This browse contains the detail of all activity posted to the General Ledger. It is these records which are the source material for all financial reports.
Four Views
The Audit Trail may be opened in one of four ways, each of which reflects a range of entries:
Range Of EntriesMenuUsage
| ALL TRANSACTIONS | G/L Main Menu | If you wish to see all entries made into Simple Accounting and immediately locate a particular G/L Transaction, or you would like to do a special report using a Query, you can open the Audit Trail from the G/L Main Menu. |
| FOR ONE PERIOD | Financial Reports Browse | You can also view transactions posted within a given period, you can click the [G/L Posting] button within the Financial Periods Browse. If you select a particular Account within that Period you can also view activity just for that Account within that Period. |
| FOR ONE ACCOUNT | Chart of Accounts Browse | Finally, if you need to see transactions posted for a single G/L Account, click the [G/L Posting] button within the Chart of Accounts Browse. |
| FROM THE SOURCE | By pressing the [G/L Post] button at the lower right of several important browse boxes. | Finally, the vast majority of G/L records are created for you automatically as you invoice Sales Orders, receive new stock from Vendor Purchase Orders, enter Vendor Bills, and write checks. When you need to view the Audit Trail for one of these individual transactions, you can always press the [G/L Post[ button found in each of these browse boxes.
A complete discussion of automatically posted entries can be found is discussed in How Source Transactions Are Posted To The General Ledger. |
Tabs
| Unposted | This tab displays all unposted records. An unposted G/L record is one that has been entered directly from the G/L Audit (not automatically posted from another part of Simple Accounting). Unposted entries may be edited, but are still part contribute to all Financial Reports.
Unposted entries are marked in blue. UNPOSTED ENTRIES STILL COUNT!Even though a G/L record is not posted, it still impacts the G/L in exactly the same way as a posted record. The only difference between a posted and an unposted G/L record is that a posted entry may not be edited! |
| All By Transaction ID | Displays all records in Transaction ID order. This allows you to Search As You Type for a particular record. |
| Query | Initially this tab displays all records in the browse. However, pressing the [Query] button, described below, allows you to create a customized list (or report) containing just the records you wish to see. |
Special Buttons
Clone  |
This powerful function allows you to not only Clone a G/L transaction, but also allows you to move the transaction to another period or reverseit entirely.
Cloning a G/L Transaction copies not only the currently selected record, but all records with the same G/L Transaction ID. You may not use the Clone button to reverse an automatically posted transaction. You may only move it from one period to another. |
| Prints the Audit Trail Report, a list of G/L detail.This option is only available on the Unposted and Query tabs.Pressing [Print] from the Unposted tab will print the report only for unposted transactions.
Pressing [Print] from the Query tab will print the report listing records which are a part of the current Query. To get a detail of all G/L activity from the beginning of one period to the end of the same (or a later) period. You can print the General Ledger Report from the Financial Reports Browse. |
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Zoom  |
Temporarily reduces the viewable records depending on the selected tab.If you are viewing records for the accounting period from the Financial Reports Browse, pressing Zoom limits the browse to only those records of the account currently selected.If you are viewing records for one account from the Chart of Accounts, pressing Zoom limits the browse to only those records of the currently selected period. |
Post  |
Marks manual entries as part of the permanent accounting record. After posting, these records may no longer be edited. If you later found that you needed to make a change to a manual entry, you would need to make a reversing entry (using the Clone button above) in order to correct it.
This option is only available on the Unposted tab. YOU CANNOT POST AN UNBALANCED TRANSACTION!As with other parts of Simple Accounting, records in the Audit Trail are grouped into transactions. A G/L transaction consists of two or more line items that all pertain to the same business event. The sum of debits and credits for all line items on a transaction must be equal. This is insured when entries are made for you automatically, and when you enter your own transactions you are prevented from saving the transaction unless all the debits and credits, of the line items you have entered, are in balance. |
| View Source | Lets you view the source transaction from which the selected G/L transaction was automatically created. So for example if you see a transaction with a source ID of APH, when you press [View] the Vendor Bills Editing Window will automatically open for the source Bill. |
