Finalize the invoice. The books already know.
Invoices, payments, purchases and expenses post to the ledger as they happen, in balanced debits and credits. You read, check and close the books. You never re-key them. It is included with Pro and Elite, and an add-on below.
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice 1042 finalized | ||
| Receivables | 919.80 | |
| Sales - labour | 320.00 | |
| Sales - parts | 480.00 | |
| GST collected | 40.00 | |
| QST collected | 79.80 | |
| Cost of goods sold | 276.00 | |
| Inventory | 276.00 | |
| Balanced | 1,195.80 | 1,195.80 |
| A late edit is refused: the books are closed through March 31 | ||
From the counter to the close
Seven stops between a finished job and a closed year, and what the books do at each.
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Invoice
A job is finished and the invoice is finalized
Its entries are written in the same moment: the sale, the taxes you collected and, for a part from stock, what it cost you coming out of inventory.
- Each line posts to the accounts set on its product or service, or on its category. Each tax and each payment method carries its own.
- If an account is missing or the entries would not balance, the invoice is not finalized and you are told why. Nothing is half recorded.
- Taking a finalized sale back means re-opening the invoice, which removes its entries. That is refused once a payment is recorded against it or its date is in a closed period.
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Payment
The customer pays
The payment is recorded against the invoice, the money goes to the account of the payment method it came through, and the receivable is cleared.
- Paid more than was owed? The customer is left with a credit rather than the difference disappearing.
- A refunded or deleted payment is undone by a reversing entry, so the history still shows what happened.
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Buying
Parts arrive and a bill comes in
Place a purchase and what you owe the vendor is on the books at once. Save an expense and it waits as a bill. Pay either one and the payable clears.
- A purchase books its stock as inventory in transit. Receiving the goods moves it into inventory.
- An expense goes to its own expense account, with the tax you paid, and is owed until you pay it.
- Cancelling a purchase posts reversing entries instead of rubbing anything out.
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Balances
Who owes you, and who you owe
Receivables and Payables list what is owed to you and by you, read from the books themselves, so they always agree with the balance sheet.
- Anyone who can open Accounting can read both lists.
- Reports by customer and by vendor, and aged reports that sort each debt into Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90 and 90+ days overdue. The aged ones also export to a spreadsheet.
- Age a debt from its due date, or from the invoice date to see how long you have really been waiting.
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Bank
The bank statement arrives
Tick each entry that appears on the statement until nothing is left unexplained. What you have reconciled is locked.
- It works on bank and cash register accounts, one reconciliation in progress per account.
- Each statement starts where the last one ended, and an entry settled once never comes back on a later one.
- Reconciling needs the Edit permission, not Admin, so whoever matches the bank is not necessarily the person who closes the books.
- The home page of Accounting warns you when an account has gone more than 35 days without a reconciled statement.
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Month end
The month is over
Close the period once you have reported on it. Nothing dated inside a closed period can be added, edited, deleted or restored, whichever module it comes from.
- Periods are monthly, quarterly or annual. They close in order, earliest first, and only after their last day.
- Balance sheet, income statement and trial balance as PDFs, and a sales tax report with the tax collected, the tax paid and the net to remit.
- An Unposted Documents report finds any invoice, purchase, expense or payment that never reached the books.
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Year end
The last period of the year closes
There is no separate year-end button. Closing the year's last period posts the closing entries and carries the result into retained earnings.
- The closing window shows exactly what will be posted before you confirm it.
- For an incorporated company with an income tax rate set and a profit, an estimate of the year's income tax is posted first. You can choose not to post it.
- Reopen the year's final period and the closing entries are reversed.
Books you can trust
Books are only worth keeping if nobody has to wonder how a figure got there. These are the rules the software holds to for you.
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Every entry balances
A transaction is debits and credits that add up. One that would not balance is refused, and so is the invoice or payment that caused it.
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Correct the document, not the entry
Most entries are written by the invoice, payment, purchase or expense they belong to. To fix a figure, fix where it came from and the books follow. A manual entry is for when the source cannot change.
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A closed period stays closed
Adding, editing, deleting and restoring are all refused inside it. So are reconciled entries, the opening balances and a year's closing entries. An administrator can reopen a period, latest first, and the message says which rule stopped you.
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It tells you what is missing
Config Check lists every account a product, tax or payment method still needs, with a link to the screen that fixes it. Unposted Documents lists anything that never reached the books.
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The right people see the books
Anyone with View can read the ledger, receivables and payables. Reports, periods, settings and the money figures on the home page need Admin. Permissions are per role, so a technician sees the work and not the books.
Coming from another package? Bring your chart with you.
Your books do not have to start from zero. Load your accounts, say what each one held on your start date, and carry on from there.
- A setup wizard picks your fiscal year, installs a starter chart and tells every product category, tax and payment method which account it posts to.
- Import your own chart of accounts from a CSV file. Each imported account goes through the same checks as one typed by hand.
- Set the day your books start, enter what each account held, and post it as one dated, balanced entry. Nothing earlier can be posted.
- Until setup is finished, administrators are sent back to it, so nothing posts into an unconfigured book.
Accounting is included with Pro and Elite, and available as an add-on on the plans below them.
See it running on your own work orders
Thirty minutes, at a time that suits the shop. We load a few of your real jobs in and you tell us where it would break.