Chapter 2f: Master Files
G/L Account Maintenance
Add, Change, or Delete General Ledger Accounts
You most likely have a chart of accounts, a systematically organized list of names and numbers of accounts. These accounts form the basis of your financial statements--balance sheet and income statement--which provide financial and decision-making information about the activity of your firm.
Included in this list are balance sheet accounts--asset, liability, and equity accounts, and income accounts--revenue and expense accounts. Within these five general account groups are several sub-groupings, for example assets may be subcategorized as current and fixed assets, and further split into cash, receivables, inventory, investments, property, plant and equipment, and intangible assets. Then, within each of these categories are the actual accounts and account numbers that you might post to in a given month.
Additionally, for revenue and expense accounts, each account may be further split in order to account for activity within separate divisions (departments, or profit centers) of your firm.
If your chart of accounts does not already reflect this type of grouping or categorizing of accounts, then you, with the help of your accountant, should spend time doing so. Financial statements cannot properly reflect your firm's activity without recognizing such groupings.
Your task, when creating the General Ledger Account master file, is easily completed if you have an organized chart of accounts. With the GENESYS system each true account must be part of a group of accounts called a "control" group. Then, one nominal (dummy) account is set up for each group, and it is called a "control" account. The purpose of the control accounts is to perpetually subtotal your postings to the true account so that a control total is always available. This simplifies creation of financial reports and makes it easier for you to retrieve important control balances such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable.
An example:
CONTROL
ACCOUNT DESCRIPTION ACCOUNT
10 Cash in bank N/A
101 General checking account 10
102 Payroll checking account 10
103 Petty cash 10
If you do opt to control revenue and expense by division (department, profit center), then you will require one additional level of numbers. Each true account in the revenue and expense account sections will have one division account for each division (department, profit center). When these accounts are created, their control accounts will be the true account.
An example:
CONTROL
ACCOUNT DESCRIPTION ACCOUNT
54 Selling expense (control) N/A
540 Advertising expense 54
5401 Advertising expense - dept 1 540
5402 Advertising expense - dept 2 540
One additional point of discussion is the cross-reference code in each G/L account record. The system uses the cross-reference codes when it is performing its internal updating.
For example, the system knows that when an invoice is created for a credit customer, a debit is posted to the trade accounts receivable account, but it does not know which account number to post to without the cross-reference code, in this case "A/R". There are between 20 and 40 accounts that will require a cross-reference code depending upon which application programs you are implementing (payroll and workorder processing require additional codes).
Your account numbers may be as many as ten characters in length. You must determine the length of your control accounts as well. Each account number of each type (control, true, department accounts) must be the same length.
GENERAL LEDGER FILE FIELD DEFINITIONS
1. DESCRIPTION 30 characters
This description will print, along with the account number, on all general ledger summaries which print on daily accounting journals (sales journal, cash receipts journal, etc.), and on monthly accounting reports (monthly journals, G/L Trial Balance). It may also print on financial reports (Balance Sheet, Income Statement), but you may override the description when you set up the financial reports using the G/L Report Format Maintenance program.
2. ACCOUNT TYPE 1 character
1 ASSET 4 REVENUE
2 LIABILITY 5 EXPENSE
3 EQUITY
If you are entering a “control” account, then the prompt will come up, “Is this a “current” asset or liability? (Y) or (N)”.
3. CROSS-REFERENCE CODE 8 characters
A duplicate cross-reference code is not allowed.
4. CONTROL ACCOUNT NUMBER 10 characters
The "control" account number must already be in the file.
5. POSTING ALLOWED (Y) or (N)
Since many account records are added to the file for control purposes only, an operator must be prevented from posting to "control" accounts. If you are also using department accounts, then the true account level should not allow posting. You must code these accounts with an "N".
An example:
ACCOUNT CONTROL ALLOW
NUMBER DESCRIPTION ACCOUNT POSTING
52 Selling expense (control) N/A N
540 Advertising expense 52 N
5401 Advertising expense - dept 1 540 Y
5402 Advertising expense - dept 2 540 Y
6. DETAILS SAVED
7. HISTORY
Selecting this field will bring up the “History” screen listing the twelve periods of both the current year and the prior year and their total sum of debits and credits for each period (the same as what you will see if you look at that G/L Account number’s “Master” screen in G/L Insight!
8. BUDGETS
You may wish to report account activity compared to budgets on you Income Statement or on the G/L Spreadsheet Report. As you establish monthly budgets for each account, the budget amounts are added into the corresponding control accounts. Thus, when budgets are set up for all posting level accounts, they are set for the control accounts as well.
Budget amounts are not required.
Job Site Maintenance
Add, Change, or Delete Job Sites
The Job Site file contains addresses of shipping locations. In some business environments, an account may have several shipping locations that change frequently. These locations, therefore, are not considered permanent "ship-to" locations. They are, however, used frequently enough that automatic rather than manual typing of the address each time an order is taken would mean greater productivity.
In addition, the job site is given a number. This number is retained after invoicing and the customer's statement may be printed in job site sequence. This helps your customer do his paperwork.
The job site file is not required and may only be of real benefit to Electrical Wholesalers or others that ship to contractor's job sites.
The Job Site Maintenance program is used to add new job site name and address records, or change or delete existing records. Each job site requires an identifying number called the JOB SITE NUMBER. It is a four character code. The number is used in conjunction with a bill-to customer number and must be unique to that customer. Thus, you might easily number job sites for customer ABC500 as simply 1, 2, 3, etc. Customer EFG200 may also have job sites numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Job Site File Field Definitions
1. NAME 25 characters
The name and address will print on all shipping and billing documents as the "ship to" location.
2. ADDRESS LINE 1 25 characters
3. ADDRESS LINE 2 25 characters
4. CITY 15 characters
5. STATE 2 characters
6. ZIP CODE 10 characters
7. CONTACT 20 characters
8. TELEPHONE 12 characters
Secondary Vendor Maintenance
Add, Change, or Delete Secondary Vendors
GENESYS has a number of flexible features and programs that you may or may not select to use. One of these, the multiple or primary and secondary vendor capability can be used to further automate the inventory purchasing process.
The concept is to establish a record for each item and vendor that might supply that item. Keeping these records up to date will provide greater information via the video terminal for the purchasing agents. Also, when items are ordered from a supplier, most of the information regarding that item will be loaded into the purchase order automatically, without need for data input.
Thus, secondary vendors serve the dual purpose of providing purchasing agents with information at their fingertips, and further automating and simplifying the data entry of purchase orders.
The maintenance of the secondary vendor file is, however, going to take a considerable effort. You must consider this overhead before deciding to create records in the file.
Secondary vendor information appears in the Inventory Insight program and prints as part of the Purchasing Proposal Report. Review these programs.
Secondary Vendor File Field Definitions
1. VENDOR'S ITEM NUMBER 19 characters
When the inventory item is ordered from this vendor, what is his part number or item number? The vendor's item number will print on the purchase order document that is to be sent to the vendor. This will assure that the correct merchandise is ordered.
2. VENDOR'S DESCRIPTION 35 characters
As with the vendor item number, the description of the item, as the vendor knows it, will print on the purchase order document.
Note that if the vendor's item number and description are omitted, the item number and description from your inventory file will print on the purchase order. So it is all right to leave these fields blank. It will not mean that your purchase order documents will be blank as well.
3. PURCHASE QTY U/M 2 character code
The purchase quantity unit of measure is the base unit for ordering this item from this vendor. You might call it the "standard pack" quantity. Items may only be ordered by the dozen, or box, or gross.
U/M MULTIPLIER 5.3 digits (99999.999)
As with the inventory master record, you must supply the conversion factor (multiplier) between the purchase quantity unit of measure and the stock/sell unit of measure. If items are ordered from the supplier by the carton but stocked and sold by each, if there are 24 in a carton, then the multiplier must be 24. Each unit purchased equals 24 on the shelf.
4. PURCHASE COST U/M 2 character code
The purchase cost unit of measure is the base unit for costing this item from this vendor. Items may be priced by the vendor by the dozen, or box, or gross.
U/M MULTIPLIER 5.3 digits (99999.999)
As with the inventory master record, you must supply the conversion factor (multiplier) between the purchase cost unit of measure and the price/cost unit of measure. If items are priced from the supplier by the hundred but sold priced (and average costed) by each, then the multiplier must be 100. Items purchased costing $38.00 per hundred will cost $0.38 each.
5. LEAD TIME DAYS 3 digits numeric (999)
This field is for information only.
6. VENDOR PROFILE 30 characters
This field is for information only. It allows you to keep any pertinent information in the computer. It prints on the Purchasing Proposal and displays on Inventory Insight (V)endor screen.
7. VALID THRU DATE MMDDYY date format
The quoted costs that follow, a base cost and four quantity break costs, are valid through some future date. When this date expires, a new quotation from the supplier may be required. If no expiration date is given, enter "123199".
8. VENDOR COST 5.3 digits numeric (99999.999)
Indicate the cost per purchasing unit. Take into consideration the purchase cost unit of measure.
9. VENDOR COST 5.3 digits numeric (99999.999)
If quantity breaks are available, enter the first break cost.
QUANTITY BREAK 6 digits (999999)
Enter the quantity break level, the quantity needed to get the first break cost.
10.-12. VENDOR COST and QUANTITY BREAK
A total of four cost breaks are available. Enter costs from the top down. Enter zeroes for any cost and quantity break below the highest break given. For example:
8.Vendor cost 12.38
9.Vendor cost 11.97 Qty brk 12
10.Vendor cost 11.54 Qty brk 48
11.Vendor cost 10.88 Qty brk 144
12.Vendor cost 0.00 Qty brk 0
The unit cost of the item is $12.38 unless 12 or more are ordered. If 144 or more are ordered the cost is $10.88.
Bill of Materials Maintenance
Add, Change, or Delete Bills of Materials
If light manufacturing or assembly is a significant part of your business operation, you may want to consider the GENESYS Workorder Processing subsystem. It lets you enter production workorders for "finished good" items. Using a bill of materials or parts list, the "raw materials" used in production are committed in inventory just as if the items were to be shipped to a customer. When the workorder is completed, the number of units produced is entered and both the finished goods and raw materials inventories are updated.
The bill of materials for any finished item is essential to the Workorder Processing system. Bills of materials are established using the Bill of Materials Maintenance program.
You begin by entering the finished good item number. Then, list all the items used to produce the finished good. For each raw material item, indicate the stock quantity of the material required to produce ONE purchase unit of the finished good.
The material cost for each item produced is the aggregate of the material costs. This is determined at the time the finished good is produced taking the material quantity times the average unit cost of the material.
Labor cost and overhead cost are on a standard cost basis. These are set up in the master record of the finished good item.
The bill of materials for any item placed on a workorder is saved on disk as part of the workorder. Thus, it may be altered without affecting the "standard" bill of materials for the item. This also means that changes to a bill of materials will not affect any work already in process.
Substitute Item Maintenance
Add or Delete Substitute (Equivalent) Customer, Vendor or Item Numbers
Another optional feature of GENESYS is the substitute or equivalent number for customers, vendors or inventory. In most cases, substitutes are used only for inventory item numbers, so only inventory will be addressed in the following discussion. However, the same principle applies to customers and vendors.
In some business environments customers may order a part using any one of several equivalent part numbers. For simplicity, your operators may enter any one of the numbers and the system will cross-reference to the true primary inventory record. Thus, inventory control is maintained because there is only one inventory record, but your operators are not restricted--they may use any of the equivalent item numbers.
The substitute item number is available in the Inventory Insight program. When you type in an item number for lookup purposes, the matching primary numbers are listed, then any matching substitute numbers appear. These are marked with an asterisk. When any of the detail Insight screens are selected for a substitute number, the primary number is displayed.
The substitute item number is also available in Sales Order Entry. The operator may type a substitute number, the system cross references to the primary number and displays both numbers on the screen. The substitute number will print on customer documents. This is the part number they used when ordering.