The Ledgers contain records of all checks written (whether printed from the Check Writing or Payroll screen or entered manually to reflect hand-written checks) as well as any manual adjustments.
Learn how to enter deposit entries, make bank balance adjustments, and handle lost checks in this chapter.
Helps Accessed From the Ledger Entry (L) Screen
Ctrl+N—clears the screen, without saving or un-saving the current record, and sets the reference number to the next available number.
Ctrl+P—Prints check on printer after saving it. Make sure you have checks in the printer.
If you load a previous check, Alt+T will ask if all the checks that follow are to be printed. Any check that was created from the Check Writing (/) screen will print in the check format to the checks printer; other checks will print in the G/L check format to the G/L checks printer.
F5—exits lookup.
F6—opens lookup.
F9—saves record.
Shift+F9—deletes record.
F10—Selection Screen
Shift+F10—goes to the Menu Bar.
Esc—exits one level.
Alt+F4—exits ABC.
Ctrl+D—Duplicates. If you want to enter the same, or almost the same, information under a different code, type in the new code and press Ctrl+D. When prompted, enter the code of the record you wish to Duplicate. If you want to duplicate it but reverse the figures, enter the number you want duplicated plus an R for reverse. DO NOT USE THIS FOR RETURNED CHECKS.
Ctrl+L—Loads last vendor. If you wish to load the vendor which you just finished loading on the Vendor (V) screen, on the Ledger (L) screen or on the Bill Entry (B) screen, press Ctrl+L.
Alt+B—searches Back for previous vendor check for employee.
Alt+F—searches Forward for next vendor check for employee.
Alt+N—loads Next vendor.
Alt+P—loads Previous vendor.
F7—opens/loads previous record.
F8—-opens/loads next record.
Shift+F7—When the cursor is on an indexed field, press Shift+F7 to scroll through information in reverse.
Shift+F8—When the cursor is on an indexed field, press Shift+F8 to scroll through information going forward.
Edit Help (L)
Ctrl+A—Adds a blank line at the cursor if you are on the repeating fields at the bottom part of the screen. All lines below will be pushed down a line.
Ctrl+C—Copies text. Place your cursor on the field that contains the text you wish to copy and press Ctrl+C. Then move your cursor to the field you want your information copied to and use the paste (Ctrl+V) function.
Ctrl+E—Erases the line at the cursor if you are on the repeating fields in the bottom part of the screen. This will move up all lines below if there are any.
Ctrl+V—pastes text. Any text that has been copied (with Ctrl+C) or cut (with Ctrl+X) may be pasted into any other field by using the Ctrl+V function. Simply place your cursor in the field you want to copy the information to and press Ctrl+V.
Ctrl+X—cuts text. Place your cursor on the field you want the text removed from and press Ctrl+X. The text will disappear. If you want to replace this text in another field, simply move your cursor to that field and use the paste (Ctrl+V) function.
Ctrl+Z—Zap! Undoes latest changes to the line the cursor is on.
Home—places the cursor at the beginning of the field.
End—moves the cursor to the end of a field.
Page Up—moves the cursor up a page.
Page Down—moves the cursor down a page.
Shift+Up arrow—moves cursor to first line on repeating fields.
Shift+Down arrow—moves cursor to next available line on repeating fields.
Tools Help (L)
Ctrl+F—Finds information bases on the type of field your cursor is in. Example: If your cursor is in the Remark field, and you press Ctrl+F, the data currently in the Remark field is entered into the Search at the top of the Lookup window, and all Ledger #s with that Remark are listed in the Lookup. You may change what is entered in the Search field to whatever Remark you wish to search for.
Ctrl+G—Gets or jumps to the address of a certain field. When you press Ctrl+G, a message box appears telling you the address of the field your cursor is on. You are also given opportunity to jump to another address. Enter the location number of the field you want to jump to, or enter F and the field number of the field you want to jump to.
Ctrl+J—accesses a Journal to record anything that you want to remember about this check. To see previous notes, press Ctrl+J. When you are done, press F9. The notes will be saved with the date and time.
Ctrl+K—accesses a second journal. It is similar to the Ctrl+J journal, but saves your notes with only the date.
Ctrl+W—puts the check # on a Word Processor list. To see the list, press F10, W, Ctrl+N (to clear screen), and then type LLIST. Ctrl+W
Alt+A—Adds the G/L # on this line to the list of G/L #s on the Vendor (V) screen, if it is not already listed there.
Alt+I—changes the inventory adjustment on the ledger 1 screen, Computer Entries, to divide the inventory adjustment into the cost of sales account. When you press F10, -, and 1 for Computer Entries, load the inventory adjustment and press Alt+I. Save with F9.
Alt+S—This function has been replaced by the checkbook Balancing (() screen. It allows the returning of a check. The first prompt asks you to enter the month #. Enter 1 for January, 2 for February, etc. Press Enter. The next prompt asks you to enter the check #, a + sign, and the amount. (Enter a minus sign instead of a plus sign for deposits and credits.) Press Enter again. The program searches for that check and amount. If there is an error—such as check number and amount not matching—you will be asked to try again. If the check and amount are found, the check will be marked as returned. Report # 4-12 then allows the printing of outstanding checks.
Alt+V—Voids a check. Do not delete a check. Use Alt+V instead to void it. To void a check, load the check on the ledger screen and press Alt+V. When the check is loaded again, the word VOID will appear in the vendor field.
Shift+F3—brings up an accountant's* calculator when your press it the first time. The second time you press it, the final calculations showing are entered into the field the cursor was on.
+ adds or totals - subtracts / divides
* multiplies ) clears ( exits calculator
= totals or equals
*If you are not familiar with an accountant’s calculator, you may want to take a little time to familiarize yourself with the differences in usage here. Figures are entered as positive or negative: i.e. 100+50-75= would be entered as 100+; 50+; 75- The answer calculates each time you press the positive or negative sign. The = sign or Enter key seldom need be used unless you are multiplying or dividing.
Date (L.2)
Automatically defaults to the last date entered.
When you enter new data, you cannot enter a date outside of the current period.
For example, if the current month is October, entering any month prior to October will be rejected. If you enter any date later than October, you will be asked if you are entering a new period. If you choose yes, that check number will be recognized as the first entry in a new period. You will not be able to enter any check numbers higher than that check number into the prior period.
If the first check # in November is 165, you will not be allowed to enter any checks higher than # 164 for October or lower than 165 for November. If you skip a period, you will not be able to enter any checks for that period. If check 164 is dated March 31 and check # 165 gets dated May 1 instead of April 1, you will not be able to enter any checks for April until you delete check number 165, enter the date correctly; then reapply check #165 to the correct date.
The Vendor Code and Name fields function as one entry. Each vendor is assigned a code by which you can call up the vendor without typing his entire name.
For example, if you assigned PADOT for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation; by simply entering PADOT (or often even a part of the code such as PAD), you can recall the entire name onto the record without typing it. If you pull up the wrong vendor, pressing Alt+N will bring up the next vendor in alphabetic order and Alt+P will bring up the prior vendor.
The vendors should be set up in the Vendor screen prior to ledger entry. If you use a consistent pattern for coding, it will be easier to recall the code. For example, the first three letters of both names followed by a 0 (SMIJOH0 for John Smith) is a practical approach.
Or use the automatic code option on the Company Setup (#) screen.
If a check is void, you can type in Void as the vendor code and save it without entering in any more data.
Note that if you enter all deposits under a hypothetical vendor named Deposit, the trial balance will list all deposits in date order. For example, you could assign $ as the vendor code for deposits.
Enter the amount of the check or the deposit. The payment is entered as a debit (positive number), and a deposit is entered as a credit (negative number).
Note that deposits (negative numbers) can only be entered when a decimal number (.1 to .8) is entered into the check number field. This is what we call a point entry.
Enter the first account to which the check is being charged (debited) or the first account to which the deposit is being credited. The account name will be displayed automatically from the G/L Accounts (G) screen. When you press Enter, the cursor will move to the Amount field where you will enter the amount to be debited or credited to the account. When you are done entering the information for the first account, the cursor will return to the Acct # field again to begin on another account. You may distribute the check or deposit amount to as many as 150 different G/L accounts.
If you enter an unassigned account number, a Lookup screen appears showing the account numbers closest to what you entered. Use the Up or Down arrows to choose an existing number or press Alt+A to set up a new number in the G/L Accounts (G) screen.
If you want to add a G/L account number to the G/L #s field in the Vendor screen while you are working in the L screen, just press Alt+A on the account number you have entered in the Acct. # field of the L screen. From that point on, this G/L # will be entered automatically every time you enter that Vendors code in the Vendor Code and Name field.
This way, any account you use regularly will be pre-entered.
Don't worry if you have some accounts listed that you don't use every time.
When you press F9 on the L screen record, any account #s that were not used are automatically eliminated from that particular record.
The G/L #s can be edited at any time on the Vendor screen if you decide that you want to eliminate some accounts from a vendor's G/L list.
Enter the amount to be applied to the G/L account # on this line. Because this is a sort of checkbook, you will need to enter debits (payment amounts) as a positive figure, just as you do when writing out a check manually. And, quite logically, credit amounts (such as a deposit) would need to be entered as a negative figure.
Pressing the F9 key when the cursor is in the Amount field enters the amount from the Distribution field into the Amount field and saves the record. Pressing Ctrl+P on this field does the same thing, plus it prints a check.
Use this field when you want to keep a permanent description of a transaction.
For example, when you acquire or dispose of an asset, enter a remark here to identify the asset.
Also use it when entering non-check transactions such as bank charges and credits. Enter the date which the bank uses for such transactions in the Remark field so that it is easier to balance the checkbook.
The cursor will stop here if the account number entered on the line has a Y in the Remark field on the General Ledger Accounts (G) screen. You can also access it by pressing Up arrow after the cursor has gone past the Remark field.
You may also use this field to enter a Job # which references the Job (J) screen.
You may press F6 for a Lookup to select the job from a list. After you enter or select a Job #, a + is appended to identify this as a Job # rather than a Remark. If you want both a Job # and a Remark, enter the Job # followed by a plus sign; and then the Remark.
The Job #, like the Remark, is used to store information on the transaction. It does not affect job reports except in some custom applications.
If the code you entered in the Vendor Code field did not have a name entered for it on the Vendor screen, the cursor stops in the Vendor Name field. You may enter something here, but you don't have to.
Once you enter the first check number, be it 1 or 700 or whatever, all check numbers after that are numbered sequentially. If you manually enter a number that is not in sequential order, you will be asked to verify that you intended to skip some checks.
Deposit numbers are entered by pressing a decimal point and then zero (.0). The last check number entered is brought up with one digit annexed after the decimal point. That digit will be a number between 1 and 8. 9 is not available because it is reserved for background uses.
For example, the first deposit entered after check number 1095 will be 1095.1. If there are two deposits entered after check 1095, the second one will be 1095.2.
WARNING! Deposits should be in the same accounting period as the immediately preceding check. For example, if check number 1095 was written in October and there are 12 periods in your accounting year, deposits 1095.1, 1095.2 (and so on) should also be in October.
Deposit Entry Challenges (L)
If you are entering a deposit on the Ledger (L) screen before any checks have been entered for a particular period, you may run into a little difficulty. Because there is no entry in the period for you to add a point entry to, and because you cannot add a point entry onto a check from a previous period unless you use the date from the previous period, you must add a point entry to a check number that has not yet been used.
For example, if the next check number is 1234, you may create a point entry 1234.1 for your deposit. When you save this deposit, the next check number is set to 1235, even though 1234 has not been used.
You will need to make a mental note to manually enter the Starting Check # as 1234 the next time you print checks from the Check Writing (/) screen. Be sure you REMEMBER what you did!
Bank Balance Adjustment (L)
When the bank balance is incorrect, run Report # 4-14 from the beginning of the fiscal year to the current period. Check the prior total at the end of the report and make sure it is 0. If it is not 0, the General Ledger needs to be closed out for the previous year. The total debits and credits must be equal. If they are not equal, first go into the Ledger (L) screen. If an error message saying, "GL is out of balance. Should correction be attempted? Y/N" appears, press Y.
If this does not correct the problem, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CURRENT BACKUP OF YOUR DATA, and run Report 8-37, G/L LEDGER REPOST. This will repost the ledgers to their accounts. When Report # 4-14 shows that the debits & credits are equal, an adjustment to the bank account may be made as follows:
To make an adjustment to the bank balance:
Lost Check—How to Handle (L)
If the lost check was issued in the current period, simply void it.
1. Go to the Ledger (L) screen and enter the check number.
2. Press Enter to load the check.
3. Press Alt+V to Void the check.
4. Press Y for Yes.
If the check was issued in a previous period, do not void the check. Rather, enter a reversal entry in your General Ledger in the current month.
1. Go to the Ledger (L) screen.
2. Enter a period (.) in the Check # field.
3. Press Ctrl+D.
4. Type the lost check # followed by an R and press Enter.
5. This creates a Reversal entry, offsetting the lost check.
6. On the Checkbook Balancing (() screen, both of these entries should be marked returned by pressing Enter. This will remove them from your outstanding check list.