Introducing the Daybooks range of software. 

A range of accounting solutions available in store now using Microsoft Excel incorporating Visual Basics for Applications (VBA) for Excel and now introducing:

DAYBOOKS

Daybooks is a range of accounting software designed to make the keeping of accounting records as simple as possible whilst affording the user all the benefits of a double entry based accounting system but with the ease of single entry recording. Daybooks is written with the needs of the user in mind and not the convenience of a programmer. The ability to record by both date and period are therefore available if accurate periodic reporting is important to you. Transactions are listed in their respective daybook, cashbook or journal as simple lists; exactly the way you would with a manual system. Gone are the tedious filling of boxes on forms.

The benefits of Daybooks include:

•  Unlimited use of account codes, project codes and organisational codes. This makes it particularly suitable for organisations wishing to record project sales and costs including charities with a need for differentiating between funds.

• Ability to record any transaction with account code, project code and organisational code as required.

• Record sales and purchases in simple listing format (the traditional daybook method):

Sales, purchases, petty cash and credit card expenditure and cash book transactions are simply recorded in their respective books. With key data such as account names, associates, projects and organisation available from auto pre-defined dropdown lists and use of the auto-complete method of Excel data input has never been easier. This daybook approach means that you can see your previous entries as you enter the new records. Adding a new record is a simple case of selecting “New Entry” from the menu which will create you a new record allowing you to enter the appropriate details.

After entering a cash book receipt or payment this should then be allocated to its respective customer or supplier. This can be done manually by cross referencing the folio number of the records or simply using the auto allocate function.

You may then allocate the cash book item to any of the outstanding invoices or even use the “Allocate in full” checkbox which will allocate the amount in full to all outstanding invoices arranged in date order. By default the original cash book entry will be updated to match the project and org codes used on the allocated invoices. This is useful if you need to maintain balanced ledgers by project and organisation combinations. You may override this if deemed not necessary.

There is a separate “Auto Allocate” routine to allocate all unallocated cash book items to all customers or suppliers. This is useful when the accounting records are not maintained regularly and there is the need to do a mass update.

Transfers between bank accounts only require one entry in either of the bank accounts and the “Bank transfer” routine will record the entry in the other bank account.
Every transaction can be allocated to both a project and organisation code. This is very useful for full project costing and enables profit and loss accounts to be prepared accordingly. If required projects can be further defined by Funds enabling Charity accounts to be prepared with ease. If a trial balance by project (and organisation) is required then the cash book can also be assigned to these project and organisation codes. The cash book allocation routine will update the project and organisation codes to match those used by their respective invoices. If you further require a balanced trial balance per project (or organisation) then there is a separate “Cash Settlement” routine to facilitate this. This will check the ledger for the balance by project and organisation combination. If the aggregate balance is not zero then contra cash entries will be made to balance them.

An “on the fly” trial balance is maintained as each new recorded is added. This shows the balances per account by their source in columnar format:

The “Ledger Unposted” column is a visual reminder of whether entries have been made since posting the double entries.

A dashboard is also maintained giving a snapshot of your current financial position.

The trial balance and the dashboard provide a useful summary of your financial position. Numerous checks are constantly evaluated ensuring your accounts always remain accurate. Errors can always happen but the controls set up your ensure the integrity of the key control accounts.

A real benefit of Daybooks is the ability to post the double entry transactions to the ledger. This is a fully automated routine selected from the menu. In the traditional method the single entries in the daybooks are posted to both their respective accounts and personal accounts in the ledgers. In a manual system only the daybook totals for the period (e.g. daily) would be posted to the sales or purchase account and then the full detail to the respective customer and supplier personal accounts. However with the benefit of automation the full detail is included in both the double entry postings. The cashbook entries will also have their double entry postings made. Daybooks supports journals so any entries made here will also have their double entries posted to the ledger. The double entry transactions are posted each time therefore the ledger is cleared and then re-compiled. The speed at which this is done is remarkably breathtaking. This means should you make an error with the original entry you can simply modify it as you would in a manual daybook and then re-post the double entries.

The result of the double entry postings is that a full detailed transactional ledger is maintained.

The resultant ledger means you have a full history of all your transactions and can use this for any reporting you desire.

With Daybooks errors can be corrected in one of two ways. The traditional method is to prepare a journal. Journals can be produced in the normal way if desired. However the flexibility of Daybooks means that you also have the simple option of just changing the original entry at source. Once you run the Post “Double entry” routine this will also be reflected in your detailed transactional ledger.

At the same time the double entries are created a VAT Account is also produced. This is in addition to the VAT Control Account of the main ledger. This is full detailed analysis of the VAT Control Account providing all the information required for the VAT Return. It is more informative that the ledger control account as it shows the full detail of Net, VAT, Gross, VAT Rate and Tax Point of each invoice along with where the original invoice was posted to.

Daybooks supports MTD for VAT currently using the accruals method with an integrated Making Tax Digital interface. This is not bridging software. The VAT submission is made from the spreadsheet using the compiled VAT Account records generated from the double entry transaction ledger. The separate VAT Account is automatically exported as a separate Excel file on successful submission to HMRC meaning that you will always have an accurate record of what was submitted.

There is also a summary of your VAT records showing you the source of the data for each return.

From the MTD menu you are able to perform all the necessary actions to communicate with HMRC via the in-built API functionality. This includes the necessary granting of permission to allow the application to communicate to upload and download information. You are able to check your obligations, view your returns and submissions and see your payments and liabilities.

The transactional data is stored in tables making it easily exportable to or linked to other platforms should you want to do more powerful analysis of your data. This includes the use of Microsoft Power BI.

Daybooks is designed to make accounting simple, effective and informative. Automation is a big part of this therefore sales invoicing has been made as productive as possible. Once a sale has been recorded in the Sales Daybook then the invoice can be generated and emailed directly to your customer via Microsoft Outlook.

Your invoice can include your own logos and can be sent to your customer either directly or with a review before sending. The invoice is generated in a portable document format (PDF) and used as an attachment to the email.

Daybooks is now available to my clients who have year end accounting services. Daybooks MTD is expected to be on sale soon after live testing of the MTD API has been performed. It will be sold on a licensing basis. This permits the user to have full access in perpetuity but will require an active licence to use the MTD VAT integration. The non VAT version with all these features will also be released around the same time.

Finally, accounting the way it should be!

OTHER SOFTWARE

Other software in the Daybook range includes:

Financial Planning and Analytics

A budget is defined as a plan quantified in monetary terms, prepared and approved prior to a defined period of time, usually showing planned income to be generated and/or expenditure to be incurred during that period and the capital to be employed to attain a given objective. Budgetary control is the establishment of budgets relating the responsibilities of executives to the requirements of a policy and the continuous comparison of actual with budgeted results, either to secure either by individual action the objective of that policy or provide a basis for its revision.

To do this effectively you need to understand the component items of all incomes and expenditures. This model allows you to take those component items and turn them into transactions covering the lifetime of the plan and to any monthly and associate resolution. This means you can model your transactions to the same level as your actuals.

Any income or expenditure item can be identified with start and stop periods, frequency of invoicing, associate (customer, supplier or employee), payment terms and profile. The profile allows you to factor in changes to the base value over the lifetime of the plan.

Invoices (both sales and purchases) can also be marked for prepayments and accruals. This allows the invoices to be raised at various frequencies facilitating accurate cash flow budgeting whilst allowing profit and loss reporting based upon the matching concept. Profiles are assigned to the associate which allows the base value to change month on month. The profiles can reflect seasonal variations or growth or both. If any associate requires differing profles then simply create a secondary (or more) associate(s). Customer receipts and supplier payments are generated for you based upon the terms code assigned to each associate. For example you can have a supplier paid in the month of the invoice, or the following (or later) month. VAT is also accounted for and HMRC payments (or receipts) of the periodic returns are made.

The payroll module allows you to set up your employees with their annual pay and generate the monthly payroll journals and appropriate payments of net pay, HMRC PAYE and pension contributions.

The cash book module allows you to make singular or periodic payments or receipts that you don’t have invoices. Cash book entries are not required for supplier payments, customer receipts, VAT payments or receipts or payroll payments as these are generated for you from the underlying records.

Fixed asset purchases are recorded separately from other supplier payments to allow for depreciation calculations.

Lastly you can enter journals (reversing if so desired) to cater for anything else.

The system will then run through your base records and create the required transactions. These transactions will also be used to generate customer and supplier payments, VAT accounting, fixed asset depreciation, payroll payments and finally prepayments and accruals journals. The transactions generated adhere to the double entry principle and thus you have a full transactional ledger.

Every base transaction can have any fully configurable nominal code, associate code, project code and organisation code assigned to it to further provide for detailed analytics and comparisons. The model includes a full month by month plan of the profit and loss account and balance sheet. There is a separate report allowing you to review the same by selected project.

You do not need accounting or Excel skills to create the powerful budget reports. The reports are derived from the underlying transactions and thus there is no longer the need to write calculation hungry formulae. The ease at which you can build your budgets from base records allows you to fully understand your business and make informed decisions.

Management Accounting spreadsheet using SAGE.

This is designed to pull data from your SAGE accounting system and present the information in a management accounting report format. The solution works with any year end date e.g. March, June or December etc. By use of freely configurable reporting codes you can group the accounts into any reporting format.

Business Expenses

This is a spreasdsheet designed to allow you to record business and mileage expenses. It can be used as part of a claim process or for simple record keeping. Each transaction is recorded as either expenses or mileage and then can (optionally) be approved using a user defined passcode. Approved forms are restricted from further changes and are transferred to a history table enabling them to be selectively viewed later. This means you no longer need separate tabs (or files) for each expenses form.

Petty Cash Claims

Suitable for recording your petty cash expenditure using the imprest system. The imprest system is the one whereby an initial float is maintained by being re-imbursed with expenditure incurred from that float.

Receipts and Payments

Receipts and payments is a method of accounting for just the cash and bank account records. It is not a double entry accounting system. It is simply an analysis of your cash and bank accounts. It is often accompanied by a Statement of Assets and Liabilities. This is just a statement of the assets held (such as the bank balances, any major assets e.g. fixtures and fittings or amounts owing by customers) and any liabilities (e.g. amounts owing to creditors, VAT to HMRC etc.) Where such receipts or payments are in the future, they obviously are not part of the Receipts and Payment Account nor can they be. This software allows you to record invoices raised or received but not yet settled as memoranda items and thus remains a Receipts and Payment accounts whilst allowing for the production of the Statement of Assets and Liabilities. Very suitable for charities permitted to use this method of accounting and for sole traders.

Salary or Dividend?

This is a fully unlocked spreadsheet designed by way of its accessible formulae to see how and why certain salary or dividends are optimal.