Five Time Saving Features All Accounting Systems Should Have

We all understand how time consuming accounting can be. There are transactions to be created, transactions to be corrected, and transactions to be allocated. There can be payroll entries to be made and recurring transactions to be re-entered. There are reconciliations to sub-ledgers and adjustments to be posted. And, don't forget, all of these items need to be addressed before we can even begin to work on the monthly financial statements.  I mentioned some time saving features managing the budget in a previous blog, but there are also areas in GL transaction entry that provide significant time savings.

It is a lot of work, a lot of time consuming, sometimes monotonous, work. Well, luckily, there are several time saving features that can greatly reduce the amount of time spent on these items. When picking accounting software it is a good idea to understand what the software can do to help you quickly and accurately speed up these tasks.

In no particular order, here are 5 time saving features that will greatly improve your workday performance:

-Repeating GL batches:  We all have them, you know, those journal entries that come up every month (or week).  We have entered them so many times we could probably do so without looking at them now.  With Repeating GL Batches, Microsoft Dynamics GP, allows us to create a batch, enter a list of transactions, then save the batch as a repeating batch.  We can also decide how often it repeats.  The system will then retain the transactions and make them available for posting dependent on the time frame setup with the batch.

-Quick Journals:  This is similar to Repeating GL Batches, except for one major difference.  Quick Journals shine, in that they retain the ACCOUNTS from the transaction, but not the amounts.  One of the most frequent uses of Quick Journals is for that payroll Journal Entry you post each month.  Often the amounts on a payroll entry change slightly each period.  With Quick Journals we can create a Journal Entry "framework" that we can access each month and just fill in the amounts for each line.  No more typing out all of the different payroll accounts included in a payroll Journal Entry.  Just pull up the saved Quick Journal, type the amounts on the proper GL account line and post.

-Allocations:  This is a pretty big one and happens to include two different types of allocations:  fixed and variable.  Fixed allocations allow us to automatically spread an amount entered to a list of predefined accounts (think overhead expenses).  Variable allocation accounts allow us to spread an amount to a list of predefined accounts based on values in other accounts (GL or Unit accounts, like head count, phone installations square footage, etc.)

-Correcting JEs:  When entering Journal Entries, you never make mistakes, right?  Right. Well, Correcting JEs are for the rest of us then.  Microsoft Dynamics GP includes a feature to let us pull up those incorrect JEs.  Once we identify the problem, we can press a button and the system will automatically create a correcting entry to back out the incorrect entry.  It then prompts us for the correct entry.  So it basically cuts in half (you no longer have to reverse the bad entry yourself) the amount of time required to correct a JE.

-Clearing Entries:  When you’re no longer using an account and want to transfer its balance to another account, you need to make a clearing transaction. With a clearing entry, the account balance will be transferred, the transaction activity will remain with the original account, and the account remains active.

Each of these features will help reduce the amount of time spent in the GL and we will be happy to assist with any training should you believe you are not fully utilizing the time saving features.  Next blog I will discuss a few other GL features that, while not as life changing as these items, are very nice features to have included in an accounting system.

-By Grady Burris - Sr. Consultant - Intelligent Technologies, Inc.