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About General Ledger Setup

Designing Your General Ledger

Adding a New G/L Account

Adding Source Codes

Current Fiscal Year after Activation

Setting Up a New General Ledger in Sage HRMS Payroll

Before you start

  1. Create and post closing balances to the year before the first full year that you want account data. Select Create New Year to create opening balances for the first full year of data.
  2. Back up your data after you create each set of batches and after each posting.
  3. Create and post the net changes for each successive period in the first year of data, then close the year by running Create New Year.
  4. Repeat this step for each prior year of data.
  5. Create batches of transaction details for each period in the current year to bring your ledger up to date.

Notes: If you have already advanced the current year and added current-year opening figures, do not post transactions to the previous year. This will result in overstatement of account balances. 

If you need to add previous year figures after entering balances in the current year, make sure that you change balances only within the year you are editing (by posting reversing entries to the adjustment period). You must not post changes that will alter closing balances for the year.

To add existing account balances and quantity data to a new general ledger

  1. Activate your General Ledger, specifying the first full year for which you want to keep account data, and the current fiscal year. General Ledger will create fiscal calendars for all years that you want to contain history.

    General Ledger will also set the current fiscal year to the year before the first full year, so you can enter opening balances for the first year.

    Notes: The only way to change the current year in G/L is to use Create New Year. This window closes income and expense accounts to retained earnings, creates opening balances in the next year, and advances the current year.

    If you do not want to enter previous-years' period balances,you must enter the previous year's period 12 balances.

  2. Start Sage HRMS Payroll, using the year-end date of the year before the earliest fiscal year for which you want to post transactions.

    Create a batch with the closing balances of all your general ledger accounts. Make sure the batch balances, and that the batch matches your balance sheet for that year, then post the batch.

  3. Select Create New Year to create the opening balances for your first full year of period balances, and to advance the current year.
  4. Set the session date for the appropriate fiscal year, and create separate transaction batches for each of the periods that you want to contain data. If you want a full year of comparative period balances, you must create one transaction in each period for each account.

    Because you have already entered opening balances, these batches must contain the net changes for each account (except retained earnings) in each fiscal period.

    Do not enter the closing balance of the retained earnings account, and do not create a batch for closing income and expense accounts to retained earnings. You will use General Ledger's Create New Year window to close each year after you have posted the year's data.

  5. Post all batches. Print the posting journals, and keep them as part of your audit trail.
  6. Print trial balances for each of the periods in the year to which you posted, and compare balances to those in your current ledger.
  7. Select Create New Year from the Periodic Processing window to close the income statement accounts to retained earnings, and to advance the current year.
  8. Exit General Ledger, then start it again, using the year-end date of the next year for which you want to enter historical data. Again, post batches and print trial balances to check the results.

    If this is a previous year, again use the Create New Year window to close the year.

  9. Print balance sheets and income statements for all past years, and compare them to your existing statements.

Notes: To use the financial statements shipped with General Ledger sample data, you must select the Use Account Groups option in the G/L Options window, and assign each G/L account to a group using the G/L Accounts window.