in the content of this manual or the computer software it describes without obligation to notify any firm or person of such changes. Copyright (C) 1986-1987-1988 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. ------- INVOICE ------- Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 727 Manitou Avenue Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829-0992 Phone: (719) 685-1137 Registration for Peak InfoSystems, Inc., GENERAL LEDGER II: $50.00 Colorado residents add 3% sales tax: $ 1.50 El Paso County residents add 1% sales tax: $ .50 ______ Total enclosed: [ ] Check [ ] Money Order [ ] Master Card [ ] VISA Make check payable to Peak InfoSystems, Inc. If Master Card or VISA: Card Number: _________________________ Expiration Date: _____________________ ================================================================= Name: ---------------------------------------- Firm or Agency: ---------------------------------------- Address: ________________________________________ ---------------------------------------- City, State, Zip Code: ________________________________________ Telephone: (Area)__________ Number ________________ (3.6) CONTENTS 1. OVERVIEW...................................................... 1 1.1 System Description....................................... 2 1.2 System Requirements...................................... 3 1.3 System Limits............................................ 3 1.4 Supplies................................................. 3 2. SETTING UP YOUR GENERAL LEDGER................................ 4 2.1 Planning A Chart of Accounts............................. 4 2.1.1 What an Accounting System Must Do................ 5 2.1.2 Balance Sheet Accounts........................... 6 2.1.2.1 Assets.................................. 7 2.1.2.2 Liabilities............................. 7 2.1.2.3 Capital................................. 7 2.1.3 Income Statement Accounts........................ 8 2.1.3.1 Revenue................................. 8 2.1.3.2 Cost of Goods Sold...................... 9 2.1.3.3 Expenses................................ 9 2.1.4 Account Categories............................... 9 2.1.5 Detail Accounts, Master Accounts, and Subordi- nate Accounts.................................... 10 2.1.6 Departmentalization.............................. 10 2.2 Startup Date............................................. 11 2.3 Office Procedures and Security........................... 11 2.3.1 Data Security.................................... 11 2.3.2 Physical Security................................ 12 2.4 Preparing Your Disks..................................... 13 2.4.1 Floppy Disk System............................... 14 2.4.1.1 Single Data Disk System................. 14 2.4.1.2 Double Data Disk System................. 14 2.4.2 Fixed Disk System................................ 14 2.5 Notation Conventions..................................... 15 2.6 Configuring Your System.................................. 15 2.6.1 Company Name..................................... 15 2.6.2 Categories....................................... 15 2.6.3 System Defaults.................................. 17 2.6.3.1 Fiscal Year End......................... 17 2.6.3.2 Profit and Loss Account Number.......... 17 2.6.3.3 Income Summary Account Number........... 17 2.6.3.4 Check Register Default Account.......... 17 2.6.3.5 Cash Journal Default Account............ 18 2.6.3.6 Voucher Difference Default Account...... 18 2.6.3.7 Show P & L on journal Listing........... 18 2.6.4 Printer Control Codes............................ 18 2.6.5 File Paths....................................... 19 2.6.6 Passwords........................................ 20 2.7 Getting Started.......................................... 21 2.8 Learning The System...................................... 22 - i - 3. STARTING AND ENDING -- THE MASTER MENU........................ 24 3.1 Journal.................................................. 25 3.2 Reports.................................................. 25 3.3 Accounts................................................. 25 3.4 Closing Checklist........................................ 25 3.5 Change Period Ending Date................................ 26 3.6 Quit..................................................... 26 4. THE JOURNAL................................................... 27 4.1 The Journal Screen....................................... 27 4.1.1 Work State....................................... 27 4.1.2 Voucher Number................................... 28 4.1.3 Date............................................. 28 4.1.4 Folio............................................ 28 4.1.5 Entry............................................ 28 4.1.6 Description...................................... 29 4.1.7 Difference....................................... 29 4.1.8 Transaction Window............................... 29 4.1.9 Work Zone........................................ 29 4.1.10 Bulletin Lines................................... 29 4.2 Adding Vouchers.......................................... 29 4.2.1 Start Voucher.................................... 30 4.2.1.1 General Journal State................... 30 4.2.1.2 Check Register State.................... 31 4.2.1.3 Cash Journal State...................... 31 4.2.2 Folio............................................ 31 4.2.3 Account Number Entry Level....................... 32 4.2.3.1 Finding an Account...................... 32 4.2.3.2 Editing a Transaction................... 33 4.2.3.3 Editing Header Information.............. 33 4.2.3.4 Changing The Entry Signal............... 33 4.2.3.5 Canceling a Voucher..................... 33 4.2.3.6 Completing the Voucher.................. 34 4.2.4 Transaction Description.......................... 34 4.2.5 Transaction Amount............................... 35 4.2.6 Cash Journal Automatic Balancing................. 35 4.3 Entering a Voucher -- A Summary.......................... 35 4.4 Editing Vouchers......................................... 36 4.5 Listing the Journal...................................... 36 4.5.1 Full Journal Listing............................. 37 4.5.2 Journal Totals Only.............................. 37 4.5.3 Single Account Listing........................... 37 4.6 Posting the Journal...................................... 38 5. REPORTS....................................................... 39 5.1 Transaction Report....................................... 39 5.2 Income Statement......................................... 40 5.3 Balance Sheet............................................ 41 5.4 End of Month Reports..................................... 41 5.5 Single Account Summary................................... 41 5.6 Trial Balance............................................ 42 - ii - 5.7 Department Reports....................................... 42 6. ACCOUNTS...................................................... 43 6.1 Adding New Accounts...................................... 43 6.1.1 Account Number................................... 43 6.1.2 Account Name..................................... 44 6.1.3 Account Type..................................... 45 6.2 Editing Accounts......................................... 45 6.3 Listing Accounts......................................... 46 6.3.1 All Account Listings............................. 46 6.3.2 Detail Account Listings.......................... 46 6.3.3 Department Account Listings...................... 46 7. CLOSING....................................................... 47 7.1 Closing Checklist........................................ 47 7.2 Closing.................................................. 47 8. ERROR MESSAGES AND DATA RECOVERY.............................. 49 8.1 Error Messages and Error Diagnosis....................... 49 8.1.1 System Errors.................................... 49 8.1.1.1 Not Enough Memory....................... 49 8.1.1.2 Couldn't Open .......................... 49 8.1.1.3 Couldn't Read ... or Couldn't Write ........................................ 50 8.1.2 Data Errors...................................... 50 8.2 Recovering Lost Data..................................... 50 8.3 Backups.................................................. 51 - iii - Section 1 Overview 1. OVERVIEW Peak InfoSystems' General Ledger II (GL II) is an automated book- keeping system designed specifically for a small professional practice. Many of the accounting systems on the market today are aimed at the retailer, or wholesaler, who must keep elaborate inventory records, extensive information on payables, and all of the details associated with point-of-sale data capture. If you need this kind of accounting system, nothing can take its place. On the other hand, if you don't need all the "bells and whistles", the amount of time you must spend on that kind of sys- tem is frustrating at best. For a professional, whose billable time is the only thing he has to sell, automating with such a sys- tem can be prohibitively expensive. GL II is a follow-on to a general ledger system written in FOR- TRAN, in 1981 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc., under its prior name, "H.S.D. Incorporated", and elegantly named, "HSDGL". HSDGL ran, and still runs, on TRS 80* Models I, III, and IV in the hands of professionals and small retailers and wholesalers. GL II retains all of HSDGL's best features, and adds a few new features of its own. HSDGL's main design objective was simplicity for the operator. During its first four years of operation, we received many requests from users to add various "features" that we deliberately had left out of the system in order to keep it simple. We evaluated each of these suggestions, added one or two, but rejected most because they interfered with the simplicity we'd achieved. MS-DOS** and the C Programming Language have provided flexibility we didn't have when we wrote HSDGL, and we've been able to incor- porate a few of the HSDGL suggestions in GL II without __________ * TRS 80 is a trademark of Tandy Corporation. ** MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. -1- Section 1 Overview compromising simplicity: The Journal program, for instance, con- tains a pre-posting list feature that lets you see what the post- ing results will be, and make corrections if you want to, before final posting. The Reports Menu includes a selection that lets you print all of the mandatory end-of-month reports with a single keystroke. Finally, we introduced "master" and "detail" accounts, and "departmentalization" in such a way that, although they're there, you don't need to use them, or even know anything about them. Simplicity for the operator is still the key feature of GL II. Once you use it, we think you'll find it very difficult to switch to anything else. 1.1 System Description GL II includes the following features: * Up to 300 accounts that you define yourself, grouped into up to 32 categories that you define yourself. * Standard, pre-established, report formats that eliminate the need for you to design reports. * A simple configuration method that lets you use whatever printer you happen to have available. * A transaction entry method that lets you call for accounts by name (or partial name) as well as by account number. * A check register feature that automatically captures data on all checking account activity. * A cash journal feature that lets you create a doubly-posted petty cash journal with just a single entry for each transac- tion. * A locked-in audit trail. GL II won't accept direct changes to the balances in any of its accounts. In order to change a value, you must make entries through the journal and print a posting report that shows what happened. GL II uses serial voucher numbers generated by the program. If something is missing, chances are you'll know it. In addition, GL II won't allow you to close an accounting period until you've printed at least a Transaction Report, an Income Statement, and a Bal- ance Sheet. * Three levels of password protection. * A data recovery utility that makes data loss through power or equipment failure very unlikely. -2- Section 1 Overview 1.2 System Requirements GL II requires an IBM PC or IBM PC look-alike with a minimum of 256 thousand characters (256K bytes) of internal memory and two double-sided floppy disk drives. A fixed-disk based computer sys- tem is required if you process more than about 2000 vouchers a month. In addition, GL II requires a printer that can produce 132 character lines. Your printer may do this either in standard 10 pitch, using 14 7/8 inch-wide paper, or in compressed mode (approximately 16.5 characters per inch), using 9 1/2 inch-wide paper. 1.3 System Limits GL II will accept a maximum of 300 accounts. The number of vouch- ers (groups of account postings) that GL II will handle is deter- mined by available disk space. If you're using a floppy disk sys- tem, the maximum is about 2,100 vouchers per month. If you're using a fixed disk system and can devote 1 megabyte to transaction storage, GL II will handle nearly 6,000 vouchers per month. 1.4 Supplies If you're using a floppy disk based system, you'll need several high-quality magnetic disks to store your programs and data. Since disks eventually wear out you should retire your working disks periodically and replace them with new ones. We recommend you do this about every 400 hours of working time. -3- Section 2 Setting Up 2. SETTING UP YOUR GENERAL LEDGER This section deals with the things you must do to install GL II and configure it for your own business or professional practice. Part of the job involves planning that you must do yourself. Another part involves the purely technical tasks associated with your computer system. If you read this section and feel uncertain about some of the requirements for file distribution and backup, you may want to hire a consultant who's familiar with computer systems to help you. 2.1 Planning A Chart of Accounts Instructions on how to physically prepare your disks and enter your accounts begin in Section 2.4. Before you do these things, however, you must decide what your accounting system is going to contain, and create a logical arrangement for it in a "Chart of Accounts". Although every accounting system contains the standard segments discussed in Sections 2.1.2 and 2.1.3, unless you're running a gas station or a fast food chain restaurant, there's no such thing as a "standard" chart of accounts. Although the thing that will help most to produce a good chart of accounts is your own knowledge of your business or practice, some of the information and ideas in the following paragraphs may help you plan. GL II is a "balance forward", "double entry" accounting system. "Balance forward" means that at the end of each month, all tran- saction details are posted to the various accounts, printed on paper, and then deleted. "Double entry" means that the balance of debits and credits in each collection of related transactions (called a "voucher" in the following pages) must be zero. Likewise, the balance of all debits and credits in all the accounts in the general ledger must be zero. If you don't understand "debits" or "credits", or double entry bookkeeping, we recommend strongly that you buy one of the many simplified books available on the subject and learn what you need to know. -4- Section 2 Setting Up 2.1.1 What an Accounting System Must Do It's easy nowadays to believe that the only reason for maintaining detailed books is to satisfy the Internal Revenue Service. But long before there was an income tax and an I.R.S. -- long before there was a United States -- people with businesses were keeping double entry books. The reason they kept them was so that from month to month they could determine whether their businesses were making money or losing it. If your business or professional practice is making less money than it should, there are only three things you can do about it: increase revenue, decrease expenses, or find another business or profession. To make a proper choice between the alternatives, you have to know three things: how much revenue your business is taking in, how much money goes to cover expenses, and whether or not the differ- ence between the first figure and the second represents a satis- factory income. If you examine the things you do for your clients or customers, you may find that a certain activity is consuming a lot of time, but not producing much revenue. You may be able to improve your income by reducing or eliminating that activity so you have more time for activities that produce better revenues. Sometimes individual expenses get out of hand. An example might be the copier you're paying over a hundred dollars a month to sup- ply and maintain. If it turns out you're only making six dozen copies a month, you almost certainly can do the job for less by going to the library once in a while to make copies for a dime apiece. If you can identify both the revenues and expenses associated with a particular business activity, examination may show that although that activity is producing plenty of revenue, its expenses are so high that its contribution to your income is low or nil. This is a particularly difficult problem. It's hard to reduce or elim- inate an activity that's putting lots of money into the cash register. Only a "departmentalized" accounting setup is likely to give you the information you need to make this decision. These are all things you ought to think about when you design your chart of accounts. A good accounting system should be able to tell you about revenue, expenses, and net income, tell you if you're heading for trouble, and help you make decisions that will improve your financial results. A good accounting system also should be designed to do these things with as little effort as possible. Once you become aware -5- Section 2 Setting Up of what an accounting system can do, it's easy to get carried away and create a monster that includes an individual expense account for paper clips, another for typewriter ribbons, etc. When you're designing your system, remember that its purpose is to help you, not to create hours of extra work for yourself or your employees. If you're in doubt whether or not to include a particular account, it's better not to include it. If you need that account, experi- ence will tell you so, and you can add it later. Above all, don't be afraid to change your accounting system when you see that it needs change. In particular, make it a standard practice to review your chart of accounts at the end of each fis- cal year and change it, or completely redesign it, if your experi- ence has shown you ways to get better information out of it. Most businesses nowadays employ the services of an accountant or a tax preparation agency at tax time. The tax laws change so rapidly that it's almost impossible for any active business-person or professional to stay abreast of them. Get your tax-preparer's advice before you set your accounting system in concrete. Profes- sional tax advice may help you design an accounting system that can save you money. 2.1.2 Balance Sheet Accounts Every accounting system can be broken into two major segments and either five or six minor segments. In order to use GL II effec- tively, you must know what these segments are and what they represent. The first major segment is what we'll call the "Balance Sheet" segment. A "balance sheet" shows you where your business stood at a partic- ular moment, usually midnight of the last day of the month. The balance sheet expresses what most accounting and bookkeeping text- books call the "standard accounting formula", "Owner's equity = assets - liabilities". What this formula means is that if you add up the value of all the things your business owns and then subtract all the money the business owes, the difference represents what part of the business you can lay claim to. Balance sheet accounts can be grouped into the following three categories: -6- Section 2 Setting Up 2.1.2.1 Assets Assets are the things your business or practice owns. When applied to assets, the word, "owns" has a broader meaning than you'd normally attach to it. "Accounts receivable", for instance -- the amounts your clients owe you -- are assets "owned" by your practice. If your company is a corporation, it will "own" its "Organization Costs" -- a fictitious "asset" created by legisla- tive fiat. Most asset accounts are debit accounts. If your checking account has a credit balance, it's overdrawn. On the other hand, the asset segment of your ledger may contain some "offsetting" credit accounts, usually to record depreciation and amortization. 2.1.2.2 Liabilities "Liabilities" are the amounts your business "owes". The main account in this ledger segment normally will be "Accounts Pay- able". If you're doing any retail selling, either as your primary busi- ness or as a sideline to a professional practice, this segment also should have a "Sales Tax Payable" account. One account you may want to include under liabilities is a "pay- ables" account to yourself. This is an easy way to handle petty cash accounting in a business or practice where you make most of the petty cash expenditures out of your own pocket. It saves set- ting up a separate "Petty Cash" account in the "assets" segment of your ledger, and then going through the formal procedures associ- ated with a petty cash "box", and petty cash "vouchers". If you create a "Payables" account to yourself, you may want to make it the "Cash Journal Default Account" explained in Section 2.6.3.5. 2.1.2.3 Capital Another word for "owner's equity" in the formula we gave in Sec- tion 2.1.2 is "capital". The meaning of "owner's equity" is clear if your business is a sole proprietorship, but it becomes a bit fuzzy if your business is a corporation. A corporation uses capi- tal accounts such as "Common Stock", "Treasury Stock", "Retained Earnings", "Dividends", etc. GL II requires two special accounts in the Capital segment of your chart of accounts. You may number and name these accounts in any way consistent with the category and account sequence required by GL II, but they must exist: 1. Profit and Loss is an account manipulated wholly by GL II. GL II uses this account as a repository for the difference -7- Section 2 Setting Up between revenue and expenses, discussed in Section 2.1.3, so that this difference can show on your balance sheet. Once you've established your profit and loss account, the only thing GL II will allow you to do to it is change its name. After you've closed for the year, and before you've entered a transaction for the new year, GL II will allow you to change it in other ways. 2. Income Summary is the account to which GL II posts the annual profit or loss when it closes your books for the fiscal year. The reason GL II closes the year to "Income Summary" rather than directly to "Retained Earnings", or "Owner's Equity" is that after you close, final adjustments may still have to be made to the profit or loss figure. While you're waiting for depreciation adjustments from your accountant, you can go on with the new year. When the adjustments are available, you can post them to the appropriate accounts, including "Income Summary", to get a true net profit figure, then transfer that figure to "Retained Earnings" or "Owner's Equity", and clear "Income Summary" in preparation for next year's closing. 2.1.3 Income Statement Accounts An "Income Statement", or "Profit and Loss Statement" is a report that summarizes the month's financial activity in your business or practice. The Balance Sheet shows where you are. The Income Statement shows how you got there. There are two simple account- ing formulas that apply to the Income Statement: "Gross Profit = Revenue - Cost Of Goods Sold" "Net Profit = Gross Profit - Expenses" In other words, the second major segment of your accounting sys- tem, the Income Statement Segment, provides the information you need to calculate profit and loss. "Gross profit" and "cost of goods sold" are terms that apply only if you're selling something other than your time or your services. If you're running a straight professional practice and not selling toothpaste or cold drinks on the side, the two formulas become one: "Net Profit = Revenue - Expenses" 2.1.3.1 Revenue If you do only one thing as a professional, you may be able to get by with a single account in the revenue segment of your ledger: "Revenue". If you're a retailer, your revenue section might -8- Section 2 Setting Up contain just two accounts: "Sales", and "Sales Returns and Adjust- ments". In most cases the situation will be a bit more complicated. Remember, however, that the more revenue breakout accounts you create, the more work you'll have to do to identify what goes where. Keep it as simple as you can. 2.1.3.2 Cost of Goods Sold If you're a professional who does no retailing, you won't need a "Cost Of Goods Sold" account category. Many retailers see "Cost Of Goods Sold" as an expense account, and, in fact, it's a special kind of expense. Keeping track of it separately allows a "gross profit from sales" calculation, which may be used in various ways explained in standard accounting text- books. 2.1.3.3 Expenses Expense breakouts produce the largest number of accounts in most accounting systems. The reason for this probably is that expenses tend to be more controllable than other parts of the accounting equation. A traditional distinction for expense accounts is between "fixed expenses", which remain relatively constant, and "variable expenses", which vary in proportion to revenue. In a retail operation, this distinction allows calculation of a "break-even point": the minimum revenue that will keep the business from suffering a net income loss. In a professional practice, where expenses associated directly with revenue tend to be very low, the "break even point" usually is very close to the total of "fixed expenses". Somewhere in your ledger's expense account segment, you must create a "Voucher Difference Account" to be used for the temporary automatic balancing operation described in Section 2.6.3.6, and in the data recovery operations described in Section 8. 2.1.4 Account Categories We're going to switch terminology now, and begin calling the six "minor ledger segments", "types". In other words, from now on, we'll identify an "Asset" type of account, a "Liability" type, a "Capital" type, "Revenue", "Cost Of Goods Sold", and "Expense" types. The reason we want to do this is that we're about to introduce the idea of "categories". -9- Section 2 Setting Up GL II allows you to name up to 32 account categories, each of which falls into one of the six "types". This means that if you want to, you can break your asset accounts into categories called, "Liquid Assets" and "Fixed Assets", or your expense accounts into "Fixed Expenses", "Variable Expenses", and "Marketing Expenses". GL II comes with six categories already named and defined. They simply echo the six "types". You may want to use several categories to improve the readability of your reports. Remember, however, that the more categories you add, the longer your reports will be, and the more time they'll take to print. 2.1.5 Detail Accounts, Master Accounts, and Subordinate Accounts In addition to letting you create categories of accounts and obtain totals for the categories on your Income Statement, GL II allows you to create "master" accounts with subordinate "detail" accounts. Only "detail" accounts will accept transactions. If you don't use GL II's "master account" feature, all your accounts will be detail accounts, and you won't need to worry about the distinction. An account remains a detail account unless you specifically change it into a master account. On the other hand, you may want to group certain accounts together. If you do this, the amount shown in the master account will be the total of amounts in all the master account's subordi- nate detail accounts. A master account may have up to 99 subordinate detail accounts. A detail account appended to a master account has an account number made up of the master account's four digit integer, followed by a decimal point, followed by a one or two-digit integer. 2.1.6 Departmentalization GL II allows you to use the two-digit integer in a subordinate detail account as a department number. A "department" is a "pro- fit center" in your business identified separately for cost accounting. Departmentalization usually is applied to revenue and expense accounts in order to determine whether or not a specific operation within the business is making money. Unless you know all about it and have some good reason for doing cost accounting, don't attempt to use departmentalization. -10- Section 2 Setting Up 2.2 Startup Date While you're designing your chart of accounts, give some thought to when you're going to start using GL II to do your books. It's easiest to start using GL II at the beginning of a new fiscal year. The only figures you'll have to transfer from your old accounting system are the previous year's ending balances from the Balance Sheet. Once you've entered those amounts, you can do an end-of-year closing with GL II and the switch-over will be com- plete. The next best time to start GL II is at the beginning of a month. To do this, you'll have to enter figures for the previous month's end-of-month balances in all your accounts, then close GL II for the previous month. If you decide to begin using GL II in the middle of a month, you'll have to go through the beginning-of-month process, then enter all the current month's transactions. 2.3 Office Procedures and Security While you're planning for the switchover to GL II, give some thought to the methods you're going to use to insure the accuracy and security of your accounting data. GL II includes a feature that lets you print all the information in the journal before you post it. This report also shows you what the beginning balance, net change, and ending balance will be for each account affected by the month's transactions. You can do a lot to insure the accuracy of your accounting data by routinely comparing the journal listing against its source docu- ments before posting takes place. If possible, this review should be done by someone other than the person who made the journal entries. Security involves two things: making sure you don't lose informa- tion you need for your records, and making sure your accounting information is safe from prying eyes or tampering. 2.3.1 Data Security The best way to keep from losing data is to be sure that the per- son who does your accounting makes regular "backups" of the disk or disks that contain your accounting data. Modern microcomputers are very reliable machines, but a power failure during a working session can cause everything on a data disk to be lost. -11- Section 2 Setting Up You'll also want to provide secure storage for your accounting reports. If you had a good physical security system for your manual accounting documents, simply continue it for the reports generated by GL II. It's a good idea to run GL II for a month or so in "parallel" with your manual system -- especially if you haven't used a computer before. Not only will this kind of "parallel operation" make you feel more confident about the accuracy of your accounting, it will show you the similarities between your manual system and your automated system. It takes extra work to do this, but usually it's worth it. GL II is a "balance forward" system. This means that at the end of each month it "closes back" all detailed transaction informa- tion for each account to a single "prior balance". If you try to print an Income Statement after closing, all you'll get will be the prior balance for each account. If you try to print a Tran- saction Report, you won't get anything. If you want to be able to re-print reports for any month, make an archival "backup" of your data disks at the end of each month -- BEFORE you close out. If various people in your office do the books, you'll probably want to review GL II's posting reports periodically to make sure that voucher numbers haven't been "lost". Each voucher is num- bered sequentially by GL II. Numbers run from 1 to 999999 before re-cycling. The operator has no access to the voucher numbering system. If a voucher has been deleted, its number still will show up on a posting report. A missing voucher number can result from a printer failure, but it also can result from an attempt to "cook the books". 2.3.2 Physical Security If you're working with floppy disks, the best security measure is to lock up your disks each night. If you're working with a fixed disk system to which several people have access, you may use the password protection system described in Section 2.6.6 to give your files a reasonable amount of secu- rity against disclosure or tampering. Voucher numbering and passwords make it more difficult for someone to "cook the books", but they don't eliminate the possibility. A knowledgeable computer scientist (hacker or otherwise) with enough time and computing power will be able to restore missing voucher numbers and defeat password protection. The moral of this story comes in two parts: (1) Don't put your books on a computer that's connected to a telephone line through a modem, and, (2) If you think there's a temptation problem in your office, or that there might be one, lock up your data. -12- Section 2 Setting Up 2.4 Preparing Your Disks The floppy disk supplied by Peak InfoSystems contains GL II's pro- grams, plus empty copies of all the data files required for opera- tion of the system. The files on this disk should be distributed to working disks according to one of the plans discussed in the following sections, and the original disk should be stored away in case you want to re-start your system at a later date. The files included on the Peak InfoSystems distribution disk are: * GL.EXE The GENERAL LEDGER II Program. * LCONFIG.EXE A program that allows you to configure GL II to the requirements of your practice. * LRECOVER.EXE A program that may be able to recover the keys to your data if you have a power failure during operation of the system, or forget and remove your floppy disks before return- ing to the operating system prompt. * LCONFIG.DAT The data file that contains configuration data entered through "LCONFIG.EXE". LCONFIG.DAT must always remain on the floppy disk or in the fixed disk directory you're using as a "default" during operation. In other words, when you see the DOS system prompt, you should be able to say, "dir", and see LCONFIG.DAT listed as one of the files. * LCONTROL.DAT A data file that contains information on how many entries you have in various data files, plus the keys that allow you to access your data quickly. * LACCOUNT.DAT A data file that contains GL II's account infor- mation. * VOUCHERS.DAT A data file that contains information on the vouchers you enter as you go through the accounting period. This file grows as necessary to fill the available disk space, and is reduced to 8 bytes immediately after closing at the end of the month. * JOURNAL.DAT A data file that contains the transactions associ- ated with GL II's vouchers. This file grows as necessary to fill the available disk space, and is reduced to 80 bytes immediately after closing at the end of the accounting period. When you're considering how to distribute your files, remember that ALL DATA FILES MUST BE BACKED UP TOGETHER AND KEPT TOGETHER. If you try to combine a data file from one set with data files from another, you'll get wildly erroneous results when you try to run the system. -13- Section 2 Setting Up No matter what file distribution you make initially, you can change the distribution later. 2.4.1 Floppy Disk System If you're going to operate GL II with floppy disks, there are two different ways to set up your system. Which one you choose will depend on how many vouchers you expect to process in a month. 2.4.1.1 Single Data Disk System If you'll be entering less than about 1,800 vouchers a month, you may place all the files with a ".DAT" extension on the disk in drive "B:", except for "LCONFIG.DAT", which must remain on the default "A:" drive. The advantage of this configuration is that when you back up, you need copy only the contents of drive "B:" to a backup disk. The program disk in drive "A:" need not be backed up. 2.4.1.2 Double Data Disk System If you process more than 1,800 vouchers a month, you'll have to keep all ".DAT" files, except for "VOUCHERS.DAT" and "JOURNAL.DAT", on drive "A:", and put "VOUCHERS.DAT" and "JOURNAL.DAT" on drive "B:", so that they can grow to the disk's maximum capacity of around 2,100 vouchers. If you use this configuration, you MUST set up a procedure that insures you back up both disks, and keep the pairs of primaries and pairs of backups together as discrete sets. If disks from your primary and backup sets get mixed, your system may become corrupted to the point where you'll have to start over. 2.4.2 Fixed Disk System If you're operating a fixed disk system, you may put GL II's ".EXE" files in any active "path". You may also put all ".DAT" files in a sub-directory away from the directory you're in when you're operating with GL II. The only limitation on a fixed disk system is that LCONFIG.DAT must exist in the default directory. The usual setup is to place GL II's ".EXE" files in a standard executable "path" directory, and then create a special sub- directory to hold all of GL II's data files except "LCONFIG.DAT". If your system is configured this way, change directory into the special sub-directory, and then type, "GL" to run your accounting system. To back up this configuration, simply back up the files in your data sub-directory. -14- Section 2 Setting Up 2.5 Notation Conventions Throughout GL II, two kinds of responses are called for. If the menu on your screen contains a choice that begins with "<3>", simply pressing the number "3" on your keyboard will select that choice. The angle brackets mean that GL II won't wait for you to press the <Enter> key. If a menu says "[name]", you'll have to enter at least one letter of a name, and then press the <Enter> key to tell GL II to accept what you've entered. 2.6 Configuring Your System Once you've distributed the files to fit your computer system, you must configure GL II to the requirements of your practice. To do this, make sure both "LCONFIG.DAT" and "LCONTROL.DAT" are in the default directory and type, "LCONFIG". GL II's configuration menu contains nine choices, explained in the following paragraphs. For your first configuration, LCONTROL.DAT must be in the default directory. Once you've given GL II the path to LCONTROL.DAT's final resting place (Section 2.6.5), you may move LCONTROL.DAT to that location. 2.6.1 Company Name To enter your company name, press <1>. GL II will display the current company name (a blank when you first start up), and ask you for a new company name. The line on the screen, following the cursor, is called a "prompt line". In this case, it's 39 characters long, which is the max- imum length of the company name. If you try to type in more than 39 characters, GL II won't accept the extra characters. If you make a mistake, use the backspace key to back up over your mistake so that you can try again. If you want to give up and start over, press <Control-X> -- in other words, hold down the <Ctrl> key, and press "X". As soon as you press <Enter>, GL II will accept your new company name, re-display it, and ask if that's what you want to use. If what you entered is correct, press <Enter> a second time, and GL II will take you back to the configuration menu. 2.6.2 Categories To begin entering GL II's categories, press <2>. GL II will display a screen with spaces for 32 category numbers and names. The numbers are there to let you make a selection. Only the names -15- Section 2 Setting Up will show on your reports. Six categories are pre-defined: ASSETS, LIABILITIES, CAPITAL, REVENUE, COST OF GOODS SOLD, and EXPENSES. If you're a retailer with a simple accounting system (the best kind), GL II's pre- defined categories may be satisfactory. If so, press <Enter> to leave this section of the configuration menu. Chances are you'll want to make some changes. If you're a profes- sional with a simple accounting system, you may want to delete COST OF GOODS SOLD. On the other hand, it isn't really necessary to delete a category you don't intend to use. If you define a category, but don't assign any accounts to it, it'll never show up in your reports. In fact, if there are categories within some of the basic account types that you think you might want to use later, it's better to define them now. WARNING: ONCE YOU'VE BEGUN USING GL II, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CHANGE CATEGORIES UNTIL YOU'VE CLOSED FOR THE YEAR. To select a category to change, enter the number of the category and press <Enter>. GL II will give you a prompt line 33 charac- ters long. If you press <Enter> at this point, nothing will have been changed, and you'll be back at the original display. To delete the category, press the "-" key. GL II will immediately delete the category and take you back to the original display. To change the category name, type in the name you want. As soon as you've done this, GL II will move the cursor to the left of the name you've just entered and will display the six category types at the bottom of the screen. Press the number key for the appropriate type. GL II will display the type you selected and will take you back to the beginning display. There's just one rule you must follow when you enter categories in GL II: types must be in sequence. After you've entered an asset category, followed by a liability category, you may not enter another asset category after the liability category. GL II will enforce this rule by beeping at you and printing an error message if you try to enter a category whose type is out of sequence. IF YOU CHANGE CATEGORIES AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW FISCAL YEAR, GO TO THE ACCOUNTS PROGRAM AND MAKE SURE YOUR ACCOUNTS STILL ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE CORRECT CATEGORIES (Section 6.2). CHANGING EXISTING CATEGORIES WITHOUT CORRECTING THE ASSOCIATED ACCOUNTS IS A SURE WAY TO DAMAGE YOUR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM BADLY ENOUGH THAT YOU'LL HAVE TO START OVER. -16- Section 2 Setting Up 2.6.3 System Defaults Pressing <3> at the configuration menu takes you to LCONFIG's sys- tem default menu. System defaults 1, 2, 3, and 6, call for information GL II must have to function properly. The other three are optional items that save you typing, and make using GL II's transaction entry journal even easier than it is without them. 2.6.3.1 Fiscal Year End GL II is delivered with the end of fiscal year month set to December. If your fiscal year ends in some other month, press <1> at the system defaults menu. GL II will ask, "Month (number) Fiscal Year Ends ->" Enter the number of the month that ends your fiscal year. GL II keeps track of the months as you go through the year. When the current month is the month that ends your fiscal year, GL II will close your books for the year instead of for the month. 2.6.3.2 Profit and Loss Account Number The function of the Profit and Loss account was discussed in Sec- tion 2.1.2.3. Be sure you enter a Profit and Loss account number at this point. When it comes time to enter your accounts (Section 2.7), be sure you enter a Profit and Loss account in the Capital section of your ledger that has the same account number you entered here. 2.6.3.3 Income Summary Account Number The Income Summary account also was discussed in Section 2.1.2.3. Be sure you enter an Income Summary account number at this point. When it comes time to enter your accounts (Section 2.7), be sure you enter an Income Summary account in the Capital section of your ledger that has the same account number you entered here. 2.6.3.4 Check Register Default Account If you place a checking account number in this optional system default field, GL II will use it in conjunction with the Check Register feature (Section 4.2.1.2). -17- Section 2 Setting Up 2.6.3.5 Cash Journal Default Account GL II's cash journal is a feature that allows you quickly to enter a whole series of petty cash vouchers (Section 4.2.6). If you place a petty cash account in this default field, GL II will use it each time you enter a petty cash voucher. Your cash journal default account may be a personal payables account in the liabilities section of your ledger, as discussed in Section 2.1.2.2, or it may be a "Petty Cash" account in the assets section. 2.6.3.6 Voucher Difference Default Account Sooner or later you'll start a complex voucher, enter transactions to several accounts, then discover that an account you thought was in your Ledger simply isn't there. When this happens, there are two things you can do: (1) abandon the voucher and re-enter the transactions after you've created the new account, or (2) balance the entry to a temporary account, create the account you want, then come back and edit the voucher to change the account number from the temporary account to the new account. Once you enter a "Voucher Difference" account number in the system default field provided for it, GL II automatically will use that account as the temporary account for "What do I do now?" balances. In addition, if you ever need to recover data after a crash, as described in Section 8, GL II will use the Voucher Difference account as a repository for entries and amounts that have lost their original account associations. 2.6.3.7 Show P & L on journal Listing If you've split up the work in your office so that someone else makes entries into your general ledger, you'll want that other person to be able to list the journal, using the Data Entry pass- word described in Section 2.7.6. You may NOT want the whole year's profit or loss figure to come dumping out on a journal listing. If not, you'll want to leave the flag that tells GL II to include the profit and loss figure in a journal listing turned off. To turn this flag on, press <7> at the System Defaults menu. 2.6.4 Printer Control Codes If you operate GL II with a 132 column printer, and 14 7/8 inch paper, you can ignore printer control codes altogether. On the other hand, if you'd prefer the convenience of standard 8 1/2 inch-wide paper that you can top-punch and handle easily, you'll need a printer that can be put into "compressed" mode (about 16.5 characters per inch), with a "software control" sequence. -18- Section 2 Setting Up In addition, if you'd like to "jazz up" your Income Statement and Balance Sheet by "emphasizing" the identifying line at the top of each page, GL II can do that for you. (Note: Some printers won't allow you to do this. If you use emphasize, and get an un- compressed header that runs off the page, or wraps around, remove the compress code before you continue). Each printer has its own code sequences for the various opera- tions. To find out what they are, look in the index of the manual that came with your printer for a section on "control codes", or something similar. GL II requires that you find hexadecimal numbers for each code and enter them. Hexadecimal numbers are numbers to base sixteen instead of the "decimal" base ten most of us are familiar with. Hexadecimal numbers include the decimal numbers 0 through 9, and then continue with six letters -- A through F. Your printer manual may list the hexadecimal codes under a heading such as "Hex", "H", etc., or it may use "ASCII" names for the codes. If your manual uses ASCII names, such as "ESC", "SO", etc., it should also contain a table that converts these names to decimal and hexadecimal numbers. Enter the hexadecimal numbers for the codes you want to use. If you're using 9 1/2 inch paper, BE SURE YOU ENTER THE CODES FOR COMPRESS AND DE-COMPRESS. The others are optional. 2.6.5 File Paths Once you've decided where to put your data files -- as discussed in section 2.4 -- you have to tell GL II where you've put them. The <5> option in GL II's configuration program lets you specify a path for your voucher and transaction files, and a path for all other files. If you're operating with floppy disks, and you've selected the single data disk option discussed in section 2.4.1.1, you'll want both paths to say, "B:" -- meaning look on the "B:" drive for everything. If you're operating with the configuration discussed in section 2.4.1.2, where you have your voucher and transaction files on drive "B:", and all other files on drive "A:", you'll want your voucher and transaction file path to read, "B:", and your "all other files" path to read, "A:". If you're operating with a fixed disk, and you're using the file layout discussed in section 2.4.2, you'll want to make both paths blank. -19- Section 2 Setting Up If you try to run GL II for the first time and get a message say- ing "Can't open control.dat", chances are you've made a mistake setting up your paths. If you switch from a floppy disk system to a fixed disk system, don't forget to re-set the data paths using this feature of LCON- FIG. 2.6.6 Passwords GL II contains three levels of password protection that you may or may not elect to use. When you first configure GL II, no pass- words are activated. You're able to call up "GL" or "LCONFIG" without being asked for a password. Once you enter a password, GL II will ask you for the appropriate password each time you attempt to carry out a function. The "Data Entry" password is the lowest password level. If you possess this password, you'll be able to activate GL II and enter, edit, and list vouchers. In order to post the journal, print reports, or enter or modify accounts, you must possess the "Supervisor's" password. To activate LCONFIG, close out a period, or change the "Period Ending Date", you must have the "Master" password. GL II uses a "tiered" password scheme. If you enter the Master password when you first activate GL II, you'll be allowed access to all features of the system without being asked for the Supervisor's password or the Data Entry password. If you enter the Supervisor's password when you activate the system, GL II won't ask you for the Data Entry password. Since this is true, activating the Supervisor's password without activating the Master Password, or activating the Data Entry Pass- word without activating the Supervisor's Password would be mean- ingless, since the "no password" value of the Master Password would override the value of the Supervisor's Password, and the "no password" value of the Supervisor's Password would override the value of the Data Entry Password. For this reason, GL II insists that if you activate the Supervisor's Password you also activate the Master Password, and if you activate the Data Entry Password, you activate both the Supervisor's Password and Master Password. For the same reason, if you delete the Supervisor's Password, GL II will delete the Data Entry Password, and if you delete the Master Password, GL II will delete both the Supervisor's Password and the Data Entry Password. -20- Section 2 Setting Up To enter a password, make the appropriate selection from LCONFIG's password menu. If you press <Enter> in response to the prompt, GL II will ask whether or not you intend to use "No password?". If that's what you want, answer "y" or "Y". While you're entering a password, GL II blanks out what you're typing. Once you've finished entering your password, GL II will ask you to repeat it, just in case you made a mistake. A password must be at least four characters long, and may be as long as 31 characters. Once you use LCONFIG, the data file "LCONFIG.DAT" becomes "read- only", to prevent password tampering. You won't be able to modify it or delete it. If you must delete "LCONFIG.DAT" for some rea- son, use the <4> choice at LCONFIG's "CHANGE PASSWORDS" menu. "LCONFIG.DAT" will remain unlocked when you leave the configura- tion program. 2.7 Getting Started Once you've designed your chart of accounts and configured GL II to fit your own equipment and way of operating, there are three things you still must do before you're ready to begin entering vouchers. First, invoke GL II by typing, "GL". You'll get the Main Menu described in Section 3. Below the menu, you'll see a prompt that says, New ending date (mmddyy) or <Enter> for -->_______ This is the "Change Period Ending Date" prompt, described in Sec- tion 3.5. When you first start up, the blank after the word, "for" indicates that the period ending date is blank. Using the instructions in Section 3.5, tell GL II what the ending date of your first month will be. This should be the last day of the last month you closed out with your old system. GL II won't let you continue until you do this. Second, go to the "Add Accounts" function described in Section 6.1 and enter all the accounts in your chart of accounts. When you finish, print any account lists you feel you need, following the instructions in Section 6.3. Finally, carry out the steps in the following checklist that are appropriate for the time of the month you're making your conver- sion: 1. Using the instructions in Section 4.1, enter the final bal- ances from all asset, liability, and capital accounts in your -21- Section 2 Setting Up old system, except "Profit and Loss". When you finish doing this, the "Difference" figure at the upper right of the Jour- nal Screen should be the amount of profit or loss reported at the end of your last closing. 2. If you're starting at the beginning of a new fiscal year, bal- ance the "Difference" in this voucher to your Income Summary account, post the journal (Section 4.4), print the required reports (Section 5.4), and close for the year (Section 7.3). At this point, you're ready to begin using GL II for the new year. 3. If you're starting in the middle of a fiscal year, end this voucher by automatically balancing the "Difference" to your "Voucher Difference" account. 4. Enter the final balances from all revenue, cost of goods sold, and expense accounts. Again, the "Difference" figure should be last month's ending profit or loss. Balance this voucher to your "Voucher Difference" account. 5. Post the journal, print the required reports, and close for the previous month. 6. If you're starting at the beginning of a new month, you're now ready to begin the new month. If not, enter all the current month's transactions, print a journal listing, and make sure the totals you get are the ones you should have. If not, go back and correct the offending entries until you get the correct totals. Once you've achieved that, post the journal and you'll be ready to continue for the rest of the month. 2.8 Learning The System In the following sections, we'll describe GL II's various programs in the order of their most frequent use. You'll see GL II's main menu most often, so that's covered first. Your most frequent job probably will be making voucher entries, so that's covered second. Printing reports comes third; entering and changing accounts comes fourth; closing for the month or year comes last. We recommend you read through the rest of this manual before you begin using the system. By doing that, you'll learn where to look for the information you need when you need it. If you feel uncer- tain about some of GL II's features, or if this is the first time you've used a computer, you might want to "play" with GL II for a while before you begin using it for your accounting. After you've followed the steps above and are ready to begin work- ing with GL II, make a copy of your data disk. You can "play" with the copy all you want without risking any of the information -22- Section 2 Setting Up on the original. Using the copy, make changes in the accounts. Enter, edit, and delete some dummy vouchers using the various features described in Section 4. Print a journal list. Post the journal. Print all of the reports. Close for the month. Go back to the configuration program and change the fiscal year ending date so that you can try an end of year closing. Try all of GL II's features and become comfortable with them before you begin working with the "real" accounting system. Just be sure that you destroy the reports you make while "playing" so that they don't get mixed up with the real thing. -23- Section 3 Starting and Ending 3. STARTING AND ENDING -- THE MASTER MENU When you first "boot" your computer system, make sure you enter the current date and time. Some of GL II's reports use the date and time stored in the system clock to save you the trouble of entering the current date and time over and over again. If you bypass the date and time entry, these elements will be wrong. One good way to make sure the date and time are current is to add a "clock-calendar" board to your computer system. If you're operating a floppy disk system, place your program disk in drive "A:", your data disk in drive "B:", and make sure you have an "A>" prompt. If you're operating a fixed disk system, make sure you've changed to the sub-directory containing "LCONFIG.DAT". Now, type "gl". The disk drives will run for a moment and, unless the system has been improperly shut down, you'll see GL II's Main Menu. If there was a shutdown problem, you'll see a message that says, The system was improperly shut down. Run 'lrecover'. If you see this message, either bring forward your backup, or run LRECOVER as explained in Section 8. GL II won't let you continue until you've done one or the other. If you've used the password feature described in Section 2.6.6, GL II will display its Menu and ask for a password. You may enter the data entry password, the supervisor's password, or the master password. If you use the data entry password, GL II will allow you to enter vouchers, edit vouchers, and list the journal, but won't allow you to post the journal or switch to any of the other menus without giving the supervisor's password, or the master password. If you enter the supervisor's password, you'll have access to all of GL II's menus and most of its features. If you intend to close for the month or year, you must enter the master password, either now or later. -24- Section 3 Starting and Ending Five choices are displayed on the screen. Each choice is preceded by a number, surrounded by a pair of angle brackets. To select a choice, press the associated number key. 3.1 Journal If you press <1> from the Main Menu, GL II will take you to the part of the program that lets you enter and edit transactions, list and post the journal. A "transaction" is an amount to be posted to a specific account. Since GL II is a double-entry accounting system, if an amount is to be posted to one account, at least one other amount must be posted to a second account in order to balance the entries. Each group of balancing transactions is called a "voucher". The "Journal" is the collection of vouchers to be posted to your general ledger accounts. The Journal program is explained in Section 4. 3.2 Reports Pressing <2> will take you to the part of GL II that allows you to print reports such as the "Income Statement" and "Balance Sheet". The Reports program is explained in Section 5. 3.3 Accounts Pressing <3> from the Main Menu will take you to the part of GL II that lets you establish new accounts, edit the information on existing accounts, and print lists of accounts in numerical or alphabetical order. The Accounts program is explained in Section 6. 3.4 Closing Checklist If you press <4> from the Main Menu, GL II will take you to the program that closes your ledger for the month, or, if you've reached the end of your business' fiscal year, the year. There are certain things you must do before GL II will allow you to close. The Closing Checklist displays a list of these things, and tells you whether or not they've been completed. If they have, GL II presents an option that will let you close. The Clos- ing Checklist is explained in Section 7. -25- Section 3 Starting and Ending 3.5 Change Period Ending Date If you press <5> from the Master Menu, GL II will allow you to enter the date on which your current month ends. You'll have to do this when you first begin using the system. After that, each time you close, GL II will change the period ending date to the last day of the following month. The only time you'll need to change period ending date again will be if, for some reason, you need to re-do a prior month. That should never happen if you've made adequate backups. 3.6 Quit To leave GL II, press <Enter> at the Main Menu. It's very impor- tant that you always leave the program in this way. If you're operating a floppy disk system, BE SURE YOU DON'T REMOVE THE DISKS FROM THEIR DRIVES UNTIL YOU'VE PRESSED <Enter> FROM THE MAIN MENU AND HAVE RECEIVED THE "A>" PROMPT FROM DOS. If you're operating a fixed disk system, BE SURE YOU DON'T SHUT DOWN THE SYSTEM UNTIL YOU'VE PRESSED <Enter> FROM THE MAIN MENU AND HAVE RECEIVED THE "C>" PROMPT FROM DOS. (With some fixed-disk systems, the prompt may be "D>",or "E>", rather than "C>".) The reason for this is that GL II uses a system of cross-pointers and control information -- data you never see -- to make it easy for you to find the information you want when you want it. GL II's final job is to put its control information back into a disk file so it'll be ready for you to use the next time you want it. If you shut down or remove the disks without giving GL II a chance to do this, you may lose data from your general ledger. If this happens, follow the instructions in Section 8 to recover your data. -26- Section 4 Journal 4. THE JOURNAL GL II's Journal program allows you to enter the transactions that record your business' or practice's monthly financial activity. When you press <1> at the Main Menu, GL II will take you to the "Journal" program, which allows you to enter, edit, list, and post the transactions that make up your ledger. A "transaction" is an amount to be posted to a particular account. A "voucher" is two or more transactions which, taken together, balance to zero. GL II's "Journal" is a file that holds the vouchers you've entered. Some of the vouchers in the Journal may be "posted". Others may not. "Posting" is an action that does two things: First, posting adds the amount in each transaction to the account specified for it. Second, posting establishes a link between the account and the transaction which allows other details of the transaction -- date, description, etc. -- to be associated with the account when you print reports. GL II allows you to list all un-posted vouchers, and modify them as you see fit. Once a voucher has been posted, however, you may not change it again. This restriction insures that changes in your account balances can be traced through an audit trail. 4.1 The Journal Screen When you begin to enter a new voucher, or edit an existing voucher, GL II's screen presents the following information: 4.1.1 Work State The Journal Screen is always in one of four "states". The screen's "state" is identified by the line displayed at top center. If you're entering a new voucher, the Journal Screen may be in "GENERAL JOURNAL" state, "CHECK REGISTER" state, or "CASH JOURNAL" state. If you're editing an existing voucher, the screen always will be in "EDIT VOUCHERS" state. The features associated with each state, and how you switch between them, are described in later paragraphs within this Section. -27- Section 4 Journal 4.1.2 Voucher Number The upper left corner of the screen shows the number of the voucher being entered, or of the voucher being edited. Voucher numbers are generated serially by GL II. The numbers run from 1 to 999999, then recycle beginning with 1. In order to insure the integrity of your "audit trail", GL II makes no provision for the operator to change a voucher number or interrupt the voucher numbering sequence. 4.1.3 Date As you enter vouchers, GL II keeps track of the last date you entered. This keeps you from having to re-type the date each time you enter a transaction. The date shown in the "Date" field is the last date you entered. As soon as you modify the date, or enter a new date, the "Date" field in GL II's Journal Screen changes to reflect the change. If you enter a date beyond the current period ending date, GL II will say, Date is beyond period ending date. Continue? (y/n) If you press any key other than "n" or "N", GL II will continue. This feature is included to help you avoid entering data for a new month before you've closed the previous month. We've found our- selves doing that, and several GL II owners have reported the same problem. 4.1.4 Folio "Folio" is another term for "Posting Reference". You should enter a note of some kind in this field that "points" back to the docu- ment or "book of original entry" from which the transactions in this voucher were taken. If you're entering a check, for instance, the "folio" field should contain the check number. "Folio" is an important part of your audit trail. 4.1.5 Entry The "Entry Signal" tells whether the amount you enter for the current transaction will be recorded as a "DEBIT" or a "CREDIT". To reverse the entry, use a minus sign at the beginning of the amount you enter. In other words, if the Entry Signal says, "CREDIT", and you want to enter a debit of $12.75, type, "-12.75". -28- Section 4 Journal 4.1.6 Description The "Description" field contains a 33 character identification line describing the purpose or nature of the voucher. In most cases -- checks, for instance -- all of the transactions associ- ated with a voucher will echo this "Master Description" field. Each transaction can be given an independent "description" if appropriate, however. 4.1.7 Difference As you enter transactions for a new voucher, or edit the transac- tions for an existing one, the Journal Screen's "Difference" field shows the amount that must be credited or debited to some account in order for the voucher to balance. In this field, as in any dollar amount field displayed on the screen by GL II, a debit is shown without an identifier, and a credit is shown with a "Cr" appended to its right end. In other words, a debit of $12.75 is displayed as "12.75", but a credit of $12.75 is displayed as "12.75 Cr". 4.1.8 Transaction Window The fields at the top of the screen contain information that applies to the voucher as a whole. Beneath these "master" fields is a "window" of up to 14 lines, used to display individual tran- sactions associated with the voucher. If a voucher contains more than 14 transactions, some of the lines will be out of sight. Transaction lines beyond the range of the "window" can be scrolled back into sight as explained in Section 4.2.3.2. 4.1.9 Work Zone The zone set off between single lines near the bottom of the screen is the "work zone", where you will enter or edit each transaction's specific information. This zone remains blank unless you're entering a new transaction or editing an existing one. 4.1.10 Bulletin Lines As you enter a new voucher, or edit an existing one, GL II prompts you with (sometimes cryptically) brief messages regarding your options. These messages, or "bulletins", are displayed at the bottom of the screen. 4.2 Adding Vouchers When you press <1> at the Journal Menu, GL II will allow you to begin entering new vouchers. -29- Section 4 Journal 4.2.1 Start Voucher When it first displays the Journal Screen, GL II will be in "GEN- ERAL JOURNAL" state. You will have the following choices, indi- cated by a bulletin at the bottom of the screen: 1. If you press the "Escape" key, <Esc>, GL II will take you back to the Journal Menu. 2. If you press <G> or <g>, GL II will shift to "GENERAL JOURNAL" state (Section 4.2.1.1) and return to the Start Voucher display. 3. If you press <C> or <c>, GL II will shift to "CHECK REGISTER" state, as explained in Section 4.2.1.2, and will return to the Start Voucher display. 4. If you press <J> or <j>, GL II will shift to "CASH JOURNAL" state, as explained in Section 4.2.1.3, and will return to the Start Voucher display. 5. If you press <-> or <_>, GL II will "toggle" the "Entry Sig- nal". In other words, if "Entry" says, "CREDIT", <-> will switch it to "DEBIT". If "Entry" says, "DEBIT", <-> will switch it to "CREDIT". If you enter a date, GL II will go on to the next step in the voucher entry sequence. You may enter a date in any one of four ways. If the "Date" field is correct, simply press <Enter>, and GL II will use the existing date in the new voucher. If you want to change just the day, enter a one or a two-digit number. To change the month and day, enter four digits in "mmdd" format. In other words, to change to November 12th, enter "1112". To change to March 6th, enter, "0306". To change the month, day and year, enter six digits in "mmddyy" format. To change to March 16th, 1987, enter "031687". GL II understands the millennium change, and will translate "031603" into "March 16th, 2003". GL II's "default" state -- the one it's in when you first begin to enter new vouchers -- is the "GENERAL JOURNAL" state. "GENERAL JOURNAL" state will allow you to enter any kind of voucher, including a check or a petty cash voucher. The other two states aren't essential, and you needn't learn about them if you don't want to. On the other hand, they do speed up entering the kinds of vouchers they're designed specifically to handle. 4.2.1.1 General Journal State "GENERAL JOURNAL" state provides no special features. When you enter it, "Entry" is set to "DEBIT". -30- Section 4 Journal 4.2.1.2 Check Register State If you've defined a "Check Register Default Account" in accordance with Section 2.6.3.4, when you switch to "CHECK REGISTER" state, GL II will simply change its Work State message to "CHECK REGIS- TER", and will set "Entry" to "CREDIT". If you haven't defined a "Check Register Default Account", or if you've defined an account GL II can't find, the system will ask you for the number of the account you want to use as a checking account. 4.2.1.3 Cash Journal State If you've entered a "Cash Journal Default Account" (Section 2.6.3.5), when you switch to "CASH JOURNAL" state, GL II will change its Work State message to "CASH JOURNAL", and its "Entry" default to "DEBIT". If GL II can't find a Cash Journal Default Account, it will ask you for the number of the account you want to use as a petty cash account. 4.2.2 Folio Once you've set the Work State you want and have entered a date, GL II will ask you for a "Folio" entry. Enter a posting reference that's not over 11 characters long. If you're entering a check, you'll want to put the check number in this field. If you're entering a petty cash voucher, you'll want to use the number of the voucher. If you're copying an entry from a page in a general journal book, you'll probably want to use an abbreviation, such as "J" for the name of the source book, followed by the page number. If you're in "CHECK REGISTER" state, and your last entry was a check, GL II will increment the check number by one, display the new number in the "Folio" field, and ask whether or not the new number is "o.k.". If it is, simply press <Y>, or <y>, or <Enter>. If not, press <N> or <n>, and GL II will allow you to enter a new posting reference. If you're in "CASH JOURNAL" state, and you've already entered a posting reference, GL II will re-display the entry and ask if it's "o.k.". Pressing <Y>, <y>, or <Enter> will take you on to the next entry step. No matter which Work State you're in, if you press <Esc> at the "Folio" entry prompt, GL II will let you abandon the voucher. -31- Section 4 Journal 4.2.3 Account Number Entry Level Once you've completed the "Folio" entry, GL II will ask you for an account number. It also will give you an opportunity to carry out several alternative operations. 4.2.3.1 Finding an Account If you want to continue entering a transaction, and if you know the number of the account you want to use, enter the number. If GL II can't find the account number you entered, or if you press the <F1> key instead of entering a number, GL II will go into Account Search Mode. In this mode, GL II will search for an account number if you enter only digits, or will search for an account name, or a partial account name if you enter alphabetic characters. The alphabetic search is based on whatever part of a name you enter, and is not case sensitive. If you enter, "M" or "m", GL II will find the first account whose name begins with "m". If you enter a number, GL II will go to numeric search mode. If you enter a name or part of a name, GL II will go to alphabetic search mode. The arrow keys will move you "up" or "down" through the accounts numerically or alphabetically, depending on which search mode you're in. If you're in alphabetic mode and want to switch to numeric mode, enter any number. If you're in numeric mode and want to switch to alphabetic, enter any letter or sequence of letters. If you use the down arrow key to move past the last account, GL II will "roll around" and display the first account. If you move backwards past the first account, GL II will display the last. Since you may not post a transaction to a master account, only detail accounts will appear during a search. If you decide to stop looking for an account, press <Esc>. If you find the account you're looking for, press <Enter>. If you're in "CHECK REGISTER" entry state, and this is the first transaction in a new voucher, GL II won't ask for an account number. Instead, it will find and load the account number for the "Check Register Default Account", or the account number you entered when you switched into "CHECK REGISTER" state. Once you've accepted an account, GL II will display its number and the first 27 characters of its name on the Work Line, and will go on to the next step in the entry sequence. -32- Section 4 Journal 4.2.3.2 Editing a Transaction Pressing <F2> at the Account Number Entry level will allow you to edit a transaction. As soon as you press <F2>, the cursor will jump to the beginning of the last transaction line you entered. If this is the one you want to edit, press <E> or <e>. If not, use the arrow keys to move up or down the transaction lines in the Transaction Window. If you've entered more than 14 transactions, attempting to move the cursor beyond the Transaction Window will cause the window to scroll either up or down. If the cursor is on a transaction you want to delete, press <D> or <d>. GL II will ask if you really mean it, just in case you made a mistake. If you answer the question with <Y> or <y>, GL II will delete the transaction without further ado. Once you've selected a transaction to edit, GL II will allow you to change the transaction's account number, description, or amount. 4.2.3.3 Editing Header Information If you press <F3> at the Account Number Entry Level, GL II will allow you to change the voucher's date, folio reference, and description. If you change the date or folio reference, GL II automatically will make the change throughout the transactions in the voucher. If you change the description, GL II will ask if you want to make the change throughout the voucher. If you elect not to change all transactions, the new description will be used in each new tran- saction, beginning with the next one, but none of the previous transactions will be affected. 4.2.3.4 Changing The Entry Signal To change the Entry Signal from "CREDIT" to "DEBIT" or vice-versa, press <-> at Account Number Entry Level. 4.2.3.5 Canceling a Voucher If you've made a mistake that you feel is serious enough to war- rant starting the whole voucher over, press <Esc> at Account Number Entry Level. GL II will ask if you really want to delete the whole voucher. Be sure you really want to delete the voucher before you press <Y> or <y>. As soon as you press the key, all entries in the voucher will be removed, and you'll be back at the Start Voucher display, ready to begin re-entering everything, -33- Section 4 Journal including date and folio reference. 4.2.3.6 Completing the Voucher Once you've entered all the transactions that belong in your voucher, press <Enter> at Account Number Entry Level. If the voucher balances at that point, GL II will transfer the voucher information to a disk file and return to the Start Voucher display so that you can begin your next voucher. If the voucher doesn't balance, one of three things will happen: 1. If you've selected a balancing entry (Section 4.2.5), GL II will move the voucher's "Difference" to the balancing entry and will ask if you want to finish the voucher by balancing to that account. 2. If you haven't selected a balancing entry, GL II will enter your Voucher Difference Default Account automatically, as a balancing entry, and will ask if you want to finish the voucher by balancing to that account. 3. If you haven't selected a balancing entry and GL II can't find a Voucher Difference Default Account, GL II will beep, say, "** Voucher is not in balance **", and wait for your next move. At this point, you'll have to look through your list of accounts for something to use for this voucher's temporary balance. GL II isn't going to let you finish the voucher until it balances. 4.2.4 Transaction Description As soon as you've selected an account, GL II will do one of two things: If there's a description already in the "Description" header (Sec- tion 4.1.6), GL II will echo up to 27 characters of that descrip- tion in the Work Zone description field. If you haven't yet entered a description, GL II will ask for one. As soon as you enter the description, GL II will move it to the "Description" header, and echo the first 27 characters in the Work Zone description field. If you've gotten this far by mistake, and want to wipe out the voucher and start over, press <Esc>. -34- Section 4 Journal 4.2.5 Transaction Amount Enter the amount of the transaction. The amount you enter will be recorded as a debit or a credit according to the setting in the "Entry Signal". If the Entry Signal says, "DEBIT", and you want to enter a credit, enter the amount preceded by a minus sign. If you want to enter a debit, and the Entry Signal says, "CREDIT", precede the amount with a minus sign. Notice that when you enter an amount, the "Difference" field in the upper right corner of the screen changes to reflect the new difference in the overall voucher balance. GL II doesn't care whether or not you use commas with large numbers. It will accept either "9,365,998.35" or "9365998.35" as a valid amount. GL II incorporates a feature which allows you to identify any one of the transactions in a voucher as the "balancing entry". A "balancing entry" is the transaction to which any "Difference" remaining after all other transactions have been entered, will be balanced, automatically. If you want this particular transaction line to be the balancing entry, press <Enter>. GL II will reflect a zero amount for the transaction, and will display an asterisk ahead of the line in the Transaction Window. If you try to make a transaction the balancing entry, after you've already selected a balancing entry, GL II will beep at you, and say, "*** Balancing entry already selected ***". 4.2.6 Cash Journal Automatic Balancing If you're in "CASH JOURNAL" state, as soon as you complete a voucher's first transaction, GL II automatically will create a transaction line using the "Cash Journal Default Account" (Section 2.6.3.5) and will ask if you want to balance to that account. This allows you to enter a series of petty cash transactions to various accounts, and create a printed Cash Journal in the petty cash account, on the Transaction Report (Section 5.1). 4.3 Entering a Voucher -- A Summary To enter a voucher: 1. Enter a date (Section 4.2.1). 2. Enter a folio reference (Section 4.2.2). -35- Section 4 Journal 3. Select an account (Section 4.2.3). 4. Enter a description (Section 4.2.4). 5. Enter an amount (Section 4.2.5). 6. Repeat until all transactions have been entered: a. Select an account (Section 4.2.3). b. Enter an amount (Section 4.2.5). 7. Balance the voucher (Section 4.2.3.6). 4.4 Editing Vouchers When you press <2> at the Journal Menu, GL II will display almost exactly the same screen you saw when you were entering vouchers. The "State" shown at the top of the screen, however, will be "EDIT VOUCHERS", and the number of the last voucher entered will show in the "Voucher Number" field. GL II will ask you for a voucher number. To use the Edit feature effectively, you need to have listed the Journal (Section 4.5), so that you have specific voucher numbers to refer to. GL II won't let you edit a voucher that's been posted. If you enter a number that's not within the range of currently entered, but not posted, vouchers, GL II will beep and say, "*** Voucher number out of range ***". Once you've selected a valid voucher number, GL II will load all the voucher's transactions, and will restore the screen informa- tion for that voucher, exactly as it was before you balanced it and saved it. If you've used the automatic balancing feature, GL II will pull the amount out of the balancing transaction, and will display it again as a "Difference". At this point, you may do anything you could do when you were creating the voucher. You may add new transaction lines, delete or edit existing transaction lines, change the date or folio reference throughout the voucher, and change any or all of the descriptions in the voucher's transactions. 4.5 Listing the Journal Once you've posted the Journal, you may not change what's already been entered into your General Ledger, although you may modify what's there with reversing entries. To catch and correct mis- takes before you've posted the vouchers in your Journal, it's -36- Section 4 Journal necessary to list the Journal. To do this, press <3> at the Journal Menu. GL II will ask you if you want a "<F>ull Listing", "<T>otals Only", or information on a <S>ingle Account. 4.5.1 Full Journal Listing A Full Journal Listing prints each voucher in order, showing voucher number, folio, and date, followed by each transaction, showing account number, account name, description, and amount -- in Debit (left) and Credit (right) columns. Once it prints all the detailed information on un-posted vouchers in the Journal, GL II prints a Totals Page which lists prior bal- ance, net change, and ending balance for each account that has been affected by the period's journal entries. Note that the Totals Page shows the effect of all transactions in the Journal -- not just the un-posted ones. 4.5.2 Journal Totals Only If you balance your checkbook manually as you go along, you may find that the journal total listed for your checking account isn't the same as the one you calculated manually. By checking back in the Full Journal Listing, or by printing a Single Account Listing (Section 4.5.3), you may find the error and correct it. If you want to make sure the new total is correct, without having to pump out all the paper involved in a Full Journal Listing, select the Totals Only option. GL II will bypass the details and give you just the Totals Page. 4.5.3 Single Account Listing If you're having trouble finding an error in the totals on a Jour- nal Listing, it probably will help to list the journal entries for just a single account. To do this, press <S> when you get the Journal Listing bulletin. GL II will let you enter an account number, or search for an account by number, by name, or with the arrow keys. Once you've selected an account, if the account has transactions in the un-posted part of the journal, they'll be printed. Each line on the report shows voucher number, folio, date, description, and amount. At the end of the report, GL II prints the net change represented by the transactions. -37- Section 4 Journal 4.6 Posting the Journal Before the transactions associated with your vouchers can show up in GL II's financial reports, you must post the Journal. Posting adds the amounts in the various transactions to the appropriate account balances, and links the transactions to the accounts so that the Transaction Report can show them in their proper places. Posting also computes the Profit and Loss amount that will show up in your Balance Sheet. To post the journal, press <4> from the Journal Menu. If the Supervisor's Password has been activated (Section 2.6.6), and if you haven't given GL II the Supervisor's Password, GL II will ask you for it. Once GL II is satisfied that you're authorized to post the Jour- nal, it will say "Press <Enter> when printer is ready or <Q>uit". Make sure the printer is connected to the computer, is turned on, and has sufficient paper in it. Then press <Enter>. GL II will post the Journal and will produce a Posting Report almost identi- cal to the Full Journal Listing described in Section 4.5.1. WARNING: SOME PRINTERS ARE CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE COMPUTER CAN'T SENSE WHEN THE PRINTER IS ON LINE. IF YOUR PRINTER IS CONFIGURED THIS WAY, YOUR COMPUTER MAY GO AHEAD AND POST THE JOURNAL WITHOUT PRINTING A POSTING REPORT. TO PREVENT THIS, MAKE SURE THE PRINTER IS CONNECTED AND TURNED ON BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO POST THE JOURNAL. You may post the journal as often as you want to. Each time you post, the Posting Report will begin with the page number after the one used on the last page of the last posting. When you finish the month, all your postings should go together as a single, con- secutively numbered report. Missing pages indicate a problem, as do missing voucher numbers. -38- Section 5 Reports 5. REPORTS GL II's reports section allows you to print standard financial statements. To get to the reports section, press <2> at the Main Menu. If you've activated passwords (Section 2.6.6), and have entered the system with the Data Entry Password, GL II will require you to enter either the Supervisor's Password or the Master Password before it will give you the Reports Menu. If the Journal hasn't been posted, GL II will beep at you, say, "*** Journal is not posted ***", and refuse to let you into the Reports program. In order to insure a proper audit trail, GL II insists that you print at least one complete Transaction Report, Income Statement, and Balance Sheet before it will let you close for the month. The other reports available through the reports section are optional. 5.1 Transaction Report The Transaction Report is equivalent to the account sheets in a manual ledger. The main difference is that GL II's transaction report collects the transactions for each account, month by month, while a manual ledger page continues entries for a given account month after month until the page is full. To print a Transaction Report, press <1> at the Reports Menu. GL II will ask how many copies you want. To continue, make sure the printer is connected, and press a digit key -- 1 through 9. If you decide not to print the report after all, press <Enter>. GL II displays the message, "Press <S> once to stop printing". If you press <S> or <s>, GL II will beep, say, "*** Interrupt Acknowledged ***", and quit printing as soon as it can. If you stop printing in the middle of a report, you won't be able to pick up again where you left off. You'll have to start over again. -39- Section 5 Reports The Transaction Report is segmented by the category headings you defined with "LCONFIG" (Section 2.6.2). Only detail accounts figure in the Transaction Report, since these are the only accounts to which you may post a transaction. Each account entry begins with a line that contains the account number, account name, prior balance, net change, and current bal- ance. The account line begins at the extreme left of the paper, and is set off with surrounding single lines across the page. After the account line, GL II prints all transactions during this period that affected the account. Each transaction line includes voucher number, folio, date, description, and amount. Transaction lines show debits and credits by left or right posi- tion in the amount columns. Account lines show debits as plain numbers, and credits as numbers with "Cr" appended to the right end. 5.2 Income Statement The Income Statement is a Profit and Loss report. Only revenue, cost of goods sold, and expense accounts figure in this report. To print an Income Statement, press <2> at the Reports Menu. The mechanics of printing the report are the same as for the Transac- tion Report. If you start to print and then change your mind, you may stop printing by pressing <S>. Each account is printed, even if it has no balance. Subordinate accounts (Section 2.1.5) are grouped with their master accounts. For each account, the Income Statement shows a balance at the end of the previous month, a net change for the current month, and the total for year to date. The totals in master accounts are the grand totals of all their subordinate accounts. Each of these figures is followed by a percentage that relates the figure to total revenue. The Income Statement is segmented by the category headings you defined with "LCONFIG" (Section 2.6.2). GL II totals the amount in each category, at the end of the category. At the end of the Income Statement, GL II prints a "Total Revenue" amount. If you're using Cost of Goods Sold accounts, GL II fol- lows "Total Revenue" with "Cost of Goods Sold", and "Gross Pro- fit", which is Total Revenue minus Cost of Goods Sold. Finally, GL II prints "Total Expenses" and "Net Profit". -40- Section 5 Reports GL II knows which sections of the Income Statement contain credit accounts, and which contain debit accounts. Amounts in the vari- ous accounts normally are shown as simple numbers, without debit or credit indicators. If a debit is reflected in a credit account, or a credit is reflected in a debit account, however, the Income Statement will print the amount inside parentheses. In other words, a credit of $5.12 in an expense account will be printed as "(5.12)". This same convention is used in the grand totals. A net loss of $583.23 would be printed as, "Net Profit: (583.23)". 5.3 Balance Sheet GL II's Balance Sheet is segmented by the asset, liability and capital categories you established with "LCONFIG" (Section 2.1.4). Totals, however, are for category types. For example, if you have three asset categories, GL II will print the category heading for each, followed by account information for each account within that category. When all three categories have been printed, GL II will print a "Total Assets" figure. Each Balance Sheet account line shows the account number, account name, and a dollar figure in Debit (left) or Credit (right) column format. Subordinate accounts are grouped with their master accounts. The total for each category type, "Total Assets", "Total Liabili- ties", "Total Capital", and for the balancing summary, "Total Assets and Capital", is printed without reference to whether it is a debit or a credit. 5.4 End of Month Reports To avoid waiting around to push buttons so that your computer can print its next mandatory end of month report, GL II provides an "End of Month Reports" feature that lets you print from one to nine copies of the Transaction Report, Income Summary, and Balance Sheet, with a single command. To print all reports, press <4> at the Reports Menu. GL II will ask how many copies you want, and will proceed to print that number of copies of each report in turn. If you made a mistake and want to quit printing, press <S> just once. 5.5 Single Account Summary GL II's Single Account Summary does, for a single account, what the Transaction Report does for all accounts. To use the feature, press <5> at the Reports Menu, tell GL II which account you want to summarize, then indicate how many copies you want to print. -41- Section 5 Reports The format of the Single Account Summary is identical to the for- mat used for the Transaction Report. 5.6 Trial Balance The Trial Balance is a combination of the Balance Sheet and Income Summary. The Balance Sheet prints asset, liability, and capital accounts. The Income Summary prints revenue, cost of goods sold, and expense accounts. The Trial Balance prints all accounts. Each account line in the Trial Balance shows account number, account name, and account balances for "Year to Date" and "This Month". Balances are in debit (left), credit (right) column for- mat. The Trial Balance totals all balances as it goes. Since GL II won't let you enter an unbalanced voucher, the only way your accounting system can get out of balance is if a power surge, static electricity, or some other machine anomaly damages GL II's data. When you print a Trial Balance, check the "Balance" figures at the end of the report. If they aren't both zero, something has gone seriously wrong. Data recovery, described in Section 8, will correct an imbalance. 5.7 Department Reports If you've used departmentalization in your accounting system, and want a Transaction Report, Income Statement, or Balance Sheet for a single department, or series of departments, press <7> at the Reports Menu. GL II will ask you for the number of the department you want, and will take you to a new menu with four numbered choices. If you've departmentalized, each department will be represented by a one or two digit number after the decimal point in account numbers, and each segment of your accounting system will have a similar account for each department. When GL II asks you for the department number, enter an integer rather than a decimal point followed by an integer. In other words, if you want a report on all accounts that end in ".8", answer the "[Department Number]" question with "8", not ".8". A department Transaction Report, Income Summary, or Balance Sheet is identical to the corresponding "all accounts" version of the report, except that it will deal only with the accounts in your chart of accounts that end in the department number you requested. To change to a different department from the Department Reports Menu, press <4>. GL II will ask you for the new department number you want to work with. -42- Section 6 Accounts 6. ACCOUNTS When you press <3> at the Main Menu, GL II takes you to the menu that allows you to enter new accounts and delete or edit existing ones. Before you begin to enter accounts for the first time, you should have designed your "Chart of Accounts", as discussed in Section 2.1. 6.1 Adding New Accounts When you press <1> at the Accounts Menu, GL II displays a screen with account information captions at the top, and the numbers and names of the first sixteen categories you defined with "LCONFIG" (Section 2.6.2) at the bottom. 6.1.1 Account Number GL II's account numbers consist of a four-digit base number, fol- lowed by an optional decimal point, followed by a one or two-digit detail or department number. "1000" is a valid number, as is "1000.2" or "1035.28". "235" isn't a valid number because it's only three digits long. "103.2" isn't valid, because its base number is less than four digits. "1032.835" isn't valid because its detail number is more than two digits long. Begin entering a new account by typing the account number at the "Number" prompt. If the number you entered duplicates an existing account number, GL II will warn you and return to the "Number" prompt. If the number you entered contains a decimal place, followed by a one or two digit integer, GL II will check to see if it can find the "master account" for this "subordinate account". For the number to be acceptable, GL II must be able to find an account with the identical base number, and no subordinate account extension. In addition, the account must have been designated a "master" account (Section 6.2). If GL II can't find a "master" or "parent" account that meets these specifications, it will beep, say, *** Can't find master for this account *** -43- Section 6 Accounts and return to the "Number" prompt. 6.1.2 Account Name Once you've entered a valid account number, GL II will ask you for an account name. You must enter a name. If you decide to start over at this point, press <Enter>. If you've entered a new account with a four-digit number, GL II will go on to the "Category" question. If you've entered a subor- dinate account, as soon as you finish typing the name, GL II will display the account's number, name, category, type, and the number and name of its "Parent Account". The category assigned by GL II will be the category GL II also will turn on selection numbers next to the "Number" and "Name" captions. At this point you may change the account number or the name, or delete the account. If you change the account number, the new number must have the same base number you started with. If you want to delete the account and start over, press <D> or <d>. GL II will ask if you really mean it. If you answer <Y> or <y>, GL II will delete the entry and go back to the "Number" prompt. To accept the new account, press <Enter>. After you've entered an account name, GL II will ask for a category. Enter the number of the category this account belongs in. If you've defined more than sixteen categories (Section 2.6.2), and if the category you want isn't visible at the bottom of the screen, press <S> or <s>. GL II will re-draw the bottom of the screen to show the sixteen categories that weren't visible. Account categories must remain in sequence. If you have an account number 1000 that's an asset account, and an account number 2000 that's a liability account, account number 1023 can't be a revenue account, and account number 2010 can't be an asset account. If you try to assign an out-of-sequence category to an account, GL II will beep, say, *** Category is out of sequence *** and wait for your next move. Likewise, if you enter a category number that's less than one or more than 32, GL II will say, *** Invalid category *** If you try to assign a category you haven't defined, GL II will say, -44- Section 6 Accounts *** Category Not Defined *** 6.1.3 Account Type As soon as you've entered a valid category, GL II will display the name of the category you've selected, will place the word, "Detail" next to the "Type" caption, and will turn on selection numbers next to the "Number", "Name", "Category" and "Type" cap- tions. At this point you may press <1> to change the account number, <2> to change the name, <3> to change the category, and <4> to toggle the account "Type" back and forth between "Detail" and "MASTER". By default, your new account is a "detail" account that will accept transactions posted to it. If you intend to use the account as a "master" account which will summarize the totals of transactions posted to subordinates, press <4> and toggle the account to "MASTER" type. At this point you may use <D> or <d> to delete the account and start over, or <Enter> to accept the new account. 6.2 Editing Accounts If you press <2> from GL II's Accounts Menu, you'll get a display almost identical to the one used to enter new accounts. This time, however, an account will be displayed at the top of the screen, and you'll be able to search for the account you want to edit by entering a number or a name, or using the arrow keys to move up and down through the account sequence -- either numeri- cally or alphabetically. The search options are the same as they are when you select an account at the Journal's "Account Number Entry Level" (Section 4.2.3.1). When you find the account you want to edit, press the <F1> key. If you're allowed to edit the account, GL II will turn on selec- tion numbers next to the elements you ordinarily may edit. There are many restrictions on what changes you may make in your accounts. Generally speaking, if the Journal has been posted, and if an account has no balance and no transactions associated with it, you may delete the account, or edit any of the elements with selection numbers. If the Journal is not posted, or if the account has a balance, or associated transactions, or if the account is a Master with one or more subordinate accounts, you won't be able to delete it or change its number. -45- Section 6 Accounts In virtually all instances, you may change an account's name. Note that the account's balances for "This Month" and "Year to Date" are displayed in the top part of the screen. Debits are shown as numbers with no notation. Credits are shown as numbers followed by "Cr". You may not change these amounts directly. To change them, you must enter transactions through the Journal pro- gram. 6.3 Listing Accounts If you press <3> at the Account Menu, GL II will display a new menu with six selections on it. Two of them are for listing "all accounts", two are for listing "detail accounts" only, and two are for listing "department accounts". 6.3.1 All Account Listings You may print a list of all accounts either in numeric or alpha- betic sequence. In both cases, the lists are columnized on the page. When you call for an account listing, your computer may take a moment or two to format the columns before it begins to print. If you call for a numeric listing, GL II will use the categories you've defined (Section 2.6.2), as headings. The numeric listing also groups subordinate accounts with their parent accounts. In both listings, master accounts are identified with the symbol, "<M>". 6.3.2 Detail Account Listings "All account" listings include accounts that won't accept transac- tions. If you want to print a list of just those accounts that can accept transactions, select a numeric or alphabetic detail account listing. 6.3.3 Department Account Listings If you've used departmentalization in your accounting structure, GL II will allow you to print numeric or alphabetic account lists for individual departments. Department selection is similar to the department selection described in Section 5.7. -46- Section 7 Closing 7. CLOSING Closing is the process that clears all information in GL II's Journal back to "year to date" balances in the accounts, and then deletes the Journal. When closing is complete, GL II is ready for a new month, or a new year. If you've used the password protection feature (Section 2.6.6), you must use the Master Password to enter the Closing portion of GL II. If you entered the Master Password when you started, GL II will switch you to the "Closing Checklist" when you press <4> at the Master Menu. If you entered the Data Entry Password or Supervisor's Password, GL II will ask for the Master Password before it will allow you to proceed. 7.1 Closing Checklist When you enter its "Closing Checklist" portion, GL II will list four actions that must be taken before you may close. The status of each action is indicated by "YES" or "NO". If the Journal hasn't been posted, you may post it by pressing <1>. If any of the required reports hasn't been printed, you may print a single copy of the report by pressing the appropriate number. Be sure the printer is connected and turned on before you do this, because GL II begins printing as soon as you press one of the report numbers. Once all four necessary actions have been carried out, GL II will present a fifth selection number that will let you close. 7.2 Closing When you press <5> at the Closing Checklist, GL II reminds you that you should back up your data before you close, and gives you a chance to change your mind. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU BACK UP YOUR GL II DATA FILES TO A FLOPPY DISK AND PUT THE DISK AWAY FOR SAFEKEEPING BEFORE YOU CLOSE FOR A PERIOD. There are two reasons for this. First, since there are so many things to be done during the process, closing can take several -47- Section 7 Closing minutes. If anything, such as a power failure, interrupts the closing process, your data will be corrupted. Second, if you want to be able to print financial reports from earlier periods, you MUST save a copy of your data, as it was at the end of the period of interest. To proceed, answer GL II's "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CLOSE NOW (y/n)" question with <Y> or <y>. If you've reached the end of your fiscal year (as defined in Section 2.6.3.1), GL II will notify you that it's ready to close for the year, and ask if you want to continue. Again, you'll have a chance to change your mind. Monthly closing adds the "This Month" total in each account to the "Year to Date" total, then zeroes the "This Month" total. Yearly closing carries out the monthly closing process on each asset, liability, and capital account, then zeroes both the "This Month" and "Year to Date" totals in each revenue, cost of goods sold, and expense account. As it goes, GL II adds up the balances it found in each of these "income statement accounts", and adds the total to the "Income Summary" account (Section 2.1.2.3). After closing the accounts, GL II deletes the "VOUCHER.DAT" and "JOURNAL.DAT" files and re-starts them. -48- Section 8 Data Recovery 8. ERROR MESSAGES AND DATA RECOVERY GL II is extremely resistant to data loss. It's very unlikely you'll lose data from your system unless you mix data disks from different sets, or experience a power loss while you're actively entering data. Even if one of these things happens to you, it's still likely you'll be able to recover nearly everything with GL II's "LRECOVER" program. 8.1 Error Messages and Error Diagnosis GL II contains two kinds of error messages: those dealing with failures in the system, and those dealing with corruption of your data. 8.1.1 System Errors System errors fall into two categories. The first kind of error usually occurs while GL II is being set up, and involves system limits that haven't yet been defaulted properly. 8.1.1.1 Not Enough Memory GL II begins its run by asking the operating system for enough memory to store its records and key files. If your computer hasn't enough memory, or if you've committed too much memory to "resident" programs or "ramdisks", GL II will say, Not enough memory to complete If this happens, you'll have to add memory to your system or reduce the amount of memory you've committed to other uses. 8.1.1.2 Couldn't Open ... If you get a message saying GL II couldn't open one of its files, check the following list of possible errors: If GL II couldn't open "LCONFIG.DAT", the file isn't in the default directory. Check to see what directory you're in. Chances are it isn't the directory you thought you were in. If GL II couldn't open a data file other than "LCONFIG.DAT", chances are, the "path" defaults discussed in Section 2.6.5 aren't pointing to the proper disk or directory. Find out where the data -49- Section 8 Data Recovery file is that GL II couldn't open and re-set the "path" default. If you're trying to configure GL II, using "LCONFIG", and you get a message saying, "Couldn't open LCONTROL.DAT", you've probably moved "LCONTROL.DAT" to a new disk or directory before telling GL II where you were moving it (Section 2.6.5). Check the path- name in the "Couldn't open" message, and move "LCONTROL.DAT" to where GL II thinks it is. 8.1.1.3 Couldn't Read ... or Couldn't Write ... If you get a message saying that GL II couldn't read or couldn't write a particular record, either something has gone wrong with your computer system, or the disk you're working with has developed a mechanical or magnetic flaw. Try again. The problem may have been transient. If you try again and things work properly, make a backup immedi- ately, and plan to switch to a different disk as soon as possible. The problem may have been a floppy disk that's developing a mag- netic "weak spot" If you try again and things don't work properly, data recovery, discussed below, may still solve the problem. If so, make a backup and switch to another disk after you've gotten your data back. 8.1.2 Data Errors GL II continuously checks to make sure your information hasn't become corrupted in such a way that further work will destroy good data. If something's wrong, you'll probably get a message telling you you've lost data. 8.2 Recovering Lost Data If you experience signs of lost data, leave your GL II disks con- figured as they normally are, turn on your printer, and type, "lrecover". GL II's "LRECOVER.EXE" program will begin running and will give you a series of messages and rows of dots on the screen. The messages and dots are to let you know that LRECOVER is still running, and to allow someone familiar with GL II's design to diagnose any problems that might arise with the recovery program itself. If LRECOVER encounters an error, it will send a message to the printer, informing you of the kind of error, and the action the program is taking to correct it. These printer messages are "buf- fered" during LRECOVER's run. Unless there are a lot of them, chances are that the printer won't begin running until LRECOVER finishes. -50- Section 8 Data Recovery If LRECOVER finds transactions that aren't associated with a voucher, it will create a new voucher and assign the transactions to that voucher. Once you've posted the new journal entries created by LRECOVER, you'll be able to print a transaction report that contains the recovered transactions. If you've been faithful about making "folio" entries, chances are you'll be able to track down the origin of the "lost" transactions. If LRECOVER finds transactions that aren't associated with a currently valid account, it will assign them to the Voucher Difference account. Again, a check of the transaction report probably will tell you who the "lost" transactions really belong to. Finally, if LRECOVER finds an overall imbalance in the general ledger, it will create a single transaction, associate it with the next voucher, and put the result in the journal. If the printer prints error messages during LRECOVER's run, post the journal immediately after the run is over. If you edit the voucher(s) created by LRECOVER, you'll almost certainly throw everything out of balance again, requiring another recovery run to correct the new problems. 8.3 Backups The fact that GL II has an "LRECOVER" program shouldn't keep you from making backups. LRECOVER can't recover data from a disk that's been mechanically or magnetically damaged. If you use a ball point pen on your disk labels, or if you have a lot of static electricity in your office, it's almost a sure thing that the day will come when LRECOVER can't recover your data. On that day, your backup procedures will pay off in a big way. -51- INDEX Account categories, 9, 44 Account, name, 44 number, 43 type, 45 Accounts, detail, 10 editing, 45 listing, 46 Alphabetic search, 32 Arrow keys, 32 Asset accounts, 7 Asterisk on transaction line, 35 Automatic balancing, 34 Balance forward, 4 Balance sheet accounts, 6 Balance sheet, 41 Balancing entry, 35 Balancing, automatic, 34 Canceling a voucher, 33 Capital accounts, 7 Cash journal entry state, 31 Categories, account, 9, 15 Change period ending date, 26 Chart of accounts, 4 Check numbering, automatic, 31 Check register entry state, 31 Closing checklist, 25, 47 Control codes, printer, 18 Cost of goods sold, 9 Couldn't open ... , 49 Couldn't read ..., couldn't write ... , 50 Credit, 4 Date, transaction, 28, 30 Debit, 4 Defaults, system, 17 Department reports, 42 Departmentalization, 5, 10 Description, transaction, 29, 34 changing, 33 Detail accounts, 10 Difference display, 29 Double data disk system, 14 Editing, accounts, 45 transaction, 33 vouchers, 36 End of fiscal year, 17 Entry signal, changing, 33 definition, 28 Equity, owner's, 7 Error messages, 49 Escape key, 30 Expense accounts, 9 File paths, 19 INDEX Finding an account, 32 Fixed disk system, 14 Folio reference, 33 definition, 28 entering, 31 General journal entry state, 30 Hard disk system, 14 Income Summary account, 8 Income statement, 40 Income statement accounts, 8 Journal, 25 Liability accounts, 7 Limits, system, 3 Listings, accounts, 46 journal, 36 single account, 37 Master accounts, 10 Name, company, 15 Not enough memory, 49 Numeric search, 32 Passwords, 20 Posting reference, in Cash Journal, 31 Posting the journal, 27, 38 Printer control codes, 18 Profit and loss account, 7 Prompt line, 15 Recovering lost data, 50 Requirements, system, 3 Search, numeric and alphabetic, 32 Security, 11 Segments, accounting system, 6 Single account, listing, 37 summary, 41 Single data disk system, 14 Stop printing, 39 Subordinate accounts, 10 Transaction, 25 definition, 27 report, 39 window, 33 Trial balance, 42 Voucher, 4, 25 canceling, 33 definition, 27 number, 28 Work state, 27 Year end, fiscal, 17