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~ Issue 3, December 2011 ~
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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.
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Balancing the Books
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It goes without saying that your books should be balanced, i.e. Total Assets on the Balance Sheet
should equal Total Liabilities plus Owner's Equity. At the same time, your Trial Balance proof account
should be zero, i.e. total debits should equal total credits.
So what should you do when your books are out of balance? Here is a short list of issues that may
cause that to happen:
- An orphaned account
- A non zero balance in the journal_bal account
- An account not added to the Trial Balance
- Damaged account history
In the article below on Totalto Structure, we discuss using the Orphan Search Tool to find orphaned accounts
(i.e. accounts that don't total to any other account in the books).
If your organization has complex journal entries that use the journal_bal account,
you should periodically check that account to make sure it has a zero balance.
If not, you need to review the transactions in this account to find the unbalanced entry or entries.
Sometimes you may find that the Balance Sheet is in balance, but the Trial Balance is not.
In this case, check to see if a new account had been added to the books that totals to the Balance Sheet,
but not the Trial Balance.
A program called Database Utilities is automatically installed when you install NewViews.
This program is run from the Windows Start menu and has a tool that verifies all account history numbers
to check for possible damage. To use this tool, run the Database Utilities program and issue the
command Check > Account History.
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The Proof Control Tool in NewViews
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NewViews now provides a Proof Control Tool that lets you automatically verify the balance
of the books each time you login and/or logout.
To set up this tool, follow these steps:
- Click on NewViews in the Database Explorer on the left.
In the top window on the right, click on the Proof Control tab.
- Press the Insert to insert a new line in the table.
- Enter a name and description for the proof control settings.
For example, you could enter STANDARD in the
Name field and Standard proof check when opening or closing the books in the Description field.
- Position on the Auto Check When field, press F3 and choose login. Press F3 again and
choose logout.
- Position on the Tag List field, press F3 and choose financial.
- Position on the Proof Account List field, press F3 and choose your first proof account.
- Repeat the last step (i.e. press F3 while positioned on the Proof Account List field) to enter all your proof accounts
(e.g. TB-PROOF and BS-PROOF).
- In the Database Explorer on the left, expand the System folder and the User folder.
Click on Administrator (under User).
- In the top window on the right, click the Default Options tab.
- Position on the value for the Proof Check field (row 15), press F3 and choose yes to turn the
Proof Control Tool on for the Administrator.
- Repeat the last step for each user for whom the Proof Check Tool is to be turned on.
Once the Proof Control Tool has been set up as described above, a proof check can be initiated manually at any time by positioning anywhere on the
line containing the proof check settings and issuing the command Tools > Proof Check > Account History.
You can also enter a begin and end date to limit the range for which account histories are checked. Given the speed at which this operation is conducted,
however, this is usually unnecessary.
Setting a date range can be useful when you run a proof check manually to determine whether a set of transactions is causing the books to be out of balance.
Checking transactions is a much longer operation than checking account histories. As such, it is often beneficial to limit the date range to the period
during which you suspect the problem may have occurred (e.g. the last month, the last 6 months, the last year, etc.).
In this case, you can either set a date range for the Standard proof check (to be removed once you are done), or create a new proof check with specific begin and
end dates, then issue the command Tools > Proof Check > Transactions.
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Totalto Structure
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In NewViews, accounts total to other accounts.
The ability to total one account to another in a set of books provides the platform for a wide range of reporting options.
Each account can total to up to four other accounts.
Each of those four accounts can total to up to four more accounts.
As such, there is no limit to the depth of your total to structure or the corresponding reports you can create
to address the specific needs of your organization.
An account can be disconnected from a total account and/or reconnected to another total account at any time without
compromising the integrity of your accounting data. Since the total to structure in a set of books can be modified in
this way, your General Ledger (or any other report) does NOT have to be finalized before you start using NewViews.
This is one of the reasons NewViews is so flexible.
The Setup view displays the four totalto columns used to "wire up" a set of books.
In the example above, bank account 1062 on the Trial Balance is connected to TB-PROOF with totalto 1, BS-BANK
(on the Balance Sheet) with totalto 2 and FX-BANK (on the Foreign Exchange report) with totalto 3.
In this way, the TB-PROOF, BS-BANK and FX-BANK) accounts are all instantly updated every time the balance of
bank account 1062 changes.
NewViews provides several graphing tools that help you to visualize the total to structure in a set of books.
These tools are accessed by positioning on any account in the books and using the Menu > Tools > Totalto command.
The four options are:
Graph Above
The Graph Above option charts the totalto structure that flows FROM the account you are positioned on when you
issue the command. In the example above, we are looking at all the accounts that bank account 1062 (First National - US$)
on the Trial Balance totals to.
Graph Below
The Graph Below option charts the totalto structure that flows TO the account you are positioned on when you issue the
command. In the example above, we are looking at all the accounts that total to Total Assets account on the Balance Sheet.
Semiloop Search
The Semiloop Search option is used to search for and count any semiloops found in the totalto structure
and display them in graphic form. A semiloop occurs when you total one account to another account more
than once.
Semiloops are highly undesirable and are NOT allowed in a new set of books created in NV2. They can cause
amounts on reports to look as if they don't add up correctly, as well as slowing performance. As they were
permitted in NV1, however, it is possible to wind up with semiloops after converting an NV1 set of books
to NV2. If semiloops were presented in your NV1 books prior to conversion, or if you don't know
and want to make sure they are eliminated after converting to NV2, use the Semiloop Search option
to identify and remove them.
For more information, see Semiloops in the Totalto Structure under Setting up the Books
in the NewViews manual.
Orphan Search
The Orphan Search option is used to search for orphan accounts, i.e. accounts that do not total to any other account.
This can help you find out why a proof account is non-zero. Books are never really out of balance, as debits always
equal credits. However, they can appear to be out of balance, which is almost always due to an orphan account which
is not "hooked into" the totalto structure. For more information on orphan accounts, see Orphan Search in the
Totalto Structure under Setting up the Books in the NewViews manual.
Transaction Graph Above
In NewViews version 2.21, you can also issue the Menu > Tools > Totalto > Graph Above command while positioned on a
transaction or distribution item. This will display the accounts impacted by that transaction/distribution, and their
totalto structure, as a graph (see example above).
The appearance of graphs created by the Menu > Tools > Totalto command can be customized by using the Options > Edit
command in the pop-up window containing the graph. You can change the orientation of the graph, the totalto depth, the
shapes, colors and fonts used, whether account descriptions or amounts are displayed, etc.
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Bank Journals
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The previous issue of the QW Journal (Issue 2, March 2011), contained the first of a series of articles discussing
the use of journals in NewViews. In that article, we learned that six types of journals are used in NewViews. Now, we
will explore the two Bank journals in greater detail.
NV2 provides two bank journals: a Bank Deposits journal and a Bank Payments journal.
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Bank Deposit: This journal is used to record bank deposits and other debit transactions to a bank account.
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Bank Payment: This journal is used to record bank payments and other credit transactions to a bank account.
You may prefer a single journal for all bank deposit or payment transactions of the same type.
When you have a large number of transactions, however, it is often desirable to have separate journals for sub-groups
of the same type of transactions.
Additional bank journals can be added as needed. For example, you may want to add Bank Payments journals to
segregate EFT payments, pre-authorized payments, or T5 Payments. Or, you can add a Bank Deposit journal
to segregate deposits in US dollars.
To add a Bank Deposit or Bank Payment journal:
- In the Database Explorer on the left, expand the Journal folder, then expand Bank folder.
- Click on the Deposit folder to add a Bank Deposit journal, or click on the Payment folder to add a
Bank Payment journal.
- Make sure the Journals Folder Management table is displayed in the top window on the right.
If not, click the Journals tab and choose Folder Management.
- Click anywhere in the Folder Management table, then press the Insert key.
- Enter a name and description for the new journal in the Name and Description fields.
The journal will automatically be saved, and appear as a new sub-journal under Bank Deposit or Bank Payment in
the Database Explorer, once you move off the line.
In the next issue of the QW Journal, we will take a look at General journals and how they are used in NewViews.
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Office 2010
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Microsoft Office 2010 can be installed in such a way that NV2 does not find it for printing.
Microsoft Office 2010 Starter, Home and Student versions use the Application Virtualization (App-V)
technology (Microsoft, 2010).
For NewViews users, this means that if they purchase Starter, Home or Student and download it from the
Microsoft website they may not have the full installation on their hard drive. Instead, parts of the Office application
are delivered to their computer as needed. NewViews cannot detect Office when it is running as a virtualized
application, which will cause an error message stating that Excel is not installed on the computer.
There are several ways you can determine if your version of Microsoft Office 2010 is running virtually.
- One way is to check the list of programs in your Windows Start Menu.
If you see a program called Microsoft Click-to-Run, you are running office virtually.
- Another way is to click on My Computer to show a list of your drives.
If drive Q is listed but you are unable to access that drive directly, you are running Office virtually.
To resolve the issue of NewViews being unable to detect Excel when you are running Office virtually,
you must contact Microsoft and tell them that you want to install Office in its entirety on your physical hard drive. They should provide you
with the Microsoft install file (.MSI) that will enable you to accomplish this.
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Notes on Payroll
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NewViews version 2.22 includes the 2012 release of the Canadian Payroll.
This release updates the federal rates and all provinces.
Version 2.22 also updates the US Payroll. This release updates the federal rates and 11 US
jurisdictions; Alabama, California, Connecticut, D.C., Iowa, Kentucky,
Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont.
Version 2.22 was released on December 22, 2011 at that time the 2012 FICA rate was set to return to 7.65%
This version will calculate FICA at 7.65%
For Canadian payroll, version 2.21 incorporated calculations for Employer Health Tax
and Workers Compensation Board (WSIB in ON, CSST in QC) contributions.
Manitoba, Newfoundland, Ontario and Quebec impose Health, Education and Training tax on employers.
In general the EHT/HAPSET/HSF payroll tax is based on all employment income, including: salaries and wages,
bonuses, commissions, vacation pay, directors' fees, payments for casual labour, and advances of salaries and wages.
Workers' Compensation (WC) premiums are levied on employers in provinces/territories that finance workers'
compensation programs run by provincially/territorially administered Workers' Compensation Boards (WCBs).
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Tips and Tricks
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Quick Start Guide The online manual in NewViews provides you with a Quick Start Guide
that you can print for ease of reference as follows:
- In the NewViews workstation, or in any set of books, issue the Help > Manual command.
- If necessary, click the + to expand the NewViews 2.21 Manual, then click on Quick Start Guide.
- Click the Print icon at the top of the window, click the button beside Print the selected heading and
all subtopics, then click Ok.
- Set appropriate printing options, then click Print to print the Quick Start Guide.
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Support Q & A
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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: Which paper checks should you order if you use NewViews?
A: NewViews can print to any check format provided by the Bank or Check provider.
We do not force NewViews users to order a specific layout or style of check.
Q: How do I create a new set of books based on one of the templates provided by NewViews?
A: Several Starter Books are provided with each installation of NewViews.
In a standard installation, these books are found in the directory c:/nv/starter_setups.
A set of books that is created using one of the Starter Books is fully modifiable to meet your specific requirements.
All Starter Books contain generic financial reports, a trial balance, and sample customer, vendor and sales accounts.
Accounts and reports are then modified, added or deleted as required.
To create a new Set of Books based on a set of Starter Books:
- In Windows, copy the file corresponding to the Starter Books you want to use to the directory in which
NewViews is installed (usually c:/nv).
- Rename the copy of the Starter Books. Important! When the file is renamed, the extension .nv2 must be used.
Most organizations choose a filename that corresponds to the name of their organization.
For example, if Acme Company wants to create a new set of books based on the Canadian Starter Books,
they could rename the file canada_basic.nv2 as acme.nv2.
- Run the NewViews Workstation.
- Issue the command Tools > Script Evaluate, navigate to the script database_id_set.qw_script
(under c:/nv/nv2.exe/system) and click Select.
- Enter the name of the file - including the path - that was created in steps 1 and 2 and click Ok.
For example, enter the file name
c:/nv/acme/database.nv2. Instead of typing the name of the file, you can also
click the folder icon, navigate to the file and click Ok.
- Once the books have been created, they can be accessed like any other set of books.
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