Nominal Ledger Help
Advanced Nominal Ledger is a feature that provides two further analysis dimensions you can associate with nominal accounts. These dimensions have a default name of 'Project' and 'Department', but you can change these to suit your own requirements. With the activation for Advanced Nominal Ledger, you can decide whether to use one or both of the additional dimensions. You can then maintain codes and descriptions for them in the Nominal module and assign defaults to existing nominal accounts. You can maintain budgets for the dimensions.
Apart from having Advanced Nominal Ledger activated, you must use the Project and Department options on the Options tab of the Company Profiles form in the System module to select which dimensions you want to use. On a company-by-company basis, you can select whether to use one, both or neither of the additional dimensions. Once you have selected a dimension, you will find additional commands, forms and boxes appearing throughout the system to enable you to maintain appropriate records and assign transactions accordingly.
You may not want to use the default names of 'Project' and 'Department' for these dimensions. You can specify your own names by completing the Dimension 1 and Dimension 2 boxes in the Advanced Nominal group on the System Preferences form in the System module. Once you have done so, the new titles are used throughout the system. For example, if you change 'Department' to 'Division', then all occurrences of the 'Department' nominal dimension will be referred to as 'Division' throughout the software. Note, however, that the user documentation often refers to the default names of 'Project' and 'Department'.
Commands for maintaining descriptions and budgets for the various projects or departments are provided on the Maintenance submenu in the Nominal module. These only appear if the corresponding options are set on the Company Profiles form. For example, if you choose to use just the project dimension, then a command called Project will become available on the Maintenance submenu.
Additional dimensions should not be used for postings to control accounts, as set up on the Nominal Ledger - Utilities - Set Options form.
There are controls on the nominal account records that determine how these advanced nominal dimensions are used. For each nominal account record you maintain using the Accounts command on the Maintenance submenu, you can choose whether to ignore the dimensions, make their use optional, or make their use mandatory. For those nominal accounts set up to use them, you can specify a default dimension code. Defaults can also be determined for records such as customer and supplier accounts and employees, as part of the analysis defaults. You can set these using the Analysis form associated with the Customer or Supplier Processing forms in the appropriate modules. Where defaults exist, these are used in preference to the nominal account default, which is used in all other circumstances.
Because a default can be assigned to a nominal account, it follows that sales and supply codes (defined in the Sales and Purchase modules) used for invoice and credit note analysis are, by association with nominal accounts, also attributed to a default 'project' or 'department'.
You can maintain budgets for each of the advanced nominal dimensions. Provided you have indicated that such dimensions can be used with the nominal accounts concerned, these budgets can be at nominal-account level. If you also select the Allow Summary Project Budgets or Allow Summary Department Budgets options on the Nominal Ledger - Set Options form, you can create summary budgets for the dimensions that do not involve individual nominal accounts.
The way in which transactions provide the means to assign project or department codes varies according to the type of transaction, the module being used and whether the transaction is an original one you are creating, such as a new sales invoice record, or one that results from some other process, such as batch invoicing, purchase invoices generated from purchase orders, and so on. The following offers a brief summary by module:
For control accounts such as VAT, bank accounts, debtor and creditor control accounts and so on, that have been designated to have projects or departments as a mandatory requirement, there will be circumstances where postings are automatically made to these accounts for which you have no opportunity to assign dimensions. In these cases, the application does not assign project or department codes.
Module/Process |
Assignment of Dimensions |
|---|---|
Nominal Journals |
Boxes are provided for the selection of project and department where applicable. The defaults presented will depend on what is specified on the nominal account record. |
Nominal Consolidation Process |
The application checks to ensure that all project and department records exist on the target company involved in the consolidation process and if not they are created, but no budget information is transferred. |
Sales and Purchase Invoices and Credit Notes (including PIR) |
Boxes are provided for the selection of project and department where applicable on the invoice or credit note detail form. The defaults presented will depend on what is specified on the customer's or supplier's analysis record (which can be displayed using the Analysis tab on invoice or credit note header form), but this only applies if the nominal account associated with the sales or supply codes is set up to use the dimension(s). |
Sales Cash Invoices |
For cash invoices, the corresponding receipt transaction will use the default project and department associated with the nominal bank account record. |
Sales and Purchase Adjustments |
Boxes are provided for the selection of project and department where applicable on the adjustment detail form. The defaults presented will depend on what is specified on the customer's or supplier's analysis record, or, if not, based on the nominal account involved. |
Sales Receipts and Purchase Payments |
The transaction will use the default project and department associated with the nominal bank account record. If a discount or exchange discrepancy is involved, the default 'project' and 'department' codes associated with the customer's or supplier's record are used if available; otherwise the ones associated with the discount or exchange discrepancy nominal accounts are used. |
Sales and Purchase Allocations |
If a discount or exchange discrepancy record is created as a result of the allocation process, the default project and department codes associated with the customer's or supplier's record are used if available; otherwise the ones associated with the discount or exchange discrepancy nominal accounts are used. |
Cashbook Nominal Postings and Bank Transfers |
The corresponding journal transactions will offer a default project and department based on the ones associated with the nominal account records. |
Cashbook Sales and Purchase Postings |
These will use dimensions in the same way as the relevant sales and purchase postings described above. |
Cashbook Batch Postings |
These will use dimensions in the same way as the corresponding nominal, sales and purchase postings. |
Cashbook Recurring Journals |
For sales and purchase postings, the default project and department codes will be based on those associated with the nominal bank account. If a discount is involved, the default project and department codes associated with the customer's or supplier's record are used if available; otherwise the ones associated with the nominal discount account is used. For nominal postings, the project and department codes can be entered after selecting the nominal account code and default to the ones assigned to the nominal account record. |
SOP and Invoicing Documents |
Boxes are provided for the selection of project and department where applicable on the document detail form. The defaults presented will depend on what is specified on the customer's analysis record (which can be displayed using the Analysis command on the Action menu associated with the document header form), but this only applies if the nominal account associated with the sales code selected for the detail line is set up to use the dimension(s). |
SOP and Invoicing Cash Invoices |
For cash invoices, the corresponding receipt transaction will use the default project and department associated with the nominal bank account record. |
Back to Back Orders |
The same project and department codes will apply to both sales and purchase orders. |
Batch Progression |
The project and department assignments on the source document will be carried forward to the new document. |
Purchase Order Documents |
Boxes are provided for the selection of project and department where applicable on the document detail form. The defaults presented will depend on what is specified on the supplier's analysis record, but this only applies if the nominal account associated with the supply code selected for the detail line is set up to use the dimension(s). Where purchase invoices are created from purchase order records (including PIR records), the default dimensions are carried over from the original order document. |
Purchase Order Receipts |
The project and department codes from the order will be used, where applicable, and cannot be edited. |
A number of reports in the Nominal module cater for the sequencing of reports by the new dimensions. In addition, you can use the Nominal Analysis report to provide a breakdown of balances by dimension. You can also create your own on-screen enquiries, complete with drill-downs at more detailed levels, for the various dimensions available in the system including nominal account, cost centre, account type, account subtype and the advanced dimensions of project and department. These are maintained using the Views command on the Maintenance submenu and displayed using the View command on the Nominal menu.