Setting up a double-entry bookkeeping system - AccPac Simply Accounting for Macintosh software program - Hassle-Free Bookkeeping - buyers guide - Tutorial

Home Office Computing, April, 1992 by Stephen L. Nelson

To load each of the necessary master files, you simply access the appropriate menu command for adding records to a specific file. Then you fill in the blanks that appear on the displayed window, screen, or dialog box. Figure 6 shows the Receivables Ledger dialog box used by AccPac Simply Accounting. Figure 7 shows the program's Inventory Ledger dialog box.

Step 5--Detail your accounts-receivable and accounts-payable balances. After you load the master files, you're ready to describe in detail your accounts-receivable and accounts-payable balances. Here's the way this works in AccPac Simply Accounting. Once you've added at least one customer, the software modifies the Receivable Ledger dialog box so it includes two command buttons, Invoices and Payments (see Figure 6). To identify a customer's current accounts-receivable balance invoice by invoice, select the Invoice command button. AccPac Simply Accounting then displays the dialog box shown in Figure 8. To record an invoice, enter the number, date, and invoice amount. Repeat this same process for each customer's invoices. Using similar dialog boxes, you can also detail each vendor's accounts-payable balances. (In AccPac Simply Accounting, you detail the inventory balances as part of loading the inventory master file which I described in step 4. Many other accounting systems--such as DacEasy and pacioli 2000--require you to separately detail the inventory balances just as you separately detail the accounts-receivable and accounts-payable balances.)

Step 6--Enter the conversion-date trial balance. After loading the necessary master files, you're ready to enter the conversion-date trial balance. As part of completing steps 4 and 5, you enter your accounts-receivable, inventory, and accounts-payable balances in those respective, subsidiary ledgers. However, you also need to enter your asset, liability, and equity-account balances into the general ledger. What's more, if you're converting to the new system at some time other than at the beginning of the year--the usual case--you need to enter all your year-to-date-revenue and year-to-date-expense numbers. The one thing you need to be particularly careful of is that your general and subsidiary ledger balances agree. To enter the conversion-date trial balance, you construct a large, general-ledger journal entry that records each of the necessary account balances using the General Journal dialog box (see Figure 9). (Ledgers, for the record, are simply records of your accounts and their balances. Traditionally, accounts use subsidiary ledgers--such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, and inventory--to further document that details of important assets and liabilities.)

Step 7--Start using the system's modules. Once you've completed step 6, you're ready to begin using the system. This is simply a matter of recording accounting transactions and, if necessary, printing any associated forms such as invoices, statements, vendor checks, and payroll checks. Then periodically--usually at the end of the month and again at the end of the year--you'll use the system's reporting features to summarize your business's financial condition.