Business Software & Enterprise Resource Management
Making the most of your business softwareHints & Tips On Sorting Out A Problematic GL Setup (Part 1)
Ok, so you’re inherited a disaster. You’ve run the general ledger and the results you are getting are, frankly, ludicrious. Where do you begin?
In CAPITAL your chart of accounts EITHER has the structure of containing opening and closing stock accounts that are postable, OR it is a direct cost of sales chart, where there are no opening/closing stock accounts, and at least one postable Cost of Sales account.
Sometimes an inexperienced user may have tried to set-up both at once. A good starting place to get a background on these issues is to read the General Ledger help topic: Advice On Stock Control.
If you are trying to clean up a mess, set the chart of accounts up as opening/closing stock for now. As this is simpler to set-up and manage and less sensitive to configuration problems and issues. You can always switch over to a direct cost of sales account approach (perpetual inventory) later on, but the easier you make things for yourself at the start, the better.
If you find that the postings in your GL are a chaotic jumple, it’s quickest to start over. Which means, starting with a clean slate and reposting for each period in turn.
The procedure is to check off each period, and work forward from there:
(1) Reversing any journals (such as opening balances) found in period 1 or any valid adjusting journals for any other periods. You need to do this so you can repost them again.
(2) Reset the entire period.
(3) Run a trial balance to confirm the period is empty.
(4) Repost any opening balance journals.
(5) Run End Period Wizard and repost activity to the period.
(6) Run trial balance and review results.
Step 6 does not mean that postings are going to the correct accounts! But most of the invalid rubbish found in your system should be removed by this point.
The next step will be to review what is posting where, and make corrections as necessary.
Reversing Journals
To reverse journals you will need to repost later, start the GL and go to Journals|General Journal Batches. Find the journals you want to post again. Press “Post” and then select Reverse – The Selected Batch. Press Post button.
Resetting (Clearing) An Entire Period
To reset (empty) an entire period, select File|Properties, click on Special tab. Enter Period No. (Start with 1.) And press Clear button.
Enhanced Stock Movements Audit Trail
One of the less noticeable but nonetheless important enhancements to be found in the upcoming CAPITAL V8 release, is a vastly expanded and more detailed stock movement audit trail system.
The existing Series 7 audit trail has a number of limitations:
- The stock movements audit trail report is transaction date driven. This can be misleading if users forward or backdate transactions, as stock on hand quantities and costs are always affected according to the current system date.
- Stock quantity movements are consolidated and presented as a total movement per day.
The new CAPITAL V8 stock movement audit trail now records changes to stock on hand and CIS (cost in store, which is normally equivalent to your average cost) on an event by event basis. This means that every action that can effect either of these values can now be individually traced and inspected. The audit trail also tracks all of the following additional information:
- The origin of the event. For example, CAPITAL Business Manager, CAPITAL Server Agent, CAPITAL Sales Force Manager, etc.
- A more detailed event code for each action that has an effect, i.e., direct adjustment/alteration by user, off-cut write-down, assembly build process, etc.
- The transaction number(s) involved in the event, if any.
- The transaction date and the system date and time of the event.
- The line reference of the transaction that effected stock.
- The account code of the transaction.
- The transaction quantity and physical stock quantity effected. (For example, it is possible to purchase in cartons of 100 but perhaps carry the item in stock in individual units or packs of 10. Both units are included in the audit trail.)
- The cost value of the units.
- A ‘snapshot’ of the resulting total stock on hand (‘Stock In’) quantity in stock control after the event has been processed.
- A ‘snapshot’ of the resulting total unit CIS/average cost after the event has been processed.
- The stock location of the stock item.
- Whether the item was a kit.
- The name of the user who initiated the event, of any.
With the introduction of this much more exhaustive and detailed audit trail tracking system we are hoping that users will find troubleshooting stock discrepancy issues considerably easier in the future.
