GENERAL LEDGER

Oregon School Accounting Software (OSAS) South Coast ESD 1350 Teakwood

Coos Bay, OR 97420

Tech Support: 541-266-4041

2

GENERAL LEDGER

Introduction ..................................................................................................... 3

Narrative ......................................................................................................... 4

General Ledger System .................................................................................. 5

Option 1-Access G/L Master File .................................................................... 6

Option 6 - Enter General Journals .............................................................. 7-9

Option 7 - Print General Journals Edit .......................................................... 10

Option 8 – Posting General Journals ............................................................ 11

Option 9 – Journal Entry History Listing ........................................................ 13

Option 11 – Print Non-General Journals . ................................................13-15

Option 12 – Post Non-General Journals ....................................................... 16

Option 13 – Print Trial Balance ................................................................17-19

Option 15 – Print Detailed G/L ...................................................................... 20

Option 16 – Print Chart of Accounts .............................................................. 21

Option 17 – Print G/L Account Summary ...................................................... 22

Option 18 – Budget vs. G/L Report ..........................................................23-24

Option 20 – Display G/L Transaction History ................................................ 25

Option 21 – Repost General Ledger ............................................................. 26

Option 21 – Year End Closing for G/L ........................................................... 26

3

Introduction

The General Ledger System is designed to allow to operator to do the following:

1. Create Account Numbers and descriptions. Account numbers are built around a 3 digit FUND number, followed by a 5 digit ACCOUNT number (user assigned).

2. Key, Edit, and Post General (Hand) Journals. Most double sided entries can be handled with one transaction, Single sided entries are allowed if required. Journals are edited for valid account numbers, zero value, CR/DR balance, etc.

3. Edit and Post Interfaced Journals. The Accounts Payable, Payroll and Cash Receipts systems create journals that are posted to the General Ledger at the discretion of the user.

4

Narrative

Step 1:

The first step in the General Ledger system is to create the Chart of Accounts. Like the Budget system, the G/L accounts are usually established following the Oregon State Budget and Accounting Manual guidelines with each fund having its own set of G/L accounts.

The chart of accounts established for each fund will depend upon several factors, including how cash flows through the district (where your checking accounts are), how deposits are made, how payroll liabilities are paid, how accounts payable are handled and user preference.

Usually, there are accounts defined for each checking, savings and investment area, accounts to record inter-fund transactions for A/R and A/P, fixed assets, and 1 set of accounts for each fund that will contain the totals for expenses and revenues (the Budget is usually used as a “subsidiary” ledger when detail is needed.)

Step 2:

Once the accounts are established, you may enter general journals to adjust accounts, transfer assets, etc. The operator selects options from a menu to enter, edit for error, and then post the “General” Journals to the G/L (they have no effect on the budget). The General Ledger System is date sensitive so that you may post transactions to prior months (within the current fiscal year) if that is desired. Transactions of different months may also be entered in a single batch.

Step 3:

Journals that are created by other applications (Payroll, A/P, etc.) are stored in a holding file and called ‘Non-General’ Journals. This file is generally edited and posted by the controller or accountant for the district. It is sometimes easier to do this monthly so that you are able to peruse the month’s interfaced activities on one listing, however, it can be done at any time, as many times as is necessary for a given month.

Step 4:

Reports such as the Trial Balance or Detail General Ledger can be run on demand and will reflect the data that has been posted to the General Ledger at that time.

5

General Ledger System

The General Ledger System is accessed from the Master Menu using Option 5. To access the General Ledger Master file, select Option 1 from the General Leger Menu, FN 6600, and press enter

6

Option 1 - Access G/L Master File

There is one record in the Master File for every fund/account number combination. New accounts must be defined in the Budget Chart of Accounts file (Budget System main menu, option 2) before being added to this file.

The first year on the system, the beginning balance may be hand-keyed.

7

Option 6 - Enter General Journals

The journal transaction file is used to store the hand-entered general journal transactions. Transactions may be added, deleted, or changed while they are in this file.

Date – This is the transaction date. The date supplied will be the date the record is posted to the G/L.

Source – This optional field may be used to enter the initials of the person responsible for making the entry, or could reflect a check or receipt number, a vendor number, etc., as desired.

Amount – This should always be a positive dollar amount.

The amount entered here should always be positive.

8

Option 6 - Enter General Journals (cont’d)

Debit and Credit – Enter the G/L account codes for the entry. These fields tell the system how to post the amount keyed above. If you key both a debit and credit account, the system will post the amount accordingly to those accounts. Single sided entries are supported to allow for correcting or balancing entries. An example of this situation might be that one side of the journal will go to one debit account but the credit side may go to several accounts. You must be certain, however, to key equal total values of debits and credits, based upon the fundamental accounting formula:

Asset Accounts (101XX and 201XX) Increased by making a Debit entry Decreased by making a Credit entry

**Revenue Control Account (30200) Increased by making a Credit entry Decreased by making a Debit entry Liability Accounts (401XX) Increased by making a Credit entry Decreased by making a Debit entry ***Expenditure Control Account (60200) Increased by making a Debit entry Decreased by making a Credit entry Equity Accounts (701XX) Increased by making a Credit entry

Decreased by making a Debit entry

**Adjustments to the Revenue control account must match the entry in Budget Revenue.

***Adjustments to the Expenditure control account must match the entry in Budget Expenditures.

NOTE: Entries to the Revenue control account (30200) and the Expenditure control account (60200) should only be made to correct a budget vs. G/L imbalance.

Fund – This is a required field, as each Fund has its own General Ledger.

9

Option 6 - Enter General Journals (cont’d)

When your entries are complete, you may either press F7 to end the job, or F2 for the transaction totals. The ‘Journal Transaction Totals’ screen will display the total debits and credits, as well as session totals which may be useful for tracking changes to existing entries prior to posting.

The following example shows that the entries made are out of balance. You may press enter to return to the entries for edit and balancing, or if the imbalance is due to an adjusting single-sided entry, simply press F7 to end the job.

10

Option 7- Print General Journal Edit

This option produces an edit listing of all entries in the file. It lists errors (non-established accounts) which would prevent the batch from posting correctly. It also recaps the total debits and credits by fund as well as a grand total of entries showing quickly whether or not the batch is balanced.

Each entry is assigned a transaction number as it is generated which appears in the far right column on the edit listing. This number can be used to access the entry when corrections are needed before the group of entries is posted.

Any time you go back to access the transactions (to make corrections), the edit must be re-run to ensure accuracy in posting. The final copy of the error-free edit should be retained for audit purposes.

Below is an example of a General Ledger Edit report for the General Journal containing no errors.

11

Option 8 - Posting General Journals

This selection allows you to post the general journal entries to the General Ledger after they have been keyed and edited.

As noted earlier, all entries will post to the General Ledger using the date entered on each transaction. Reports run after posting will reflect the changes posted.

Remember to run the General Journal Edit prior to posting. If you proceed, before running the edit, you will receive the error message shown below, and the posting will be unsuccessful.

As notated, the posting has cancelled. Respond with ‘0’. You may then run the edit, correct errors, and post again.

12

Option 9 - Journal Entry History Listing

Option 9 allows you to print a report of the Journal Entry History. This includes entries made using the G/L Journal entry menu as well as the Non-General Journal entries made by the system.

As you can see below, you may specify date, fund, and G/L account parameters for the report. You may also select sort options.

13

Option 11 – Print Non-General Journals

This option will generate a listing of interfaced journal entries when Payroll, Accounts Payable, or Cash Receipts activity is posted. These interfaced entries are placed in the Non-General Journals in order to offer an opportunity to review the effects of such activity on the G/L prior to posting. The more often the edit is reviewed, the easier it will be to isolate any errors because the time frame in which those errors would have occurred will be narrower, resulting in a reduced number of transactions to examine.

Again, you specify date parameters and print options.

14

Option 11 – Print Non-General Journals (cont’d)

Below are portions of a Non-General Journal Edit. The selected sample contains an error message. The error is received because the G/L control account, 10120, has not been established for Fund 233. Add Fund 233 to the G/L Master file and the entries will then post correctly.

The following shows what you want to see: overall credits equal to overall debits with no errors.

15

Option 11 – Print Non-General Journals (cont’d)

The Non-General Journal edit listing will serve as an audit listing and should be retained.

If you have posted a given month and discover that other interfaced applications have not been completed, the editing and posting process of the interfaced journals to the general ledger may be repeated for the month. This will take only the given month’s existing transactions and post them to the General Ledger.

If the Non-General Journals are not balanced, they must be posted to the General Ledger anyway. A Budget vs. G/L report (option 18) can then be run to research the variance, and a journal entry made to supply the missing entries.

16

Option 12 – Post Non-General Journals

Posting Non-General Journal is generally done monthly. If you have entries on the edit from multiple months, you may post them all at once. Simply enter the month (or range of months) you wish to post on the screen shown below.

If you fail to run an edit listing before posting, the posting will be unsuccessful and you will receive an error/reminder message.

Additionally, if you fail to correct G/L account numbers, you will receive the following error message and the posting will be unsuccessful:

Respond with ‘0’, correct/add the G/L account codes, and post again.

Remember to run an edit listing and resolve errors before posting.

17

Option 13 – Print Trial Balance

This procedure allows you to obtain Trial Balance listings of the General Ledger as of a specified point in time. You may select between two options, single-year or a comparison.

1.) A single year report lists the accounts in a debit/credit format for the current year.

2.) A comparison report shows the month-to-date and year-to-date totals by account for the current and two prior years.

You also may decide whether to have funds consolidated, and/or if you wish to show zero balances on the Trial Balance.

After the Non-General Journals and any General Journals have been posted for a given month, the Trial Balance may be used to determine whether or not the General Ledger is in balance. The more frequently this report is run, the easier it will be to isolate any errors, because the time frame during which the errors would have occurred will be narrower.

Note: Enter zeroes in the date field to get the opening trial balance.

18

Option 13 – Print Trial Balance (cont’d)

Keep in mind, however, that a balanced Trial Balance does not guarantee that there are no errors.

For example, a Trial Balance will not catch the following types of errors:

* Transactions that were not recorded in the journal,

* Transactions recorded in the wrong accounts

* Transactions for which the debit and credit were transposed

* Neglecting to post a journal entry to the ledger

NOTE: Running the G/L reposting (option 21) may, or may not, resolve account balance problems.

This is a sample from a single year Trial Balance:

19

Option 13 – Print Trial Balance (cont’d)

This is a sample from a Comparative Trial Balance:

This option provides MTD and YTD totals for the current year, last year and 2 years prior.

20

Option 15 – Print Detailed G/L

This option allows you to obtain detailed transaction listings by selected account(s) and date range. Simply fill in the prompts with your selections.

This report may be run on demand at any time. It will be as accurate as the last posting.

The following is a sample detailed G/L report for a single account only.

21

Option 16 – Print Chart of Accounts

This option allows you to obtain a listing of the G/L Chart of Accounts for some or all funds, depending on your selection.

For additions or updates to the G/L Chart of Accounts, use option 2 of the Main Budget Menu.

This report may be run on demand at any time.

22

Option 17 – Print G/L Account Summary

This report may be run to obtain a listing of up to ten G/L accounts. It is particularly useful to determine cash balances.

The following is the Account Summary for the accounts chosen in the screen above:

Cash account balances at a glance!

Account # ------------------ Cash balance

23

Option 18 – Budget vs. G/L Report

This report summarizes expenditures and revenue in both the G/L and the Budget by Fund, by Month, and by application (Payroll, A/P, etc.).

The totals will indicate immediately if the G/L and the Budget figures are in balance. If a variance exists, the month and application can be easily identified. This will aid in the research and resolution of the variance(s).

24

Option 18 – Budget vs. G/L Report (cont’d)

Below is an example of the Budget vs. G/L Report.

This shows cash receipts from December which is out of balance for both Expenses and Revenue. You should probably check an edit of the Non-General Journal to see if there are un-posted entries. Posting any un-posted Non-General Journal entries may correct this imbalance.

25

Option 20 – Display G/L Transaction History

Enter a fund and G/L account here…

And see monthly transaction totals displayed on the screen!

If you want detail for these monthly totals, press the F3 key and enter a beginning date range.

26

Option 21 – Repost General Ledger

This option refreshes the transaction totals for each month in the General Ledger. You may repost the General Ledger at any time.

Option 22 – Year End Closing for G/L

This menu option is available for use only during fiscal year end. This procedure creates a new ledger for each fund, brings all G/L account balances forward, and creates the prior year G/L files. Please call OSAS support when you are ready to “roll the year.”