So far we have seen the accounting tasks that require most of an accountant's time, because they are the bulkiest tasks: posting sales, purchases, and payments. But there are many other accounting tasks that have to be performed.
In this chapter, we will explore the following accounting processes:
- Posting accounting transactions
- Reporting taxes - VAT (Tax Posting setup)
- Managing fixed assets
- Inventory valuation
- Closing the accounting year
- Consolidating financial statements
- Deferrals
The system can automatically create and post many accounting transactions such as those for sales and purchase invoices, for instance. There are many other transactions that end up in an accounting entry automatically created by the system. We will actually see this in this chapter: taxes, fixed assets, inventory valuations, and so on.
You will probably need to post many other accounting transactions that are not managed by the system, such as payroll accrual entries, provisions, or others. You can post all these transactions using the General Journal.
The General Journal can be accessed by navigating to Financial Management | General Ledger and clicking on General Journal.
In the General Journal, you manually create the necessary transaction lines, indicating the Account No., Bal. Account No., and Amount as shown in the following screenshot. There are many other fields that could be filled in, actually, but we will start with an easy example:
When posting this journal, the system will create six G/L entries: three on account 8720 with a debit amount, three on the account corresponding to the bank WWB-OPERATING with a credit amount.
Instead of indicating a balancing account on every single journal line, you can leave the Bal. Account No. field empty and create a fourth journal line where you will indicate the balancing account and amount, as shown in the following screenshot:
When posting this journal, the system will create four G/L entries: three on account 8720 with a debit amount, one on the account corresponding to the bank WWB-OPERATING with a credit amount.
On the General Journal, you can create and post all the accounting transactions you need. There is no limit. Just keep in mind that when the accounting transaction you want to post involves customers, vendors, banks, or fixed assets, you should use the appropriate Account Type rather than directly using the final G/L account to which the transaction has to be posted. This way, the transaction will also be reflected on the customer, vendor, bank, or fixed asset card.
Transactions in a general journal are usually created manually by a user every time they have to post a new transaction. Some accounting transactions are used over and over, because they have to be posted once a week or once a month.
For those transactions, you can use the standard journals. A Standard Journal is a transaction template that you create and can use as many times as needed.
To create a standard journal, perform the following steps:
- Open the General Journal page.
- Create the General Journal lines you want to save as a Standard Journal.
- Click on Save as Standard Journal....
- Select Code and enter a Description for the Standard Journal.
- You can choose whether you want to save the amount on the Standard Journal. Take a look at the following screenshot:
- Click on OK.
To use a Standard Journal, perform the following steps:
- Open the General Journal page.
- Click on Get Standard Journals....
- Select the appropriate Standard Journal.
- Journal lines will be created on the General Journal.
- Complete the General Journal lines by entering the posting date and other information you may require for the actual transaction.
- Post the General Journal.
Recurring journals are useful for transactions that are posted frequently with few or no changes. The journal lines are preserved after posting, so when you open them, they already contain journal lines that can be reviewed, adjusted, and posted on a recurring basis.
When using recurring journals with the reversing option, the system posts the transaction and it also posts the reversing entries on the following day. Another usage of recurring journals is to post allocations based on amounts or percentages.
You can find a recurring journal for the following journals:
- Each General Journal type (general, assets, cash receipts, payments, inter-company, jobs, sales, and purchase)
- Fixed asset journals
- Item journals
- Resource journals
You create and post recurring journal lines just like you do with standard journals. Additionally, recurring journals have the following extra fields:
|
Field Name |
Usage |
|
Recurring Method |
This determines how the amount on the journal is treated after posting. With this field, you also determine whether the reversing entries should be posted or not. |
|
Recurring Frequency |
This contains a formula that determines how frequently an entry on the journal will be posted. For example, if the formula There are many other date formula possibilities. To learn more about them, check the How to: Enter Dates and Times topic in the Dynamics NAV Help menu. |
|
Expiration Date |
This is used to limit the posting period by specifying the last date that an entry can be repeated. |
Allocations are used to allocate the amount on the recurring journal line to several G/L accounts and dimensions. When you use allocations, you do not have to introduce a balancing line, as the allocation is in itself a balancing account line to the recurring journal line.
- Navigate to Departments | Financial Management | Fixed Assets | Periodic Activities | Recurring General Journal.
- To open the Allocations page, double-click on the Allocated Amt. field.
- Allocate the amount from the original line by percentage to the different
CUSTOMERGROUPdimension values, as shown in the following screenshots:- Fixed: The following screenshot depicts Fixed (dimension value):
- Variable: The following screenshot depicts Variable (dimension value):
- Balance: The following screenshot depicts Balance (dimension value):
- Fixed: The following screenshot depicts Fixed (dimension value):
- Close the page to go back to the recurring journal. Note that the Allocated Amt. field is now filled. It should match the Amount field but with the opposite sign.
In the example, we have allocated by percentage by filling the Allocation % field. The different methods to allocate amounts are as follows:
- Allocation Quantity: This allocates the amounts by quantities. An example is, allocating by the number of people in each department.
- Allocation %: This allocates the amounts by percentage.
- Amount: If you use one of the previous methods, the program calculates the allocated amount. You can also manually enter an allocation amount.