Introduction

The system comes with a standard package of General Ledger Accounts and Codes. These include:

• General Ledger Categories.
• General Ledger Sub-Categories.
• General Ledger Groups.
• A set of other Codes, including Currencies and Taxes.

General Ledger Codes belong to General Ledger Sub-Categories which in turn belong to General Ledger Categories:

Review these to determine if they reflect your requirements. These pre-defined Codes will help you to start very quickly. However, as you progress, it may be necessary to add to these Codes, especially as you require more in-depth Analysis and Reporting. You can also re-define, and delete any that are unwanted or discard them in favour of your own existing Coding System.

Prerequisite

You must fully understand the role of the General Ledger Categories and Sub-Categories in driving the design and layout of the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet Reports.

See: 

How do I Modify or Re-Design the Layout of the Profit & Loss (Income & Expenditure) and Balance Sheet Report? 

 

General Ledger Overview (7.0) - AIQ Academy

Add Edit GL Acounts (7.1) - AIQ Academy

GL Journals (7.2) - AIQ Academy

Adding GL Categories and Sub-Categories

Before you add more General Ledger Codes, you may want to review, amend, or create additional General Ledger Categories and/or Sub-Categories as you will need these when adding new General Ledger Codes.

General Ledger Categories

There are eleven pre-existing GL Categories, numbered 1 to 11 as Alphabetic Codes, which you cannot edit or delete. You can, however, edit them, change their meaning, and add more. 

To access the General Ledger Categories and Sub-Categories:

1. Go to Setup > Codes Maintenance > GL Categories.
   
   

To amend an existing GL Category:

1. Beside the relevant Code, click Edit to open the Edit Category screen.
2. Make any relevant changes.
3. Click Save.

To add a new General Ledger Category:

1. Click Add New Category to open the Add Category screen.
2. In the Category Type dropdown, select an appropriate category. Category Type is inherited by its descendants: Sub-Categories, and GL Codes. Category Type determines what reports, or sections of a report, the General Ledger Codes that belong to it will appear. 
3. In the P & L Balance Sheet Sort Order field, you can determine a category’s position in Reports. The General Ledger Categories will appear in ascending numerical order in the Chart of Accounts starting with number 1. 
   
   
   
    
4. You can change a GL Category’s position by changing its Sort Order Code or adding a new GL Category with a new Sort Order Code. When you tick Re-Sort sort order, the sequence will be re-ordered. In the example below, “Operating Income” will be the first line on your Profit & Loss (Income & Expenditure) Reports, followed by “Cost of Sales” and “Direct Costs.”
   
   
   
    
5. Click Save.
    

General Ledger Sub-Categories

The system comes equipped with a standard set of General Ledger Sub-Categories which you can add to or modify. Each also has a Profit & Loss (Income & Expenditure) Sort Order Code which determines the sequence of their appearance within a General Ledger Category.

1. Go to Setup > Codes Maintenance > GL Sub-Categories.
2. In the P&L / Balance Sheet Sort Order field, like GL Categories you can re-sequence the Report or Chart of Accounts. 
3. If you tick Non-Cash Item in a Cashflow Report, all General Ledger Codes that have that General Ledger Sub-Category as a parent will be excluded from Cash Forecasting. 
4. Click Save.
   
   

See:

How do I Modify or Re-Design the Layout of the Profit & Loss (Income & Expenditure) and Balance Sheet Report? ‍ 

Adding Further General Ledger Codes

1. Go to General > General Ledger Accounts > New General Ledger Account to add a new GL Code. Alternatively, click an existing GL Code if you want to edit it.
   
   
    
2. There are several ways you can extend the pre-defined set of General Ledger Codes:

• Add New Codes in the gaps between the existing ones. For example, if you have codes 1010 and 1020, add 1012, 1014, 1016, and 1018:
  
  
   
• Use suffixes to expand an existing Code, for example, 3500-10:
  
  
   
• Set up completely New Codes, for example, ROOFING:
  
   

3. In the General Ledger Maintenance screen, complete the following where relevant:

• GL Acc No: Enter a new General Ledger Account Code.
• GL Acc Name: Enter a Description for the Code. 
• Parent: Optional. You can choose a GL Code from the dropdown. Some traditional Chart of Accounts attach GL Codes to a Parent. This is not used in the normal operation of this system but can be used in bespoke reports. 
• Notes: Optional. Enter any information relevant to the Account such as its usage.
• Ref GL Acc No: Optional. It is normally used to reference a previous Chart of Accounts Code. Not used in the normal operation of this system. 
• Category: This is the GL Category to which this GL Code belongs. The Category Type is automatically inherited from this Category and allocated automatically to this GL Code. 
  
  
  Delete

  Info

  It is also possible to add new General Ledger Categories and General Ledger Sub-Categories during the process of adding new General Ledger Codes. Click +Add new GL Category.

  
  

  
  
   
• Sub Category: This is the GL Sub-Category to which this Code belongs. 
• VAT: Enter the VAT Code for this GL Code in the absence of a VAT code from another source such as Product or Customer/Supplier.
• Group: You can group GL Codes together by assigning them a common Group Code. For example, you could assign a common Group Code to different Insurance cost codes. Set up Group Codes in Codes Maintenance. 
• Use BI Code: Tick this to enforce the use of Analysis Codes during Transaction entry. 

4. Click Process to add the new GL Account Code to the table of General Ledger Codes.

Using General Ledger Groups

General Ledger Groups do not feature in the hierarchy of the General Ledger Coding Structure. They are optional but serve as a way of viewing and reporting of General Ledger Codes which fall into various collections of Revenue, Cost Accounts, or Balance Sheet Accounts. 

For example, you can create groups for Insurance Codes or Employee Costs. You can then use these groups to refine Inquiries and other Reports in the GL grid, under the GL Group column.
 

Deleting General Ledger Codes

The pre-supplied Standard General Ledger Code Package is fully comprehensive, catering to the needs of diverse types of businesses. We recommend that you tailor them to reflect the actual needs of your business. 
 

One example where this proves useful is for budgeting. If there are many unused General Ledger Codes in the system, then the Budget preparation documents and spreadsheets will be unnecessarily complicated. Another example is the case of unwieldy General Ledger Code lookups or dropdowns. 
 

If you are overly zealous in removing GL Codes, you can always add them back in later.

Delete

Info 

You can only delete unwanted GL Codes if there are no transactions in the system with this GL Code recorded against them. If this is the case, when you go to General > Add/Edit GL Codes, Delete will be available. If there are transactions against the GL Code, Delete will not be available. Therefore, it is particularly important that you remove any unnecessary GL Codes before letting users add transactions.

Re-Defining GL Codes

1. Go to General > General Ledger Accounts and find the relevant account.
2. Click the account Code to open the General Ledger Maintenance screen.
3. In the General Ledger Maintenance screen, use the Edit facility to change the meaning of your existing GL Codes by changing the GL Code Description and the GL Category and Sub-Category they belong to.
4. Click Process.

Creating General Ledger Control Type C Accounts

Control Accounts are GL Accounts that the system will use during automatic system transaction posting. The difference between a Control Account and a Default Account is that you cannot create a manual posting to a Control Account.
 

A Control Account is only updated through automatic system transactions, for example:

• Debtors Control
• Creditors Control
• Sales/Purchase Tax Control
• Retained Reserves

A Default Account is updated by either automatic system transactions or manual transactions, for example:

• Discounts
• Accruals
• Prepayments
• Currency Gain/Loss Account

Step One: Setup a new General Ledger Control Account

1. Follow all the steps as outlined earlier with the following exception: Ensure that the Account Type is set as 'C' - Control.
2. Click Process to save the new General Ledger code.

Step Two: Add the Control Account as a System Control Account

1. Go to Setup > Codes Maintenance > System Accounts.
   
   
    
2. In the Account No. field, select your new type C Control account from the dropdown.
3. In Account Type, select the relevant Account type.
   
   
    
4. Click Save.