Manual
Documents and posting
A document (a sales invoice, a purchase order, a transfer order, an assembly order) is a record of what is about to happen. It changes nothing in the books until it is posted. Posting checks the document, writes entries into the ledgers, and keeps a posted document as the proof of what was posted.
A document’s parts
Most documents have a header (who, when, where: the customer or vendor, the Posting Date, the Location) and lines (what: items, G/L accounts or resources, with quantities and prices). Lines are added on the blank row at the foot of the lines, and each field saves when you leave it. A document’s card also shows its totals, such as Total Amount Excl. VAT and Total VAT Amount.
Status: Open, Released, Pending Approval
Sales and purchase documents and bank reconciliations have a Status:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open | Being prepared. Everything can be changed. |
| Pending Approval | Sent for approval. It can’t be changed while it waits. |
| Released | Ready. Its header and lines are locked, apart from a few fields such as Posting Date, External Document No and the quantities to ship, receive and invoice. |
Release (under Action) locks a document that needs no approval; Reopen opens it for changes again. A released document that needs approval must be approved again after it is reopened.
Approvals
Approval Setup says which documents must be approved: sales quotes, orders, invoices, credit memos and return orders, purchase orders, invoices, credit memos and return orders, and bank reconciliations. Approval User Setup gives each user an Approver ID (who approves their documents) and marks Approval Administrators, who may approve, reject or cancel any request.
- On the document, Send Approval Request sends it to the approver. Its status becomes Pending Approval.
- The approver finds it on Requests to Approve, can Open Document and add Comments, then chooses Approve or Reject.
- Approved by the last approver in the chain, the document is Released. Rejected, it is Open again for its sender to change.
Cancel Approval Request takes a request back. A document that must be approved can only be posted once it is approved and released; one that needs no approval can be posted while it is still Open.
What posting checks
Before anything is written, posting checks the document and stops with a message if something is missing, for example:
- the header’s customer or vendor, posting groups and Description are filled in, and the customer or vendor isn’t blocked;
- each line has a description and its posting groups, and an item line has its unit of measure;
- the Posting Date is within the dates you are allowed to post on (Allow Posting From and Allow Posting To on General Ledger Setup, or your own on User Setup when they are set);
- there is something to post, and stock taken out of a location is there: stock can’t go below zero.
When posting stops because setup is missing (a posting group without its account, a setup with no number series), the Assistant offers in the Chat to help set it up. See Help it offers.
What posting writes
Posting a sales invoice to Kisementi Fresh Market, for example, writes:
| Ledger | What it records |
|---|---|
| Customer Ledger Entries | What the customer owes, due on the invoice’s Due Date |
| General Ledger Entries | The sale, the VAT and the receivable, and the cost of the bread sold against its inventory |
| Item Ledger Entries and Value Entries | The loaves leaving the store, at their cost |
and keeps a Posted Sales Invoice with its own number. Every posting has a transaction number of its own, which ties together the entries it wrote. Entries name whom the transaction was with (Source Name) and their balancing account (Bal. Account Name).
What happens to the document itself depends on its kind:
- An invoice or credit memo is deleted once posted, and its posted document opens.
- An order is kept until all of it is shipped (or received) and invoiced, so it can be posted in parts. Then it is deleted.
- Attachments on a document go with it to the posted document.
Preview Posting
Every posting action has a preview. Under Action, below Post, Ship or Receive, choose Preview Post (or Preview Ship, and so on: the item with an eye icon). It shows what would be posted, table by table, such as 4 G/L entries and 1 customer ledger entry, and each table opens its entries. Nothing is posted.
Use it before a posting you are unsure of: the preview shows the accounts the amounts would go to, and any error posting would stop with. The Assistant can preview a posting for you too: ask “what will happen if I post this invoice?”
Putting mistakes right
Entries are never edited. A mistake is corrected with another posting, so both the mistake and its correction stay in the history:
| Mistake | How to correct it |
|---|---|
| A posted sales invoice was wrong | A Sales Credit Memo with Applies-to Invoice set to it, or a Sales Return Order when goods come back |
| A posted purchase invoice was wrong | A Purchase Credit Memo, or a Purchase Return Order when goods go back |
| A payment was applied to the wrong invoice | Unapply Entries on Customer Ledger Entries or Vendor Ledger Entries, then apply it again |
| Stock in the system differs from the shelf | The Item Journal, or a count on the Phys. Inventory Journal |
| A general journal posting was wrong | A general journal line the other way round |
Before you post, a document can still be changed or deleted freely.