Financial Summaries - Accumulated Information Account Values

Introduced in Release 6.2 ‘Information Only’ accounts within the Nominal Ledger allowed you to record non-financial values in selected nominal accounts for reporting in the Financial Summaries. These accounts could be used for the likes of total orders made this period, total quotes issued, number of calls received, etc.

In some cases, however, the value you want to record is not a period ‘movement’ value but an accumulation to date – for example you may record an on-going active contract value for your business – and when these values are reported on a financial summary as a ‘year to date’ balance item the individual period values are accumulated misrepresenting the account value.

This new feature allows a supplementary flag of ‘Accumulated Values’ indicating that the value recorded for each period is an accumulation to date and is not to be accumulated again when printed on a financial summary.

Installation

Database Changes

A new flag item is required on the Nominal Accounts file to identify when an information only account records accumulated values. To add this new item select Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and then Restructure A Database. Select the Nominal Ledger application.Elect to update the Live Files and then select the Nominal Accounts File. The existing account data items are then displayed on screen, scroll-down to the next available blank entries and create the following items: File, Item Name, Type, Description

NLA INFO-ACCUM ? Flag to identify account as holding accumulated information values.

To insert a new item press <Enter> against a blank entry, enter the title as required and press <Enter>, select the item type (using the drop-down list if required), and depending on item type select the size required.

Once the additional item has been recorded press the <ESC> key and select the UPDATE button to save the database changes.When prompted respond ‘Y’ to the prompts to ‘Extract Existing Data to New Database Structure’ and, if appropriate, ‘Copy Table Entries from Old Database to New Database’. Final prompts ask to ‘Remove (.OLD) Database’ and to ‘Carry Out the Same Restructure on the BASE File as well’ – respond as required.If you select to update the base file you need to manually insert the new items at the same data item positions as on the live file.

Database Profiles

The new data items need to be referenced within the Database Profiles. To update these settings select Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and Set Database Profiles. Choose the Nominal Ledger application before selecting the Account Optional parameter screen.

On the left of the screen is the prompt Info Accum Vals – against this item reference the data item number of the equivalent item created above, <F4-Select> is available if required.

Application Screen Layouts

Changes are required to the nominal ledger account maintenance screen to allow display / update of the accumulated value flag. To update the screen select Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and then Application User Facilities. Select the Nominal Ledger application followed by Maintain Chart of Accounts and Maintain Screen.

Position the cursor using the mouse where you require the text label for the accumulation value input and then type the required text. If you make an error move back and (making sure the INSERT status is off) either overtype with text or space characters. If the existing characters shift to the right press the INSERT key to switch to OVERTYPE mode and continue.

To insert the data item position the cursor where required using the mouse and then press <F4-Select>. Move down to the new Accumulation flag on the list of items and press <Enter> to select and update the item on to the screen. You are then prompted whether the item is view-only, set for upper case input (recommended) and whether input is mandatory – respond as required. Once complete choose File from the toolbar and then Save and Exit.

 Note