The options available from Financials > Records will differ depending on whether Advanced Nominal Ledger is fully activated or a Standard Chart of Accounts is in use.

If a Standard Chart of Accounts is in use – then Financials > Records > Accounts will open a list of all nominal accounts and a nominal account record (defaults to first in list). See Advanced Nominal Ledger, below.

Your chart of accounts needs to be designed with great care and how you do this will depend on whether:

Functions not mentioned are covered in the General Information chapter and/or in other topics. Please use the help's Search.

In the Accounts List, Nominal Account records are identified by an account Code and Name. There are columns that contain an icon identifying Bank accounts and Cash accounts. All columns can be sorted; Code is the default sort. Additional columns show Currency, Balance, Budget, Categories, and other related details.

Each account must be allocated to one of the twelve Major Headings, these determine where the account will appear in the Profit & Loss Account or Balance Sheet.

When designing your chart of accounts, great care should be exercised over the Codes used, particularly if you are going to make use of the Auto Accounts feature.

The use of alphabetic Codes can make the resulting Nominal Accounts more meaningful, easier to use, and less likely to cause errors. For example, alternating numeric and alpha elements can produce a code that is instantly recognisable e.g. 1EDIN787SPKR is easier and safer to use than 11441313416718.

Additional analysis is provided by means of Categories which enable you to report and subtotal selectively on the Accounts.

You can use the Auto Accounts feature to set up the structure of your Accounts, and the Sales and Purchase Analysis Codes that are used to post transactions from these ledgers to the Nominal Ledger.

The Major Heading Names, and the Category Headings can be changed at any time, and you can add to the Category lists as required.

Nominal accounts cannot be deleted or flagged as 'Inactive', if they are in current use (e.g. you are prompted that an account with a balance cannot be deleted). This also applies to Nominal accounts flagged as System Defaults, even if they are not in use. Additionally, Nominal Accounts that are used by VAT Rate Records cannot be deleted or flagged as Inactive. In all these examples, the Code cannot be changed. This is to prevent inadvertent changes to the record which could have an effect on VAT calculation. Also see the Partial Exemption VAT overview and VAT Record topics.

(not labelled)The lookup is disabled if Advanced Nominal Ledger is being used. Displays the linked Major Heading (more detail is available below) from the list of the twelve Major Headings, e.g. Cost of Sales

Displays the Record List for Nominal Accounts. The lookup opens the Accounts List window, with the search set the selected Code.

When an analysis is auto-created from a nominal account record, any Cost Centre (more information is shown below) specified on the nominal record is pulled through to the resulting analysis record.

If more than one language is being used then the "Name" label will be a button menu, which will enable you to enter alternative language names for the account. Otherwise, this displays the Name of the account.

Enables selection of a trading currency.

If ticked, this will enforce costing entries to be made for Nominal transactions, entered through the Nominal Ledger, using this specific account. If compulsory costing is required in the Sales or Purchase Ledgers (or for Sales Orders or Purchase Orders), the Compulsory Costing option should be set on the individual Sales or Purchase Analysis records.

Only available if Accounting for Carbon Emissions (ACE) is enabled in System Control. Ticking this option will make the selected Nominal Ledger account accountable for carbon emissions. This means that whenever a transaction is entered against the account, you will also be required to enter a transaction to record the carbon cost. Once ticked, you must select the default Carbon Emission Group and Classification from the Carbon Usage Category list window opened by clicking the Lookup button.

This column displays the cumulative values to date for the current period (shown in brackets).

This column displays the cumulative values to date for the current year.

This is the total of posted transactions, i.e. invoices and journals. The drill-down button to the right of the Period to Date figure) displays a Turnover window (more detail is shown below) showing the value of each period's movement.

This is the amount budgeted.

This value is calculated as Actual - Budget value.

This value is calculated as (Difference/Budget) x 100.

This is only displayed if you are using Purchase Control. A Committed Value is the total of all the batched transactions (purchase orders and credit notes). For some types of Nominal Accounts, such as expense types, the record shows Period to date and Year to date Committed Values.

The drill-down button to the right of the Period to Date figure is only displayed if enabled in POP Purchasing Budgets; it displays an Enquiry window that lists the transactions making up the value.

When transactions are posted to the Nominal from a batch, the amount by which Committed Value is reduced may not match the amount by which the Actual is increased. This is because the amount actually invoiced may not be the same as that on the original batched order.

Part of the Nominal Ledger account record window, the fields on this tab enable you to categorise your Nominal accounts and thereby give them an hierarchical structure.

The Advanced Nominal Ledger feature makes use of these categories to establish the segments of the Nominal codes and their hierarchy. If you have selected to use this feature, you will still be able to use any categories that have not been used for code segments for analysis.

You can Enter the Category Code directly into the field, or place the cursor in the Category field and click the search icon to display a list of Codes. This list also contains columns indicating the Bank and Cash account. Select the required code from the list with a double click.

Selecting Notes displays a tab card that allows entry of detailed text.

The Custom tab is used to hold user-definable fields.

Any Workflow Forms on the Record Window are displayed in a list pane at the bottom of the record window. If no WFF is attached to the record, the pane is not visible.

Each Nominal Ledger account must be allocated to one of the twelve Major Headings, these determine where the account will appear in the Profit & Loss Account or Balance Sheet.

Selecting Major Heading will display a list of the twelve Major Headings.

Each record has:

Only the name can be changed.

Insert a new Nominal Ledger account (disabled if Advanced Nominal Ledger is being used)

When available, the Insert icon will automatically open the list of Major Headings before offering an empty record.

You must select the Major Heading to which the new account will be analysed before entering the rest of the account details.

A double clicking on an entry in the Major Heading list selects it and closes the list.

The selected Major Heading is displayed in the top left of the record.

When the Major Heading list is displayed during an insert, there is a Default button at the foot of the window.

Select a Major Heading in the list and click the button to set that value as the default.

This field is on both the Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger Analysis Record and Nominal Ledger Account Record. It is available regardless of whether Compulsory Costing is on, and applies to all transactions and processes except Works Orders.

When an analysis is auto-created from a nominal account record, any cost centre specified on the nominal record is pulled through to the resulting analysis record.

When you enter a transaction, when you enter a project code and tab off, if the analysis or nominal code being used has a default cost centre the system will validate the cost centre and populate the field.

From a record window, clicking on the drill button, adjacent to the Actual - Period to Date figure, opens the Turnover window enabling you to view the Turnover, Balance and Budget Summary for each individual period in the Current Year, Next Year and Last Year. A total is shown for each year.

Clicking on one of the Year buttons, opens a menu list containing all the individual periods of the year or All Periods.

Making a selection from the menu list will open an Enquiry window showing individual Transaction lines for the Period selected, with further details of the transactions shown underneath.

For currency accounts, clicking on the Current Balance button will open a menu from which you can select to Show Home Values or Show Currency Values.

The currency symbol will be shown alongside the Current Balance text.

For some Nominal Ledger expense accounts, the Current Year Balance heading will be a button menu. This enables you to display the Committed Values instead of the Balance Values in this column.

Committed Value (Batched Purchase Orders and Credit Notes), will only be available on Nominal Ledger expense accounts that belong to the following Major Headings:

2 - Cost of Sales,

4 - Overheads,

7 - Fixed Assets and

8 - Intangible Assets.

Committed values will still be calculated for other Major Headings, so that if the Major Heading on an Account is changed, the committed values will be available.

When Batched Purchase Orders and Credit Notes are posted, the Committed Value is transferred to the Actual Value.

The printer icon will open a Print Output window to enable you to print a copy of the Turnover figures to Screen, Printer, File etc.

The Excel and Word icons enable you to export the Turnover figures to the selected MS Office application.

Clicking on the black bar and dragging, enables you to split this window into two independently scrollable windows.

If Advanced Nominal Ledger is fully activated (setup complete and transaction entry enabled in System Nominal options), then Financials > Records > Nominal, opens a List of Nominal Overview records & the Nominal Overview Record (defaults to first in list). Using the Filter ribbon function, you can enter search criteria to restrict the related nominal accounts that you wish to view.

Clicking Display shows an Overview that displays all the Financial Information relating to all Nominal Accounts that use that Category or Major Heading. You can then select to view a summary of Turnover totals based on each Category assigned to the relevant Nominal Codes. You may further filter the results based on any other Category or combination of Categories or by currency, e.g. Show all Sales accounts where Group Heading is Stratford St. Mary and currency is home.

Displays Period To Date and Year To Date values

Displays Period To Date and Year To Date values

(Actual less Budget) Displays Period To Date and Year To Date values

((Difference ÷ Budget) × 100) Displays Period To Date and Year To Date values

Displays Current Balance and defaults to Show Home Values. Show Currency Values option is hidden where Currency search is set to blank. Changing the selection refreshes the Current Balance and all values on the Turnover tab to show the values for the selected currency. The drop-down list comprises:

The Turnover tab contains a row for each period. Sections for Current Year, Next Year, and Last Year are displayed across the tab. Each year heading is a drop-down list comprising 'Period 1-13' and each individual period; clicking one of these options opens the Nominal Transaction Enquiry filtered on the appropriate Year/period and Category.

You are able to output to Printer, MS Excel, or MS Word.

The Summary tab allows you to view a breakdown of the financial information by all Categories. The Categories are shown in a hierarchical tree-view. A drop-down list allows you to select to view Current Year, Next Year, or Last Year values with the default being Current Year. For each Category, you can view Actual, Budget, Difference, and Difference % information.