Today’s General Ledger (GL) is a software-based record of accounting transactions. It wasn’t that long ago, however, that it was a paper ledger—the word being derived from late Middle English “legger,” which referred to a large Bible. That’s not an accident. The GL is like the bible of a business. It’s the big book of everything.
The general ledger is the key to accounting because it records every instance where the company has received and spent money. It logs assets and liabilities. It’s the complete summary of your company’s finances, tracking every financial transaction. All accounting activity reports into the GL, even if regular users never actually see it. All financial statements and analytical process emerge from the GL’s data.
Certainly, the importance of the GL becomes glaringly apparent when it’s not set up or administered correctly. If GL is not following generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and standards, then looking for data is truly like being a private investigator.
The Evolution of GL Software
The switch from paper ledgers to software-based GLs was a revolution in accounting. Yet, it turned out to be incomplete. Accounting staffers still had to enter most transactions and account updates by hand. This was error-prone, and when there was a mistake, that could great a lot of work to discover and resolve. A misplaced decimal point or transposed digit could lead to hours of work retracing transactions.
Things are trending for the better now, with tools like Acumatica’s Financial Management suite. It automates many GL processes, which reduces errors and makes the accounting team more productive. The solution also facilitates organizational cohesion by integrating with Acumatica’s portfolio of products. For example, the operations and warehouse management solutions link directly to the GL, so there is no rekeying of order data into the accounting system.
Acumatica’s GL manages ledgers, charts of accounts, allocations, expenses, liabilities and assets. It controls set financial periods with built-in monitoring of what is most important to your company. The goal is to always have the most accurate financial data anytime, anywhere. You gain the the ability to organize your data in the way your company needs information to function at its best.
Key features include:
- Advanced financial reporting
- Flexible configuration of financial periods
- Multiple currency support
- GL accounts budgeting and budget approval
- On-the-fly sub-account entry
- Automatic allocation of GL balances
- Drill down to original documents
- Reversing and auto-reversing entries
- Recurring transactions
- Audit trails
- Split transactions
Consolidation
Acumatica’s GL is able to consolidate multiple entity data for reporting and analysis. This speeds up reporting at the end of a period and greatly simplifies the overall management of accounting operations. A menu of available tools enables users to control a general ledger account and any sub-account structures that are in place. Analysis configuration and reporting can be parsed by defining critical segments of your business. These segments, segment lengths and values are integral in order to drill down to desired specific metrics, which is mandatory many companies. When there is agreement on final numbers, your company can distribute as PDF or Excel files or publish information on the web
Customization
With Acumatica subaccounts, users are able to create customized, unique views of a company’s data and dimensional attributes of a data set. The software can pull out slices of financial reports based on any user-defined segment, whether product, department, customer, vendor or inventory. Information is readily available when deadlines loom for of month-end, yearly or quarterly data needed for investor meetings or suppliers.
How General Ledger Software Can Work For You
Whether you are upgrading from legacy ERP or moving up from accounting software, finding a solution with a strong core can make your company better, helping your people to do more, work faster, and gain the visibility you need. Bring your financial information together in Acumatica’s General Ledger software.
Getting started with a new GL usually requires a process of planning and implementation. We can help. To learn more, contact us for a demo.
Additional Financial Management Resources
Top Financial Management Features in ERP
How You Know It’s Time to Switch from Accounting Software to ERP