In this article, we will explain how to setup the ManageMore General Ledger, when converting from another accounting software, such as QuickBooks. It is best to do this at the beginning of the year, or the beginning of the month. You should have reconciled all bank accounts up to this date in your old software.
Step 1 – Turn off Automatic GL Posting
Navigate to the General Ledger Setup by selecting Setup … Application … General Ledger … General Options. Uncheck the option to automatically post to the General Ledger.
Step 2 – Reset your General Ledger (if necessary)
If you have been posting to the General Ledger previously, you will need to reset your General Ledger, which will reset all GL Account balances to zero and unpost all transactions and journal entries. If you require this reset, please contact our Technical Support Team to assist you in this process.
Step 3 – Preparing your Subledgers for General Ledger Posting
To match your existing software, the subledgers in ManageMore – Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Inventory – will need to match your current accounting software.
Accounts Receivable
To see the total of the Accounts Receivable subledger in ManageMore, run the Accounts Receivable Aging report. Be sure to select “All” customers in the status, if you have inactive accounts. If you need to update a customer balance, you should do an invoice (using the “MISC” SKU) or a payment (using the “Balance Adjustment” payment method).
Accounts Payable
To see the total of the Accounts Payable subledger in ManageMore, run the Accounts Payable Aging report. If you need to update a vendor balance, you should do a Purchase Receipt or Purchase Credit (using the “MISC” SKU).
Inventory
To see the total of the Inventory subledger in ManageMore, run the Inventory Valuation report. If you need to update the quantity of an item, you should do an Inventory Adjustment, or an Inventory Count. If you need to adjust the average cost of an item, you should simply edit the inventory item and change the average cost and ignore any warnings regarding General Ledger implications when saving the record.
Step 4 – Create a Chart of Accounts
Navigate to the ManageMore Chart of Accounts, by selecting Lists … General Ledger … Chart of Accounts. The new company process may have provided a preset chart. Here, you can add, change, and delete accounts from the list. You should ensure that the chart of accounts matches your existing accounting software. Note that ManageMore requires a GL Account number, whereas your prior software may not. It is considered best practice to start asset accounts with 1, liabilities with 2, equity with 3, revenue with 4 and expense with 5, although this is not required in the software.
IMPORTANT: Do NOT provide an initial balance when creating the accounts.
Step 5 – Setup / Update Accounts used for Posting
There are several areas of ManageMore that store GL Accounts used for posting.
Setup Application
First, the application setup area contains the main posting accounts used for most transactions. Navigate to Setup … Application. Then, in each main section, review the accounts provided in the sub-sections titled “GL Posting.” For example, under Accounts Receivable / GL Posting, you will find the main A/R Posting account.
Inventory Items / Templates
Each inventory item can override the GL Accounts provided in setup, if necessary. This custom accounting practice is rare and should be done sparingly since ManageMore already provides many standard reports that eliminates the need for financial reports to be used in this similar manner. Please see diagram below for the button that allows you to override the GL account being used when an item is purchased, sold, or returned.
Bank Accounts
Bank Account records are used on transactions such as deposits and disbursements, to represent your company bank, credit card, and petty cash accounts. If you created a Bank GL Account when creating your general ledger, it would have already created a new linked Bank Account record. To view, edit and delete Bank Accounts, navigate to the bank account list at Lists … Banking … Bank Accounts
Payment Methods
Payment Methods are used to define the acceptable tenders that are used to reduce a customer balance. Methods that are set to post directly to the general ledger, for example, such as credit payments, require a GL Posting account. To review the payment methods, navigate to Lists … Banking … Payment Methods.
Inventory Adjustment Reasons
Inventory Adjustment Reasons are a way to provide an audit of why an inventory correction was made. The inventory adjustment reason also provides an alternate expense GL Account to use when an inventory adjustment is made. For example, you may want to do an inventory adjustment for merchandise donated to a non-profit organization and classify this adjustment under a “Charitable Donation” expense account, instead of the setup default. To edit these records, navigate to Lists … Inventory … Inventory Related … Reasons.
Other less likely areas of the software that include GL Accounts are Fixed Allocations, and POS Payout reasons. If you use these features, the accounts there will need to be reviewed as well.
Step 6 – Enter and Post a Journal Entry for Beginning Balances
You will need to prepare a Journal Entry that represents the beginning balances of all Balance Sheet Accounts. The easiest way to do this is to run a Balance Sheet report in your old accounting software. To enter a new Journal Entry in ManageMore, navigate to Activities … General Ledger … New Journal Entry. This entry should be dated to the date you would like to begin using the ManageMore General Ledger.
IMPORTANT: Under normal circumstances, ManageMore protects users from accidental posting to a subledger account. Since you will be posting to Subledger Accounts in this case, you will need to press Ctrl+Alt+J on the Journal Entry screen, to allow posting to these restricted accounts. Upon saving the journal entry, the result will bring these accounts into balance with the amounts inputted from the reports in Step 3.
Making Reconciliation Easier
For Bank Accounts, it is recommended that you include line items in the journal entry for the Bank Statement balance (not the Balance Sheet balance) and any unreconciled items, as individual entries. For example, if your last reconciliation of Account 1000 – Merchant Bank was:
| Bank Balance | $30,256.90 |
| Uncleared Check 1000 – ACME Corp | (200.00) |
| Uncleared Check 1004 – Eastern Pacific | (250.00) |
| Balance Sheet (Book) Balance | $29,806.90 |
Your entry for this bank account would be:
| Account | Item | Description | Debit | Credit |
| 1000 – Merchant Bank | BEG | Bank Balance | 30,256.90 | |
| 1000 – Merchant Bank | 1000 | ACME Corp | 200.00 | |
| 1000 – Merchant Bank | 1004 | Eastern Pacific | 250.00 |
This is essentially the same as a debit for 29,806.90 but will allow for easier bank reconciliation, since you need the exact amounts to reconcile.
What do I do with Income Summary?
If your balance sheet from your prior accounting software includes an amount for “Income Summary” or “Current Year Income,” this amount should be added to the Retained Earnings balance, since you cannot post to the Income Summary account directly. Note: You can optionally post the individual year-to-date income statement balances in lieu of Income Summary, but this is not usually necessary.
Step 7 – Use of Automatic GL Posting… Should I do this?
Automatic posting was a concept created by Intuit Quickbooks back in the 90’s. Prior to Quickbooks, all other accounting systems employed a process of manually posting your general ledger up to a certain period (like the end of last month). The Quickbooks automatic posting concept is simple… each time a GL related transaction is performed you automatically update the general ledger every time for an up to the minute financial reporting experience. Although there is little benefit of having your financial records accurate up to the minute, there are certainly some conveniences of not having to remember to post all of your past GL related activity on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.
However, in our opinion, automatic posting is not “automatically” a great option for everyone and probably best reserved for very small businesses. The drawback to automatic GL posting is that reversing specific entries from a prior day is not always as simple to do since the general ledger has already recorded the sale, payment, deposit, etc. Reversals create all sorts of reversing GL entries and can make reviewing the general ledger a bit more cumbersome (assuming you ever have to audit the books, of course).
If your business already has dedicated A/P personnel in place, you may want to skip the use of automatic GL Posting and use the traditional accounting method for posting the GL up to a specific date periodically, on your own accord. The manual process takes less than a minute or two to complete and may even provide a slight improvement in your overall computer network performance. Select Activities … General Ledger … Post Subledgers whenever you want to bring your financial reports up-to-date.
If you ultimately decide that Automatic GL posting is best for you scenario, then navigate to the General Ledger Setup by selecting Setup … Application … General Ledger … General Options. Check the option to automatically post to the General Ledger.
