The General Ledger account codes can be configured to accommodate simple or complex account structures. This is accomplished by using up to 50 alphanumeric characters, containing up to six distinct segments. The actual account code reference for each item in the Chart of Accounts can be any segment.

The General Ledger is linked to the sub ledgers - Debtors, Creditors and Inventory via the classifications for each module. All transactions that are activated with dollar values update the General Ledger.

There are two major types of journals:

• Internal - where the journal is generated from within the General Ledger module i.e. General Journals, repeating or Template journals and Pending journals

• External - where the journal set is created from transactions in external modules e.g. creditor invoice from the Creditor module, stock transfer from Inventory

There is no processing procedure as such for the period end for the General Ledger. The field Locked in the Setup configuration form for the ledger controls which postings are accepted to a period by the ledger.

• Open - allows postings to the ledger from all modules

• External Locked - will only accept postings from the ledger. Postings from the other modules e.g. purchase invoicing are excluded

• Global Locked - does not accept any postings

Jiwa 7 allows 2 years to be open and posted to. When the third year is to be posted to, a Yearly Rollover over MUST BE performed. Any undistributed profits or losses should be posted before the roll over if required and a back up must be done. All users must be logged out of the system for the Yearly Rollover to be performed. Once a year has been rolled transactions cannot be posted to that year. 

Certain ledger accounts are required by Jiwa and these are usually linked to a system setting or a classification

See also: System Configuration#LedgerSettings

 

 There are various aspects to the General Ledger that need to be set up before posting can start. 

 

The configuration details for the general ledger are entered into the system via the General Ledger->Configuration->Setup screen. Segment numbers and lengths together with period descriptions and years are entered here. 

The Years section at the top of the form shows the financial years that have been defined in the Jiwa system. The Add Year button allows creation of a new financial year. Upon creating a year, a Year No. value is generated by the system, but this can be over-typed to be any numeric value. It is recommended that the Year No. field be given the value of the calendar year for which the financial year begins. The Starting Date field indicates the starting date of the financial year - it may be set to any date irrespective of when previous financials years started, but it must not fall within the starting and ending dates of any existing financial year. The Retained Earnings Account defines the general ledger account into which the profit for the year will be placed upon rolling the year. It does not have to be set immediately, but a Yearly Rollover will fail if no retained earnings account has been defined for the year. The Rolled field indicates whether the year has been rolled (ie. profit calculated and the year locked). This value is set by the system upon Yearly Rollover and is therefore read-only to the user. Obviously, for a newly created year this field will be un-ticked. The years defined can be examined to determine what constitutes the "Last", "Current" and "Next" years in the context of the Jiwa system:

Last Year - The most recent year that has a tick in the Rolled field.Current Year - The oldest unrolled year.Next Year - The second oldest unrolled year.

The Periods section contains the list of periods for the currently selected year (the highlighted year in the year section). Period names can be defined and well as the start date for each period. The end date of each period is taken to be the start date of the following period, minus 1 second. Periods can also be locked - an External Lock means that only local journals can be created, whilst a Global Lock means that no journals can be posted. Finally, the Rolled field indicates whether a period has been rolled (via Period Rollover). 

The bottom section of the form is the Segments section. A general ledger account number is made up of a number of segments, each of which being separated by a separator. On this form segments can be added or removed, and have it's Length, Name, andType defined. For example, if 3 segments are added, the first segment of length 4, the second of length 3, and the third as length 2, given a separator character of "-" a genernal ledger account umber would look something like 1200-200-01. That is, 4 characters then the separator, 3 characters then the separator again, then the final 2 characters. A maximum of 6 segments can be defined, although 3 segments is usually enough - too many segments can lead to an overly-complicated chart of accounts. Segments define the structure of the general ledger and are used to group together accounts at different levels when reporting or viewing data. For example, if the first segment is defined as the account and if the second segment was defined as being the "State" (Vic, NSW, etc.) then a series of general ledger accounts may appear as:

1200-000-00 Freight In1200-200-00 Freight In NSW1200-300-00 Freight In Vic1200-600-00 Freight In WA

Above, the parent account is "1200-000-00 Freight In", and being a parent account transactions cannot be posted to it. Only the child accounts can be posted to - these are 1200-200-00, 1200-300-00, and 1200-600-00. However, when we view account 1200-000-00 we can see the balances and movements for all freight (the sum of the child accounts). When we look at account 1200-200-00 we can see the balances and movements for NSW only, looking at account 1200-300-00 we only see figures for Vic, and so-on.

The Type of a segment may be Account No. or Open, with only one of the segments being assigned the Account No. type. The Account No. type is special in that accounts "pivot" around this value. It defines the segment that acts as the main identifier of agrouping of general ledger accounts. In the example above, it is the first segment that is of type Account No., as it is the "1200" which defines "freight" ledger accounts.

If any general ledger accounts exist in the system, then the Segments section will not be editable - except for the Name field. 

 

Each general ledger account must be associated with a category. The category determines the type of account - Balance Sheet or Profit & Loss, as well as it's expected sign (debit or credit). Each category is associated with a group and sub-group - these determine the position of the account in the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet reports (as does the display order). There is no limit to the number of categories that can be created.

Amounts posting to the opposite of the expected sign will display the amount in bold - e.g. posting of a debit to the creditor account will bold the amount being posted 4,500.00.