Information Only Accounts

When designing a financial summary you often want to include non-financial information such as, value of orders taken this period, value of quotes made, calls made/received, etc. for reporting and analysis purposes. This new feature allows you to set-up nominal accounts and flag them for ‘information’ only, these accounts are excluded from all nominal and cashbook reports apart from the financial summaries to allow the recording of this detail.

You create a nominal account to record this value in the normal way (using the full screen input) but set the new flag option to mark this account as being for information only. You should also set the account as a ‘non-posting’ account.

It would be recommended that you keep the information-only accounts in a set range of account codes, although they are excluded from standard reports they will be included in financial summaries and it will be easier to exclude them from financial detail if all in the same range.

You cannot mark an account as being ‘for information only’ if there are any values recorded against the account, similarly you cannot clear the information-only flag if there are any values recorded against it.

To update the values to be recorded you use the new menu option ‘Update Information A/C Values’

On selection you are prompted for the account to update, <F4-Select> is available or you can type in the code required (only information accounts can be selected). You are then able to enter/update the values in the current year, previous year and previous-1 year as required. Once recorded press <End> to complete the input and you will be prompted if you wish to update another account – respond as required.

Within the Financial Summaries you can include the accounts as you require – note though that only the ‘movement’ values for the period are recorded not budgets or the start year / closing year values.

A new data items is recorded on the nominal accounts file to record the information-only flag.You can update the database layout by selecting Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and then Restructure a Database.

Select the Nominal Ledger application, elect to change the ‘Live’ files, and then select the accounts file. <Page-Down> until you reach a blank item and then press <Enter> against it to create the item(s) below.

NON-POSTING ? Flag used to identify account as a non-posting account; you may need to create this item if it doesn’t already exist.

Enter the item name in the first input and then press <Enter> to set the item type (F4 is available), press <Enter> again to complete entry.

Once the database changes have been made press <ESC> to complete and then choose UPDATE to update the changes. Press <Enter> to confirm prompts to ‘Extract Existing Data to the new Database Structure’ and (if appropriate) ‘Copy Table entries from Old Database to New Database’ - the new database structure is then updated. When prompted to ‘Remove .OLD Database’ you generally respond ‘No’ for backup purposes.

If prompted to ‘Carry Out the Same Restructure on the "BASE” File as well?’ respond as required.The BASE file is used if/when you create a new company based on the existing structure, if this is likely to happen respond ‘Yes’ and repeat the entry of new items above taking care to ensure you create at the same item positions and with the same type.

The new data items need to be referenced within the Datafile Database Profiles. The profiles are set by selecting Installationfrom the main menu followed by Application Manager and Set Database Profiles.

Select the Nominal Ledger application and then select the parameter screen Account Optional’ to reference the new item.

Against the prompts on the left for Info Only Acc reference the new data item added (<F4-Select> is available if required). If you needed to create the Non-Posting data item when restructuring the nominal accounts file this can also be referenced here.

To flag a nominal account for information only you need to amend the nominal account maintenance screen to include the new flag item (and the non-posting account flag if necessary).

The screen can be updated by selecting Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and Application Screen Layouts. Select the Nominal Ledger application then Maintain Screen to update the full screen design layout.

To insert a new data item position the cursor where required and press <F4-Select> to view the list of data items. Scroll to the item required and press <Enter> to select. Any new item added to the screen will prompt as to whether it is to be view-only, allow upper-case input only or whether it is for mandatory input; for the information-only flag (and the non-posting flag if appropriate) set for uppercase input.

If you need to move a data item click it with the mouse and then drag to where it is needed.

To insert a text label position the cursor where needed and type the text required, if you need to edit you can use the space bar to blank out any invalid text or overtype as required.

To update the information account values you need to add a new option to your nominal ledger menu.Sign on as the CONFIG user and select the option Application Menu Design. The main nominal ledger menu is normally NL.D03 so enter this, or your alternate menu name, to update the layout.

Select whether you wish the new option to appear on the left or right of the menu and enter, against a blank line, the menu title ‘Update Information A/C Values’ and then press <Enter> to set the menu parameters.

Of the remaining options you would typically leave ‘as is’ though you may set a password and/or higher authority level as required.

The Financial Summary layouts are defined within the Nominal Ledger itself – an easy mode summary can be amended as part of printing the report; a full mode summary can be amended via the <F7-Option> key from the summary list.

As far as the Financial Summary itself is concerned these accounts are processed in the normal manner.

Article ID: 183
Created On: Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 10:25 AM
Last Updated On: Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 7:07 PM

Online URL: https://kb.datafile.co.uk/article/information-only-accounts-183.html