Financial Management

Open Accounting → General Ledger. Each company starts with a default chart. An administrator can add accounts with a code, name, account type and sub-type. Control accounts such as 1100, 2100, 1200 and 2200 are maintained only by source documents and cannot be chosen on invoice or bill lines. An account with journal lines cannot be deleted; mark it inactive instead.

Go to Accounting → Periods and choose New Period. Give each period a name, financial year, period number, start date and end date. A period is open, closed or locked. Nothing can be posted into a closed or locked period.

Open Accounting → Journal Entries and create a new entry with a date, reference and balanced debit and credit lines. The entry is saved as a draft. An administrator opens it and chooses Post Entry.

Posted journals are not edited. Open the entry and choose Create Reversing Entry with a reversal date in an open period, then capture the correct entry.

Go to Accounting → Banking, pick the bank account and upload an OFX/QFX, QIF, SWIFT MT940 or CSV file. You see a preview before anything is saved. Lines already imported are skipped. PDF statements are not supported.

On the Match tab each bank line gets a scored suggestion: a payment already captured, a cash book entry, an open invoice, an open bill or a bank rule. Nothing posts until you accept. You can accept one line at a time or accept all high-confidence matches in one batch.

For recurring items such as bank charges, add a bank rule: text the description contains, money in or out, a GL account and a VAT setting. For anything else, use the Cash Book tab to post a payment, receipt or transfer to your own account.

Under Accounting → FX Rates, add a rate per currency pair with an effective date. A document uses the latest rate on or before its date. A foreign-currency document cannot be posted without a rate. Rates are entered by hand; there is no rate feed.

Foreign invoices and bills are converted to ZAR at the rate on the document date. When they are paid, the difference between the original rate and the settlement rate posts to 8000 as a realised exchange gain or loss.

Under ERP → Cost Centres, create cost centres with a code, name, department and budget figure.

Under Accounting → Budgets, create a budget for a financial year and period, optionally for one cost centre. Add lines per GL account (or category) per month. When the budget is final, approve it and lock it.

An approval rule sets one amount threshold and an approver role for a document type. Purchase orders and expense claims that meet a rule appear under ERP → Approvals, where a user with the approvals permission approves or rejects them with a note. Purchase orders and supplier bills also have their own Approve action. A payment run must be approved by someone other than the person who created it.

Under Accounting → Depreciation, run depreciation up to month-end. A run charges every month not yet charged and never charges the same month twice (DR 6100 / CR 1600).

Open Accounting → Books Health. It checks that every journal balances, the trial balance balances, and receivables, payables, customer advances, fixed assets and the opening balance suspense agree with the documents behind them. It also shows the bank GL balance next to the last imported statement balance. Differences list the documents involved. Clear them before you go on.

Open Finance → Financial Reports → VAT201 Return for the VAT period and work through the review list. See Compliance & Governance for the full steps.

In Accounting → Periods, close the month. A closed period can be reopened by an administrator if a correction is needed. When the month is final, lock it. A period must be closed before it can be locked, and a locked period cannot be reopened.

The financial year follows the company's year-end month (February by default). After the year has ended, use Close financial year on Accounting → Periods and enter the year in which it ends. Income and expense accounts are closed to 3000 Retained earnings. A year not yet ended is refused. Running it again posts only late postings still open.

Under Accounting → Opening Balances, enter the last day in the old system, for example 31 October when you start on 1 November.

Add each open customer invoice and supplier bill with its original number, date, total and outstanding amount, so ageing and statements are right. Then enter the trial balance of all other accounts.

Everything posts against 9999 Opening balance suspense. Posting is refused unless the trial balance balances and receivables and payables agree with the open items, so 9999 ends at nil. After posting, opening balances are locked; corrections are made by journal.

Under Accounting → Group Reports, create a group and add companies you administer. In each company, mark the accounts that are loans or balances with another group company as inter-company.

The group trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet combine the companies by account code, with a column per company, an eliminations column and the group total. If the two sides of an inter-company balance disagree, the difference shows as "Unreconciled inter-company difference". You need access to every company in the group.