❑General Ledger Groups are used to further sub-divide the five Primary Account Divisions, and the baker's dozen of additional Secondary sub-classifications of those Primary Account Divisions;
a)Account Groups are used to ensure that Financial Transactions are always assigned to the right Grouping when posted, and are therefore properly listed within the appropriate Group when reported.
b)As shown below in the Accounts Form, a General Ledger Group ID must be assigned to each General Ledger Account.
c)Therefore, General Ledger Groups must be entered (defined) before your Company's General Ledger Accounts are created.
General Ledger - Accounts Form - Group ID field
•The General Ledger Group's Header Description will:
a)Appear as sub-header descriptions on the Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports.
b)Be shown with their own Group Sub-Totals
c)The individual General Ledger Accounts associated with each General Ledger Group may be included, or excluded - as requested - on your Company's Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports.
•Some examples of how the Financial Transactions - posted to the Primary or Secondary Account Divisions (A Primary or Secondary Account Divisions must also be associated with each General Ledger Group):
1.Assets - You may want to sub-total several Cash Accounts separately from certain Other Assets like Furniture & Fixtures, Vehicles, or Properties.
2.Liabilities - You may want to sub-total Current (Short Term) Liabilities such as Accounts Payable and Credit Card debt, separately from Long Term Liabilities such as multiple obligations (e.g., Vehicles, Equipment), Loans, and Mortgages.
3.Equity - You may want to sub-total Capital accounts such as Initial Capital and Paid In Capital that occurs at a later date, separately from Retained Earnings.
4.Sales - You may want to sub-total various types of Revenue such as several types of New Sales Revenue, versus types of Recurring Revenue, and those separately from Miscellaneous Revenue or Interest Earned.
5.Expenses - You may want to sub-total General Expenses such as Rent, Phone, Gas, those that are Sales related Expenses (cost of goods sold, payroll, commissions, advertising, etc.), individually and separately from Other Expenses.
❑General Ledger Group IDs:
•To enter General Ledger Groups,
a)From the Backstage Menu System Select Maintenance and Choose General and Click the General Maintenance option which displays that Maintenance Menu, or
b)From the Quick Access Menu, Select Maintenance and Choose General Maintenance to display that Maintenance Menu.
•Once the Maintenance Menu is displayed, Select General Ledger and Choose Groups.
✓The General Ledger Groups Form will be displayed.
General Ledger Group Form
✓This General Ledger Group Form may be Re-sized by Dragging the Top and/or Bottom up or down, and/or the Right side in or out.
•Navigation Menu - The Navigation Menu is located at the top of the General Ledger Group Form.
✓This Navigation Menu provides the normal Record Movement, plus Add, Delete, Cancel, Save, Search, and Grid options.
•Record Editing View - The details of the currently selected record are displayed below the Navigation Menu at the center (Main Body) of the Departments Form.
General Ledger Group Form - Record Editing View
❑Understanding and Defining a General Ledger Group ID:
•Planning for the location of each General Ledger Group in your Company's Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports:
✓Because the placement of the General Ledger Group's Header Description is determined be the construction of its Group ID, specifically it is positioned based the alpha-numeric order of the Group ID within its assigned Primary or Secondary Account Division, it is critical to Pre-Plan how these General Ledger Groups (specifically its Header Description - and its associated General Ledger Accounts) will be listed.
✓This alpha-numeric order positioning is accomplished by properly constructing each Group ID so it will appear where it should appear, by following the steps outlined below:
i.Make a list of all of the Header Descriptions that may be required for each standard Account Division which are to be incorporated into your Company's Financial Statements.
ii.Within each Primary or Secondary Account Division on a Financial Statement, the General Ledger Groups may, or may not be included based on the current reporting needs - but when they are included:
▪These Groups are listed in Group ID order (not alphabetically in Header Description order).
▪All of the General Ledger Accounts assigned to that Group are listed below the Header Description.
▪Finally, the Group's Header Description is printed as a "Footer" with a sub-total of all the General Ledger Account Values that were listed for that Group.
iii.To insure that these Groups appear in the planned order, each Group ID code may have a prefix that will force it into the correct sequence.
▪This Group ID code is not printed on the reports, only the Group's Header Description is listed.
iv.The simplest method to accomplish this is to add a prefix to the Account Division Name - Asset could have an A-n XXX format - where A is for Asset, the dash holds its place and makes it more "readable" for the data entry person, then the Number ("n") sets its order, and finally the "XXX" represents the abbreviated name for this sub-group.
▪So A-1 XXX comes before A-2 XXX which comes before A-3 XXX
▪A-1 Cash would precede A-2 Cash because the prefix fixes the order in which the Groups will be listed.
v.Continuing with this concept, prefix Liability sub groupings with an L-n XXX where L is for Liability, the dash holds its place and makes it more "readable" for the data entry person, the the Number "n" sets its order and the XXX represents the abbreviated name for this sub-group.
▪So L-1 XXX comes before L-2 XXX which comes before A-3 XXX.
▪L-1 Liability would precede L-2 Liability because the prefix fixes the order in which the Group will be listed.
vi.Within each Account Division, the listing order is a follows:
▪The first Group and all of its assigned Accounts (starting with its Header Description).
▪Then the Accounts, and finally the sub-total with its Footer,
▪Then the second Group and its Accounts are listed, etc.
❖Once a General Ledger Group ID is assigned to a General Ledger Account,
▪That Group ID record cannot be deleted or modified,
▪Except, once you remove (and/or replace) all of this Group ID's previously assigned to any associated General Ledger Account, the Group ID record may be deleted
•Click the 
Icon to start the General Ledger Group ID entry in the Record Editing section.
•Group ID - Enter a Group ID code to identify this Financial Transaction's sub-division and to define its position within Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports.
✓Do not add a space at the end of a Group ID.
✓On this General Ledger Group Form, the Primary Account Type of the Group - referred to as an Account Division - is assigned to each General Ledger Group thereby identifying its general position within a Financial Statement.
▪The Balance Sheet report lists the Assets, then Liabilities, and finally the Equity Value of your Company for a specific Accounting Period (or Fiscal Year), so assigning the proper Account Division places the Group's Header Description (and the list of its associated General Ledger Accounts) in the correct general position, with the Group ID dictating exactly where its associated Accounts will be listed.
▪The Income Statement report lists the Values of the Sales, then Expenses for a specific Accounting Period (or Fiscal Year), so assigning the proper Account Division places the Group's Header Description (and the list of its associated General Ledger Accounts) in the correct general position, with the Group ID dictating exactly where its associated Accounts will be listed.
❖In summary: Within Account Divisions (i.e., Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Revenue and Expenses), when Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports are created, the Group ID's Header Description (see below) is listed numerically/alphabetically from lowest to highest (0123... and then abc... and finally ABC... ) based on its Group ID - the sorting order is not based on the actual Header Description.
▪In reference to the order they are sorted - spaces, then punctuation marks will be listed before numbers and then lower case and finally upper case letters.
▪Enter up to 50 characters with upper & lower case letters, numbers, punctuation, and spaces are permitted.
Account Division field - Drop-Down Selection List
•Account Division - Using the Drop-Down Selection List provided, Choose the Primary or Secondary Account Division (from the list illustrated below) within which any General Ledger Accounts assigned to this General Ledger Group should be located on Financial Statements.
Account Division list
•Header Description - Enter the Header - the explanatory phrase that actually prints on the Financial Statements & Reports when the General Ledger Group (sub-group) is starting.
✓Although it's best to keep these Header Descriptions as brief as possible, they may be up to 50 characters in length, with upper & lower case letters, numbers, standard punctuation marks, and spaces permitted.
•Hide On Condensed - Check this box to suppress (hide) the General Ledger Accounts assigned to this General Ledger Group when a Condensed report format is chosen when a Financial Statement is created.
✓Only the Header Description, along with the Sub-Total of the Sum of the Values of the associated General Ledger Accounts within that Group, will be shown when a Financial Statement is created, and the "Condensed version" option is chosen.
•Click the 
Icon to record this General Ledger Group ID entry.
•Additional General Ledger Group IDs may be defined, as needed.
List Icon - The Navigation Menu also has a List option which provides a tabular view of these General Ledger Group ID records.
General Ledger Groups Form - List View
✓Click the List Icon to display the associated Grid Data.
✓The columns of Grid Data may be rearranged, filtered, sorted, and exported as a PDF file and/or an Excel formatted file.
✓Find - Enter text to search for a specific record, then Click the Find option.
✓Clear - To remove the text to search for entry, Click the Clear option
Navigation Menu shown with the List Options for Export & Print
✓Click the List Icon again to Close the List View and return to the Record Editing View.
❖See the Grid & Lists - Print Preview - Export Data chapter for complete information on using the List View, including its Export & Print options.