General Ledger

Where you will set up the general ledger preferences. These preferences determine some default accounts and behaviors for the accounting system as a whole.

Starting Month of Fiscal Year
Choose the month that the company's fiscal year starts.

Fiscal Year is Year of Ending Month
This option only appears when a month other than January is selected as the starting Month.
For an explanation of that option, it helps to think of an example. Consider a fiscal year that begins in November 2013 and ends in October 2014. If you consider that to be fiscal year 2013 since it begins in 2013, do not check the box. If you consider that to be fiscal year 2014 since it ends in 2014, then check the box. This decision is important, since it affects the year and period assigned to general ledger entries when they are created.

Recalculate?
If you change this setting, the system will ask you if you want to re-calculate your past data when exiting the window. If you say "Yes" to this question, it will re-assign the fiscal year and period for each entry in your general ledger based on the new setting. Depending on the size of your data files, this may take several minutes to complete. Answering "No" to the question will cause your current data to remain unchanged, but any entered transactions from this point forward will be subject to the new setting.

Group Data Entries by Screen Session
Allows you to create a printout of all transactions entered at one time. When marked, you will be asked if you want to close and print the session. You can close it and get a printout of everything entered, or leave it open so that the next entries will be added to the same session.

A screen session is defined as the time from the opening of one of the entry windows to the closing of the window.
Example: After entering invoices on the Enter Bills window. If you want a printout of the A/P journal entries created for each of the invoices you enter during this "session," answer "Yes" to the question about printing the journal entries when you close the window. Answering "No" to the question will allow you to continue adding to this transaction the next time you get into the window.

Specify Check File Names For Each Bank Account
By default, the check formats used to print checks are specified in the check printing preferences. The same format is used for every bank account. If you have multiple bank accounts that need to use different formats then this option will allow you to specify a different format for each bank account. When marked, the check formats will be specified on the Chart of accounts window instead of the check printing preferences.

This allows you to specify a specific check format for each account and for each type (owner/vendor/payroll) of check that would be written from each account. This allows multiple bank accounts to be tracked as a single account in our system, while still allowing different check formats to be used for each account. The check formats specified for each account will override the check type specified in the preferences. If any modifications are necessary you will then be able to edit the check formats from the chart of accounts window instead of the utilities menu. If this is something that your company would be interested in, please contact SherWare, Inc. technical support for help in setting up the different check formats.

Default Account Numbers
An account must have already been set up in the chart of accounts before you will be able to select it here.

Retained Earnings
The retained earnings account is an equity account that records the net income/loss of the company.

Current Earnings
This account is used to show the current earnings for the year. The account specified here does not carry a balance. It is only used for reporting purposes.

Inventory
The default inventory account.

Revenue Clearing
The revenue distribution clearing account. This account is used to interface with the revenue distribution portion of the system. Any revenue entered, either through the Tasks> Cash/Production Revenue Receipts window, the Tasks> Disbursement Tasks/Well Revenue by Well (8/8ths) window, or the Tasks> Disbursement Tasks>Gas Meter Reconciliation window will run through this account. Revenue goes into this account when it is entered, then will clear out when it is processed on a revenue run closing.
The selected account should be a Liability type of account. We suggest: Current Liability or Other Liability

Expense Clearing
The well expense clearing account. This account is used to interface with the revenue distribution portion of the system. Any expenses entered on the Tasks/Enter Bills window, Tasks/Cash Disbursements window, or the Tasks/Disbursement Tasks/Well Expenses by Well window will run through this account. Expenses will post as a debit to this account when entered, and will then clear out when the expense is processed on a run closing.

Undeposited Funds
The undeposited funds account is the account used when grouping receipts into deposits. When you enter a cash receipt or receive a payment, you are given the option to "Group" the deposit or to automatically deposit into the given cash account. If you decide to group the deposit, the system will debit the undeposited funds account. You can then use the Make Deposits window to group a set of deposits into one deposit entry into your cash account.

Catch-All
The Catch-All account is the account used when an account is not known. If the system encounters a blank account number when it looks for a default account to post to, it will use the Catch-All account instead. This should be an Other Expense Type of account.

You should audit the catch-all account occasionally to see if any entries have been posted there. Any entries that have been posted to this account should be corrected by either editing the batch using the G/L Master File Update window, or by creating a new journal entry to adjust the balance. Be sure to identify what default account selection is missing to avoid any entries being posted to the Catch-All account in the future.