First of all, we'll take a look at the Accounting module.
The Accounting module maintains a central repository, General Ledger, to which all financial transactions are posted when any financial activity occurs: the entity sells goods or services, purchases them, pays employees for their work, or takes long-term loans. Also, the module provides the functionality for processing and adjusting the financial transactions and for financial reporting.
The functionality of deferred revenues is used in case your entity sells services that are to be delivered or performed during a number of financial periods. According to the accrual basis of accounting, each month while the service continues, the entity should record as revenue only part of the initially received payment.
Addons: The functionality of deferred expenses becomes available upon request.
Master Data
You can set up several entities for your organization, if it includes entities that maintain separate accounting records.
Also, you can specify parameters of the following types to be used for more detailed financial analysis:
- Departments
- Business Activities
- Income Items
- Expense Items
- Cash Flow Items
Chart of Accounts
All financial transactions are recorded to General Ledger accounts according to the types of financial transactions. Generally these types are: Revenues, Expenses, Assets, Liabilities, and Equity. A “chart of accounts” is a complete list of GL accounts in an accounting system. The transactions are posted to General Ledger with detailed information about each transaction, such as the date, amount, transaction description and with reference to specific department, business activity, and income or expense item if you selected to used these analytical parameters.
The chart of accounts can be found in the See also section of the Accounting module. You can use the default chart of accounts that includes default accounts for all the functionality, or you can adjust it to the needs of your business.
Each GL account can have up to three additional dimensions for better visibility of financial context; dimensions are represented by Business Activities, Income or Expense Items, Cash Flow Items.
Documents
All documents that register financial operations generate transactions to General Ledger. You can use the Opening Balances Entering documents to enter the initial balances of the GL accounts if you are going to start using FirstBit Accounting as your accounting software.
Service Tools
Service tools will help your business keep accurate accounting records. One of the most important tools is Month-End Closing that involves reviewing and reconciling all financial transactions for each period. Other tools enable you to manually post transactions of specific types to General Ledger in case there are no dedicated documents.
Reports
One of the important reports is the GL Trial Balance report. All transactions are posted to General Ledger using the double-entry accounting method. Under this method, each transaction affects at least two GL accounts: one account is debited, while another is credited. The total debit amount must always be equal to the total credit amount. The GL Trial Balance report lists the GL accounts with credit and debit balances on a selected date and shows total credit and debit amounts. If the amounts are not equal, you can identify and correct discrepancies, thus ensuring the financial accuracy of your company's General Ledger.
Other reports provide more detailed information on GL account balances.
Financial Statements
The Accounting module enables you to generate financial statements according to IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). These reports show the profits and losses, assets and liabilities of the company.