Recording Financial Transactions

Overview

The procedures for recording commonly encountered financial transactions using DEB follow a standard pattern, requiring minimal user input.

• When recording Sales, Customer Receipts and Purchase Returns: select the receiving account and the giving account is automatically selected.
• When recording Purchases of Stock and Sales Returns: select the giving account and the receiving account is automatically selected.
• When recording Purchases of Assets and Payments for Expenses: select the giving account and the receiving account in a controlled environment.

The input methods used to record transactions, control the ledgers and export data are displayed after selecting one of the top-level menu options.

1. To record 'cash' transactions

(notes, coins, cheques or card payments)

1. 1.1 Click the date picker icon and choose a date
2. 1.2 Choose the receiving or giving account (Cash, Petty Cash or Card/Cheque (Bank))
   

   

3. 1.3 Enter the Transaction value*

   

4. 1.4 Enter an optional comment

   

5. 1.5 Click the save transaction icon

   

2. To record transactions involving credit terms

(invoices and credit notes)

1. 2.1 Click the date picker icon and choose a date
2. 2.2 Choose the receiving or giving account (Receivables or Payables) by selecting 'Credit Invoice'

   

3. 2.3 Enter the Transaction value*
4. 2.4 Choose a credit customer or supplier

   

5. 2.5 Enter an optional comment

   

6. 2.6 Click the save transaction icon

   

3. To record a payment received from a credit customer or given to a credit supplier

1. 3.1 Click the date picker icon and choose a date
2. 3.2 Choose the receiving or giving account (Cash or Card/Cheque)

   

3. 3.3 Enter the Transaction value
4. 3.4 Choose a credit customer or supplier

   

5. 3.5 Enter an optional comment

   

6. 3.6 Click the save transaction icon

   

Prompt Payment Discount

If the receipt or payment qualifies for a prompt payment discount:

1. Select 'Apply prompt payment discount'

   

2. Deselect the 'Account for VAT' option (when appropriate)
3. Adjust the discount rate (and/or the VAT rate), if necessary

   

4. Using 'Journal Entries'

Although the procedures described above always result in posting accurate journal entries, the possible inputs are constrained to reduce the chances of introducing errors due to incorrect selection of the receiving and giving accounts (debit and credit accounts).

The specific facility is relatively unconstrained, allowing free selection of any combination of general ledger accounts. This permits the user to post corrections, where a transaction had been posted to the wrong expenses account, for example, or where an incorrect transaction value had been posted and subsequently detected.

The Journal Entries facility is also recommended for completing tasks such as recording irrecoverable receivables (associated with credit customer accounts). In this case, the General Ledger, Receivables Ledger (Sales Control) and relevant Customer account are updated simultaneously in a single action.

Other more complex use cases, to be detailed in a separate document, include managing accrued expenses, pre-payments, completing balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements. Facilities to assist these advanced use cases are currently early-stage work-in-progress.

5. Editing Transactions

Editing Transactions is constrained to changing a record's date. Journal Entries should always be used for correcting accounting errors.

6. Creating New Ledgers

Creating New Ledgers can be accomplished in two ways:

Method 6.1: Default Records

This creates a General Ledger containing a minimal set of 'system' accounts, together with unpopulated Sales Control (Receivables) and Purchase Control (Payables) ledgers. The default accounts have a nil balance.

1. 6.1.1 Click Financial Period Start Date icon and choose a date
2. 6.1.2 Click Financial Period End Date icon and choose a date
3. 6.1.3 Select 'Create default records'

   

4. 6.1.4 Enter your Password (because the next step will overwrite any open records!)

   

5. 6.1.5 Click Set Ledger icon

   

The list of default General Ledger accounts created is shown below.

Method 6.2: User-Defined Template

The second method creates a set of ledgers from a user-defined text file, containing 'brought forward' balances (if required).

1. 6.2.1 Click Financial Period Start Date icon and choose a date
2. 6.2.2 Click Financial Period End Date icon and choose a date
3. 6.2.3 Use the available file system to locate and select a valid file*

   

4. 6.2.4 Enter your Password

   

5. 6.2.5 Click Set Ledger icon

   

Figure 6.2a shows the content of the formatted text file used to create the accounts listed in figure 6.2b.

Click here to view/copy a template data file (Opens in a new tab)

7. Adding New Accounts

Method 7.1: General Ledger Account

1. 7.1.1 Select 'General Ledger Account' (default)

   

2. 7.1.2 Enter an account name (keyboard characters only)

   

3. 7.1.3 Choose the account's type from the dropdown menu

   

4. 7.1.4 Click Create New Account button

   

Method 7.2: Credit Customer or Credit Supplier Accounts

1. 7.2.1 Select 'Credit Customer Account' or 'Credit Supplier Account'

   

2. 7.2.2 Enter an account name (keyboard characters only)

   

3. 7.2.3 Click Create New Account button

   

Account codes and sequence numbers are automatically generated.

Code	Account Type
100	Current asset
110	Non-current asset
101	Contra asset
200	Current liability
210	Non-current liability
300	Capital (Equity)
301	Contra capital
400	Sales revenue
401	Contra revenue
500	Purchase asset/expense
501	Contra purchase
600	Expense
700	Income (other than from sales)
800	Credit Customer
900	Credit Supplier

8. Exporting Account Data

Enables the user to store their whole set of accounts in neatly formatted CSV files!

Method 8.1: Export Trial Balance (Summary)

To export the ledgers in summary format (the trial balance, receivables and payables)

1. 8.1.1 Use the available file system to select the directory that will contain your exported files

   

2. 8.1.2 Choose the option to 'Export Trial Balance' (default)

   

3. 8.1.3 Click Export to File button

   

Note: A new directory, containing the exported files, will be created in the selected directory. The new directory will be named after the record owner's company ID. For example, if 'ClientFinancialRecords' is the selected directory, the exported files for the company named 'widgetco' will be stored in the directory named 'ClientFinancialRecords/widgetco'.

Method 8.2: Export Individual Account Transactions

To export the transaction data stored in individual accounts

1. 8.2.1 Use the available file system to select the directory that will contain your exported files
2. 8.2.2 Choose the option to 'Export Selection'

   

3. 8.2.3 Choose the appropriate ledger containing accounts

   

4. 8.2.4 Select one or more accounts using the mouse and keyboard (shift/ctrl keys)

   

5. 8.2.5 Click Export to File button

   

Click here to view the exported records in Google Sheets

On selecting the directory containing exported files, the user can choose to right-click a file to open it. If the operating system associates the file type (in this case .csv) with a default program (such as Excel), the file will be opened in that program.