General Ledger Maintenance

This document provides technical guidance for users managing General Ledger (GL) accounts within the Flex system. General Ledger Maintenance is a critical function for financial management, allowing for detailed configuration and oversight of all financial accounts.

Accessing General Ledger Maintenance

General Ledger Maintenance is accessed via a drop-down menu located next to the Maintenance button within the General Ledger section of the Flex system.

Maintenance Options

The General Ledger Maintenance feature offers four primary options for managing GL data:

• Account Details
• Budget Maintenance
• Category Maintenance
• Company Maintenance

1. Account Details

The Account Details section provides comprehensive information about individual General Ledger accounts.

Account Information Fields

• Account Number: Displays the unique identifier for the selected GL account.
• Account Description: Provides a descriptive name for the account.
• Type: Indicates the financial classification of the GL account. Flex supports five account types:
  • Income
  • Expense
  • Asset
  • Liability
  • Capital
• Subtotal Category Code: Used to determine where the GL account will appear on financial reports (e.g., Income Statement, Balance Sheet).
  • Example: A Category Code “11” might be titled “Income on Loans.” Any new loan income account assigned this code will appear under the “Income on Loans” heading on the Income Statement.
  • Note: Category Codes are defined in Category Maintenance.
• Account Summary Code: Similar to Subtotal Category Codes, but used for summarized financial reports rather than detailed reports.
  • Example: All loan income accounts with a Summary Code “11” will be presented as a single line item with a combined balance on a summarized Income Statement.
  • Note: Summary Codes are defined in Category Maintenance.
• Sort Code: A system-generated code automatically assigned when a GL account is added, used for report generation.
• Frozen Account: If checked, this option freezes the GL account, preventing any new journal entries from being posted to it.

Account Balances

These fields display various balances associated with the GL account over specific timeframes and are not manually maintainable:

• Beginning Balance
• Month to Date Activity
• Quarter to Date Activity
• Year to Date Activity
• Current Balance
• Beginning of Year Balance

2. Budget Maintenance

Budget Maintenance allows users to view, add, and modify budget amounts for individual General Ledger accounts for a specified year.

Overview

• Displays all GL accounts included in the budget for the selected year.
• The system automatically populates the Year-to-Date balance.

Actions

• Add: Click to add a new budget entry.
• Edit: Highlight an existing budget entry and click to modify it.
• Delete: Remove a selected budget entry.
• Copy: Copy a budget for a single GL account to a new year.
• Copy Budget Year: Copy the entire budget from one year to a new year.
• Retrieve Actual: Pulls in the actual GL account balance. An option to “Replace Existing Actual Amount” may appear.
• Unlock: Allows manual changes to the “Actual” fields.
• Save: Saves all changes made to the budget.
• Cancel: Discards unsaved changes.

Budget Entry Fields

• Year: Indicates the budget entry year.
• Account: Specifies the individual GL account number for the budget entry. Budgeting is done per account, requiring a separate line item for each GL account, including branch accounts if branch accounting is used.
• Description: Displays the description of the GL account.
• Amount: Used in conjunction with the Period field to calculate monthly budget amounts.
  • Example: Entering $100,000 and selecting “Annually” in the Period drop-down will distribute the $100,000 evenly across all months.
• Percent: Used to adjust the budget by a percentage. Each month’s budget amount will increase by the entered percentage.
  • Example: If $100,000 is the initial amount and 0.5% is entered, each month’s budget will increase by 0.5% cumulatively.
• Change: Used to adjust the budget by a fixed amount each month.
  • Example: If $100,000 is the initial amount and $50.00 is entered, each month’s budget will increase by $50.00.
• Period: A drop-down to select the period for budget calculation (e.g., Monthly, Annually).
• Calculate: Click this button for the system to calculate and populate the budget amounts for each month based on the entered Amount, Percent, and Change.
• Budget (Monthly Fields): After calculation, users can manually adjust individual monthly budget amounts. The Budget Total (yearly total) will automatically recalculate.
• Actual: Displays the actual general ledger month-end balance, automatically brought in by the system.
• Budget Total: The calculated or adjusted total budget for the year.
• Actual Total: The total actual balance for the year.

3. Category Maintenance

Category Maintenance is used to define the header descriptions that appear on financial reports, specifically the Income Statement and Balance Sheet.

Overview

• Lists all defined Category and Summary Codes.
• The descriptions associated with these codes will be displayed on financial reports.
• Category and Summary Codes are linked within the General Ledger account detail screen.

Category Codes

• Used to store descriptions for the Income Statement or Balance Sheet detail reports.
• On a detail report, the header (Category Code description) will print, followed by a list of all individual GL accounts using that code, with a subtotal for the category at the end.
  • Sample Detail Income Statement Example:
    • INTEREST ON LOANS
      • 11101 New Auto Loans: $1500.00
      • 11102 Used Auto Loans: $1850.00
      • 11103 Signature Loans: $1000.00
      • Sub-Total: $4350.00

Summary Codes

• Used to store descriptions for the Income Statement or Balance Sheet summarized reports.
• On a summarized report, the Summary Code description will appear as a single line item representing the total of all accounts under that summary.
  • Sample Summarized Income Statement Example:
    • 110 INTEREST ON LOANS: $4350.00
    • 112 INVESTMENT INCOME: $12500.00
    • TOTAL INCOME: $16850.00

Adding a New Category

• Click the Add button.
• Category Type: Select either “Category Sub Total” or “Summary” from the drop-down.
• Category Code: Enter a unique code for the category.
• Description: Enter the descriptive name that will appear on reports.
• Summary Account: This field is only used for Summary Codes. This number will appear on the summarized report in place of the actual GL account number.

4. Company Maintenance

Company Maintenance allows for the configuration of system-wide options that affect General Ledger programs.

Miscellaneous Configuration

• Please Enter GL Entity Name: The name entered here will appear on financial reports (e.g., “FLEX COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION”).
• Print Journal Entry Report Default: Sets the default for printing a report after posting a journal entry (Yes/No).
• Dividend Expense Beg GL Number: Specifies the starting GL account number for dividend expenses in the chart of accounts. This helps separate regular expenses from dividend expenses on the Income Statement.
• Check As Line Item: Determines if all credit union checks, including regular teller checks, appear as separate line items in the general ledger history.
  • Yes: All checks appear as separate line items.
  • No: Teller checks post as one interface total. (A Drill Down option in GL history displays individual checks within the interface total).
• Tran List Report Option: Controls the amount of information displayed on the general ledger transaction list report. This report is automatically generated during month-end close but can also be generated manually.
  • 1 – Include only open month’s activity: Only activity for the current open/closing month is included.
  • 2 – Include Quarter-to-Date activity: Includes activity from the beginning of the current quarter up to the open month.
  • 3 – Include semi-annual activity: Includes activity for the first six months (Jan-Jun) or the second six months (Jul-Dec).
  • 4 – Include Year-to-Date activity: Includes all activity from January through the open month. This can result in a very lengthy report, especially for December.
  • Note: This option can be changed as needed (e.g., setting to “4” before closing December GL for a full year listing).
• Ignore Branch Accounting for CHGO Loans: For credit unions using branch accounting, this option determines if branch accounting should be disregarded for charged-off loans.
• Auto Assign Batch Reference: If checked, the system will automatically assign batch reference numbers for journal entries.

GL Closing Configuration

• Current Open Period: Displays the current open month and year for the general ledger. Do NOT change this field manually; it updates automatically during the month-end closing process.
• GL Closing Frequency: Indicates how often the system will zero out all income and expense balances and transfer the net difference to the designated Profit/Loss GL account. This occurs during the month-end closing process.
• Profit or Loss GL Number: The specific GL account number the system uses for transferring net income/expense balances during the closing process.
• Post to Branch or Main: For credit unions utilizing branch accounting, this setting determines where the net income/expense difference is posted.
  • Branch: The net difference for all income and expense accounts for a specific branch will be transferred to the Profit/Loss GL for that branch.
    • Example: For a credit union with branches 10, 20, 30, and 40, and a main Profit/Loss GL of 96000, branch 10 will post to 1096000, branch 20 to 2096000, and so on.
  • Main: The net difference of all income and expense accounts will be posted to the Profit/Loss GL designated as the main branch.

Balance Sheet Default

• Column 1/Column 2/Column 3: These fields specify what information will populate the three columns of the Balance Sheet report (e.g., Current Month Balance, Last Month Balance, Last Year Balance).

Income Statement Default

• Column 1/Column 2/Column 3: These fields specify what information will populate the three columns of the Income Statement report (e.g., Current Month-to-Date (MTD), Quarter-to-Date (QTD), Year-to-Date (YTD), Last Month MTD, QTD, YTD).