Introduction

As with the other modules, one of the most important functions in G/L is the month-end process. The G/L module has its own month-end processing and is the final module, in the Advantos™ ERP application, that performs the month-end process for the accounting system. There is a special checklist the identifies the steps that will complete this month-end process. This process requires you to ensure various financial totals are in balance, produce monthly report packages, and update the final module financial period to the next monthly period. Once completed, G/L will be ready to operate in the next monthly accounting period.

All financial transactions created in the Advantos modules are automatically updated to the general ledger. The month-end process also updates financial totals balances, cleans up old bank account transactions, updates or creates next month's bank books, and purges archive data older than the archive retention definition. With appropriate training, this month-end process can be performed by a user, with Supervisor review of balancing problems.

One key point to understand, and to train your users to be observant of, is the processing month which shows on the General Ledger module main web page. Once you are doing the month-end processing, users should not enter journal entries until this month-end process is complete. Normally the user doing this process is aware not to make journal entries, except to correct errors or post missing transactions not appropriately processed in the other modules.

It is essential to have the month-end process for the other modules complete before doing the month-end process for the General Ledger module. Managing the month-end process for general ledger is not complex and generally can be managed in less than an hour, unless some very difficult balancing problems occur. Thus, you can usually proceed with the General Ledger module month-end process by the fifth working day of a calendar month (for the prior monthly accounting period).

We will review all the steps of the month-end process, explaining what is to be accomplished and what to do if there are imbalance issues.

It is important to note the final, critical, balancing is required to be performed before printing the financial statements. This balancing is critical to the proper operation of the accounting system. It is important to know when the system is having problems and this balancing will detect those problems before they work their way into financial statements. An imbalance here is usually not created by hardware problems, but by invalid G/L account number selections for specific transactions.

Have ALL Other Checklists been Completed?

Before proceeding with the G/L module month-end process, the Operator must determine all the other modules have been updated into the next accounting month. Only at this time with the module transactions be passed to the G/L module to be included in financial reporting. If more than one person is involved in month-end processing, the person doing the G/L update must ensure all necessary prior processes have been completed.

Enter Journal Entries

Each module Operator should have logged in journal entries and may have actually posted them to the system, but the G/L Operator must confirm this has been done. A log book with sheets for each client set of books can be set up to track what journal entries have been done, by whom and when they were posted to the system. An example of a log book page can be printed from the G/L module reports menu under Miscellaneous Reports. This is not the last chance to enter journal entries, but any additional ones should be done only to correct any balancing errors and should not be the routine entries done in the modules.

Print G/L Trial Balance

This report will reflect a zero balance for all clients if the system has posted a debit for all credits. If there is a balance for any client, the Operator will need to research the transaction and correct this before proceeding. As mentioned above, out-of-balance situations can be caused by hardware problems so this will need to be researched as well.

Validate Sub-Accounts

This process compares the G/L account totals with each client's subsidiary account totals for A/R, Deferred Income, A/P, Prepaid Expenses, and bank account balances. If an imbalance is discovered, it is usual that a user posted a G/L acct# in one of the other modules that shouldn't have been used. e.g. in A/R, don't post the A/R G/L acct#. In A/P, don't post the A/P G/L acct#.

Validate Financial Accounts

This process tests to make sure the income statement accounts balance to zero (all debits equal credits) for the current monthly period. It also tests the balance sheet accounts. In addition, a Trial Balance is also run. Any errors will be reported to the user on the current web page and updated to the application log for future reference.

This is another very important part of ensuring the financial integrity of your accounting data. Making sure your financial record balance not only overall but within the modules is necessary.

Prepare EOM Reports

This process prepares a standard set of G/L and Banking reports for each client into a single ".pdf" document. These reports are all you need to file into each client's monthly financial files. If you would like other reports then run them now and save onto your network.

Run G/L Monthly Update - Verify

Once processed, you will have completed one month's accounting and rolled your system into the next month, ready to begin processing again.

Download the G/L reports packages from the Advantos SFTP directory

Simply download and file these monthly reports in each client's monthly financial file. Make sure they are deleted from the Advantos ® SFTP server.