QW Journal

NewViews on Accounting

 
   

~ Issue 2, March 2011 ~

Please note that throughout this publication, as well as in the current NewViews documentation and website, we refer to;
NewViews for DOS as NV1 and NewViews for Windows as NV2.

The Six Journal Types in NewViews

Traditionally in accounting, transactions are recorded in journals and then posted to account ledgers. For this reason, journals are often called books of original entry, and account ledgers are called books of final entry.

NV1 introduced the ability to enter postings directly to account ledgers, skipping the journal entry step. However, there is an overwhelming reason why journals should be used - it is often necessary or convenient to concentrate information for a particular type of transaction in one place. For example, a sales journal is especially useful for keeping customer invoices in one list, where individual invoices can be looked up by invoice number.


In NV2, transactions can be added to ledgers via journals, or directly to the account ledgers themselves. When you add a transaction to an account ledger, NV2 automatically records the entry in the specified journal. The end result is identical, regardless of where the transaction is actually added. Any given transaction can also be edited on the account ledger or in the journal. In this way, you have the convenience of posting directly to accounts, and the benefit of having all transactions organized in journals.


NV2 has six (6) journal types, each of which has a specific purpose.
The 6 types of journal are Bank, General, Payroll, Purchase & Sales.

  • Bank Deposit: This journal is used to record bank deposits and other debit transactions to a bank account.
  • Bank Payment: This journal is used to record bank payments and other credit transactions to a bank account.
  • General: commonly used for transactions that don't really have a type, like adjusting entries.
  • Payroll: There are three Payroll journals - a Canada Payroll cheque journal, a USA Payroll check journal and a TimeCard journal. These journals are used when processing NewViews Payroll. Payroll cheque/check journals can be used to view a listing of all payroll checks to all employees. If you are using Cash payroll, The TimeCard journal can be disregarded.
  • Purchase: This journal is used to record transactions for goods or services from vendors. NV2 provides two purchase journals - a Purchase Invoices journal and a Purchase Orders journal. You can add additional Purchase journals to organize specific groups of vendors as required.
  • Sales: This journal is used to record transactions for goods or services to customers (i.e. revenue). NV2 provides two Sales journals - a Sales Invoices journal and a Sales Orders journal. You can add additional Sales journals to organize specific groups of customers as required.

Sub-journals of any type can be added to meet specific needs (e.g. organizing journals into categories to group similar kinds of entries). Journals can also be added for specific users (e.g. so all transactions created by that user can be accessed in one location).

When adding transactions to account ledgers, any journal type can be specified. For example, when adding a payment transaction to a bank account, there are times when it is useful to specify a Purchase Invoice journal instead of a Bank Payments journal. (These types of situations will be discussed in future articles.)

As with transactions in account ledgers, individual journal entries or blocks of journal entries can be copied/moved/deleted/printed. This can save time and/or help to ensure consistent entries.

Upcoming issues of the QW Journal will provide more information on how each type of journal is used. Look for the article on Bank Journals in the next issue.


Why so Many NewViews Updates?

NewViews is in constant development, as are many other Windows programs that you are likely being prompted to update on a regular basis. We are always looking for ways to enhance performance and make the interface more user friendly.


It is also Q.W.Page’s policy to release new service packs as soon as bugs are detected and corrected. The alternative would be to accumulate more ‘fixes’ per release, and issue them at longer intervals. This would be more convenient for us, but would prevent our users from having access to these fixes at the earliest possible moment. Given that installing each new release is relatively fast and easy, we prefer to make sure that our users’ experience with NewViews is optimal at any given time.


The Trial Balance report

The trial balance is a special report. The accounts on it (posting and total) should capture all the account ledger balances in a set of books. The trial balance is the end point of the bookkeeping, and the starting point for the financial statements, e.g. income statement, balance sheet, statements of change in financial position and cash, and so on.


If your books were imported from NV1, chances are they did not contain a trial balance. With NV1, all the accounts on a report respected the begin and end dates at the top of the report. With NV2, account balances can be set to respect perpetual, periodic and opening balances using the normal representation field (see QW Journal Issue 1).


A traditional trial balance has two major groupings of accounts. The TB typically starts with the balance sheet accounts, i.e. cash, receivables, assets, payables, liabilities, etc. The remainder of the TB contains a detailed listings of revenue and expense accounts.


In NV2, a unique trial balance view may also be added. This consists of two columns, one for debit and one for credit amounts. Negative numbers are not displayed as such - "negative debits" amounts are simply displayed in the credit column. Several additional pairs of debit/credit columns may be added, which allows for direct comparisons of different date ranges, e.g. the current year vs. the last two prior years.


Trial Balance

The trial balance can be created with a very limited number of accounts, i.e. a single total cash account and a single total assets account with the respective details of those total accounts on separate reports. The other extreme is to have all general ledger posting accounts on the trial balance (except for individual customer and vendor accounts). Some sets of books have multiple income statements and may want only consolidated account groupings on the trial balance. It is also possible for a set of books to have more than one trial balance.

For information on adding a trial balance to a set of books, see Support Q & A below.

Taking Advantage of Ledger Views

NV1 offered 5 different views of ledgers - Ledger, Debit, Credit, Open and Closed. In NV2 there are several additional views (refer to the image below).


Document View

All NewViews transactions have a quantity field. The quantity field is mostly used with sales, expense, cost of goods, inventory and payroll accounts. The quantity column can be displayed or hidden using the following commands:

  • View > Quantities Only (quantities are displayed)
  • View > Amounts Only (quantities are hidden)
  • View > Quantities & Amounts (quantities are displayed)

On an Amounts Only view, two amount columns are displayed - the posting amount and the running balance amount. The Dr/Cr Split option adds two additional amount columns - a debit amount column and a credit amount column.
The Amounts Only - Dr/Cr Split view is very handy on Bank accounts where it nicely separates the checks and deposits into separate columns.


Two additional ledger views where added in NewViews version 2.17:

  • View > Aging 30-60-90
  • View > Aging 7-14-21

Both Aging views add six additional aging columns to the default ledger view. These aging columns are used to display an aged analysis of your invoices and payments, as of the current date.


Aging View

You should explore the various Views that are available for account ledgers (green tables). To return to the default view at any time, specify Ledger and Amounts Only.

Notes on Payroll

NewViews version 2.20 (released Jan 24, 2011) includes the final release of the Canadian T4127 - Payroll Deductions Formulas for Computer Programs - 93rd Edition. This version also includes the final release of US Publication 15 (Circular E) for 2011, as well as tax tables for three newly updated states - Illinois, Missouri & Vermont.


Service pack 1 (released Feb 22, 2011) updates T5 slips. You can now select the flow (i.e. debits or credits) when printing and/or e-filing T5 slips and/or summaries. Selecting amounts to report needed to be more general; using the account's normal balance, the debit/credit posting type and the tag, it should now be possible to manage all cases.


A reminder for all US Payroll users: For 2011, the Social Security and Medicare taxes for employees are both 4.2%, but the employer rate for Social Security is 6.2%. This means you MUST change the setting for the Employer Social Security Contribution Rate to 1.476190476. This value reflects the new ratio of the employer to employee contribution rate (in past years, this value has been set to 1 as the rate for both was the same).

The setting for the Employer Social Security Contribution rate can be found on row 6 in the Advanced Settings tab for USA payroll (refer to the image below). The value to enter on row 6 is 1.476190476 (the ratio of 4.2% to 6.2% is 1.476190476).


USA Payroll Settings

Tips and Tricks

Help > Keyboard shows you which function keys and mouse shortcuts are used in NV2. We recommend that you print this information and keep it handy until you have familiarized yourself with these helpful shortcuts!


F12 performs the same function as the Edit>Default Value>Set command. This sets the default entry for a column to the value of the current cell. When a new row is added to the table, this default value will automatically be entered in that column.


Tools > Create Transactions > Duplicate is a quick and easy way to create a copy of an existing transaction. The majority of transactions in any set of books are very similar. For example, each month the utility bills are from the same vendors and are posted to the same expense accounts. If you duplicate the last invoice from a vendor's ledger (or purchase journal) all you have to do is edit the date and the amount (if it has changed) for the current transaction. This saves dozens of keystrokes and helps to create consistent entries.


File > Backup creates a backup copy of the books you are currently working in. There is no need to close the books to do a backup! When this command is issued, a prompt displays the destination for the backup file. You may change this destination (e.g. to a network directory or a USB key).

The backup file is created with a name that identifies the file, the backup date and the file version. A new backup never overwrites an existing backup. As such, your destination folder or drive may accumulate many backup files. After a period of time, it may be necessary to delete some of the older backup files. We recommend that at least one backup file is kept per year and per month.


Support Q & A

The questions and answers in this section are among those most frequently encountered by the NewViews Support Team. Please note that extensive support related information can also be found on the NewViews website.


Q: I have used NewViews for many years but my books don't have a Trial Balance report. How can I add a Trial Balance to my set of books?


A: We can add a Trial Balance to your set of books as a consulting service. The basic structure of your Balance Sheet and Income statements will not change, but all the posting and total accounts on your BS and IS reports would be moved to the new Trial Balance.

The original posting and total accounts will be recreated as new total accounts on the Balance Sheet and Income Statement with the prefix BS. and IS. respectively. We will also add two new accounts to the Balance Sheet report as follows:

  • Opening Retained Earnings
  • Current Earnings

The charge for this service starts at $199, but may be higher depending on:

  • size of the books
  • existing semi-loops
  • out of balance books
  • the number of B.S. and I.S. reports
  • number of inactive accounts
  • number of Retained Earnings / Fund Balance accounts

To take advantage of this service, you would contact us to arrange a convenient date and time. We will need to transfer the books via the internet to our local servers in order to add the Trial Balance. During that time, you should not add new entries to your books. The time required to perform this service may range from a few hours to a few days. If you are interested in receiving more information on adding a Trial Balance to your set of books Click here.