Entering Transactions

Entering Transactions

Entering a New Transaction 

A transaction in the checking account can be either a check entry, a deposit entry, or a petty cash entry.  

Petty Cash  entries do not affect the balance of the checking account.  

They are only used to help you keep track of your expenses. 

To add a new entry to your checking account: 

Select Edit/Add from the Checking Account menu. You are given a blank check form to fill out.  

The Check Date and Post Date fields are filled in the current date. 

The Post Date field is used to post checks to a date other than the date the check was written. Posting to a specific accounting period is required if you use an accrual based accounting system. (If you don't know if you're using an Accrual or Cash based accounting system, ask your accountant.)  

An example of posting a check to a different account period might be your monthly phone bill. Suppose your bill is mailed at the end of March but you don't pay it until the middle of April.  

The expense of the phone bill was acquired in March so you want the payment to reflect the expense. Therefore, you enter a Post Date of March and a check date of April.  

Now your expenses will more accurately reflect when the expense occurred, not necessarily when it was paid. The Post Date field is used by the Income Statement and the Balance Sheet reports. 

The Type field tells Unique what type of transaction is being entered. The three types are: 

C - Credit 

D - Debit 

P - Petty Cash 

A Credit type applies to any money going into your account. This includes deposits, interest payments received from the banks, transfer of funds into your account, and any other credits issued to your account by your bank. 

A Debit type is any transaction that takes money out of your account. This includes checks written to your vendors, bank service charges, return check charges, etc. 

A Petty Cash type is a unique type. It doesn't affect the balance of your account in any way. It is a way for Unique to keep track of the petty cash expenses that are entered through the Sales Register. 

The G/L Code and Amount fields are used to tell Unique what different accounting categories the entry falls into and the amount to assign to each account.  

To get a listing of the available account codes, move to the first G/L Code field and select the button.  

A scrollable window appears on the right side of the screen listing all your account codes. 

Use the scroll bar to highlight the desired account code and select Ok . The account code is automatically entered into the G/L Code field where the cursor is located. 

Next, enter the amount of the transaction that applies to the G/L Code. Since the majority of transactions will only be assigned to one account code, Unique automatically enters the full amount of the transaction into the Amount field for you. If the transaction is to be split between several account codes, enter the amount that is to be applied to the first code and move to the second G/L Code field. 

Repeat this process until the transaction has been properly divided. The totals of the amounts assigned to the different accounts must equal the amount of the transaction. If they do not match Unique will tell you and require you to adjust the amount fields until the total match. 

Note that the total amount of the transaction was $78.35. $65.85 was assigned to account code 43360 (Telephone) and $12.50 was assigned to 43320 (Leased Equipment). Now when the Income Statement report is run the amounts of this transaction will be totaled in under the Telephone and Leased Equipment headings.