General
Ledger Software
What is General Ledger?
General ledger gives you the
transactional details of every account of the organization in the form
of debit and credit entries. There are some head accounts which can
further be divided into child accounts and general ledger will be responsible
for the details.
Why do you need General
Ledger Software?
General ledger gives you the
debit and credit entries of each account whether it is a head or a child
account. There are seven general head accounts which are Assets, Liabilities,
Owner's equity, Revenue, Expenses, Gains and losses. These head accounts
can further be divided into sub-accounts such as cash, inventory, office
expenses etc. Through the general ledger, you would be able to maintain
the transactions and view the details of every account that you have
made for the organization. These transactions will then help you maintain
your balance sheet and income statement.
General Ledger Software
Benefits
- Track and view the transactions of each
account
- Ensure all the accounts are properly maintained
- Balance Sheets and Income Statement generation
- Transaction details of each account
- Sub-accounts (child accounts) check and
balance
General Ledger Software
often integrates with:
- All the Transactional Accounts
- Balance Sheet
- Income Statement
- Profit and Loss Statement
- Adjusting Accounts
General Ledger Software
- Functionalities you may need in the General Ledger module:
The main functionality requirements
in any organizations' General Ledger Software are the automation of
the balances in the accounts in which the transaction is being carried
out. All the transactions of the organization whether they are day to
day business transaction or once a time job, you have to maintain and
balance each account and have to show its transactions on the records.
By fulfilling this requirement, you will be able to gain not only the
tangible benefits but the intangible once as well.
The general ledger software mainly
contains the account head and transaction(s) entry columns which are
Debit and Credit entries of that account. The sum of these transactions
will give you the balance of that account. This is true for the child
account as well. Only the name of that account needs to be replaced
with the name of the child account with the reference to the head account.
Functionalities that you should
look for in any accounting software are:
- Can the general ledger maintain multiple
of accounts in a single transaction
- Can the general ledger maintain multiple
of sub-accounts in a single transaction
- How many accounts can you access in a single
transaction and in multiple transactions
- Can the ledger give you the report of each
head account
- Can the ledger give you the report of each
sub-account
- Can the ledger show you the report of each
transaction
- Can the reports be exported to some other
formats (namely-excel)
- Can the chart be changed with automatic
data conversion
- Are accounts numeric or alphanumeric
- Can accounts be tagged as active or inactive
- Does system allow for deleting of accounts
with activity
- Can the Chart of Accounts be customized
- Can journal entries be imported from Excel
- Do journal entries have to be in balance
to be posted
- Can out of balance journal entries be saved
for later posting
- Can journal entries be reversed automatically
- Can the system post zero dollar journal
entries
- Can the system post units only journal entries
- Can recurring journal entries be created
- How many journals can be defined
- Can data entry be customized by journal
- Can the system lookup accounts by any account
- Can the system lookup accounts by account
description
- Can the system lookup accounts by date range
- Can the system lookup accounts by dollar
range
- Can the system lookup accounts by Journal
names
- Can the system lookup account balances for
multiple fiscal year
- Does the system require you to type in the
entire account number for lookup or does the system provide for
shortcuts
- Can the system lookup accounts in detail
and summary
- Can the system lookup budget vs actual online,
in detail and summary
- Can the system drilldown to the lowest level
- Does the system generate automatic due to/due
from entries
- Does the system provide for self balancing
funds
- Does the system provide for encumbrance
and/or commitment accounting
- Maximum number of funds supported
- Does the system allow for multiple periods
to be open at the same time
- Can the system post to future periods
- Can the system post to prior periods
- Automatic allocation of transactions by
dollars or units
- Automatic allocation of transactions by
percentages
- Is there online help
- Does the system come with user manuals
- Does the system require you to purge history
files after certain number of years
- Are there any standard reports with the
system
- Is there a report writer built in general
ledger, if not how are reports generated
- If there are standard reports within the
system, can they be modified and saved under different name
- Does the system support "Batching"
of reports for later printing
General Ledger Software
Security:
- Ability to restrict users based on task
- Ability to restrict users based on account
number
- Ability to restrict users to "inquiry
only" access
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