Accounting - Trade Based Template

Our trade based accounting template enables users to record income & expenses and automatically produces a trial balance, income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. The template also includes automated calculations of gross profit amounts & percentages, inventory on hand, invoices, customer statements and customer ageing. The default accounts can be customized and an unlimited number of additional accounts can be added. It also accommodates sales tax calculations and multiple bank accounts. After completing the initial template setup, the template can be rolled forward or back by simply changing the reporting year in a single input cell.

Note: The main difference between this template and our Service Based accounting template is that this template includes inventory. You can create stock codes and allocate sales & purchases to these stock codes. Sales, cost of sales, gross profit amounts & percentages, inventory on hand and average costs are automatically calculated.

Note: This template has been designed mainly for relatively simple trade based businesses. Although the template technically accommodates an unlimited number of stock codes and transactions, the template is not really suitable for businesses with hundreds of stock codes and thousands of inventory transactions.

The template includes the following sheets:
Setup - enter your business & banking details and customize the sales tax codes and bank codes. The business & banking details are included on the automated invoice and customer statement. The sales tax codes & percentages are used to calculate sales tax on all income & expense transactions and bank codes can be used to allocate transactions to multiple bank accounts. The first financial year, reporting year and year-end input cells determine the monthly periods that are included on the trial balance, income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet.
Groups - this sheet contains the default list of account groups that are used in this template. You can customize the descriptions of the account groups but we do not recommend changing the account group keys. Additional account groups can be added and inserted in the appropriate location on the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet.
TB - this sheet contains a full list of the accounts that are included in the template and a trial balance which is automatically calculated based on the transactions that are entered on the Income and Expenses sheets. The default accounts list can be customized by editing the existing accounts or by inserting new rows for additional accounts. The period for which the trial balance is calculated is determined by the month-end period that is selected at the top of the sheet in column G.
Customers - create unique customer codes for all customers and enter their billing details. The sheet also includes an automated calculation of outstanding balances and an ageing of customer account balances which can be calculated based on any user defined date.
Stock - create stock codes for all products and enter the unit of measure (UOM) and cost of sales account for each stock item. You can also include the start-up quantities & costs as at the beginning of the first financial year that is included in the template. The calculated columns contain calculations of the inventory on hand and the inventory movements for the user defined date range which can be specified at the top of the sheet.
Income - all income and other receipt transactions should be entered on this sheet. The columns with yellow column headings require user input and the columns with light blue column headings contain formulas and are therefore automatically calculated.
Invoice - this sheet contains an automated tax invoice. Simply enter the appropriate invoice number and the rest of the sheet is automatically populated based on the details recorded on the Setup, Income and Customers sheets.
Statement - this sheet contains an automated customer statement. Select the customer code, enter the statement date and the rest of the sheet is automatically populated based on the details recorded on the Setup, Income and Customers sheets.
Expenses - all expense and other payment transactions should be entered on this sheet. The columns with yellow column headings require user input and the columns with light blue column headings contain formulas and are therefore automatically calculated. We also recommend entering all journals on this sheet.
IS - the monthly income statement on this sheet is automatically compiled based on the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets. The 12 monthly periods that are included in the report are determined based on the reporting year that is specified on the Setup sheet.
CFS - the monthly cash flow statement on this sheet is automatically compiled based on the income statement and balance sheet calculations.
BS - the monthly balance sheet on this sheet is automatically compiled based on the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets. All the line items are set to report account group totals but you can include individual accounts by changing the keys in column A.
Bank - this sheet contains an analysis of bank account movements on a daily basis (for the selected month) and on a monthly basis for the current financial year. Aside from selecting the bank code and month, no user input is required on this sheet.
SalesTax - this sheet contains a monthly sales tax analysis. All the calculations are automated. You can select the tax type and any of the individual sales tax codes at the top of the sheet to view the output and input values for any tax type or tax code. The template provides for two default tax types for national or federal sales tax and state sales tax.
GP - this sheet contains a gross profit analysis by stock code. Aside from selecting the appropriate stock code, no user input is required. The calculations on this sheet make it easy to monitor the gross profit percentages & stock quantities for each stock item.

Setup

The first step in setting up the template for your business is to enter your business details at the top of the Setup sheet. Your business name is included as a heading on all the other sheets and the other business details are included on the tax invoice & customer statement. You also need to enter the first financial year & the reporting year, select a year-end month and maintain your sales tax & bank codes on the Setup sheet.

The first financial year that is entered on the Setup sheet is very important because it determines the first period that will be included in the template calculations. The year that is specified in this input cell also determines the effective date for which opening balance sheet balances should be entered in column C on the TB sheet.

Note: Once you have set the first financial year that needs to be included in the template, you need to use a trial balance as at the end of the previous financial year (as generated in your previous accounting solution) to enter the balance sheet opening balances in column C on the TB sheet. The total of all the balance sheet opening balances needs to be nil in order for the balance sheet to balance.

This template can only be used for full financial years. The template does not make provision for entering opening balances for income statement items and you therefore need to start with data for a full financial year. If you therefore switch from another accounting solution to our template, you need to recapture all your income & expenses as from the first day of the first financial year that is included in the template.

The reporting year that is entered on the Setup sheet determines the 12 monthly periods that are included on the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. The IS, CFS and BS sheets include 12 monthly periods - these periods and the calculations that are automatically performed on these sheets can therefore be amended by simply changing the reporting year on the Setup sheet to include a new 12-month financial period in these reports.

Note: The first financial year basically needs to be set once when you start using the template but the reporting year can be used to roll the 12-month financial period that is included in the template forward or back by simply changing the year in this cell. The template can be used for multiple financial years and all template calculations are updated automatically when you change the reporting year.

You also need to select the appropriate year-end month from an input cell on the Setup sheet. This selection is used to determine the start date and the end date of each financial year and also determines the date on which opening balance sheet balances need to be included on the TB sheet.

Sales Tax Codes

The template accommodates an unlimited number of sales tax codes. You can include as many sales tax codes as you want by editing the default list of sales tax codes on the Setup sheet and adding additional sales tax codes by inserting the required number of additional rows, entering a sales tax code (use letters between A and Z) and entering the appropriate sales tax percentage.

The sales tax codes included in the list on the Setup sheet are automatically included in the drop-down lists in the Sales Tax Code columns on the Income and Expenses sheets and the relevant percentages are automatically used to calculate the sales tax amounts on the same sheets. The template provides for two default sales tax types - national or federal sales tax and state sales tax and each sales tax type therefore has its own code selection and amount columns.

When recording transactions on the Income sheet, you are required to enter a quantity and selling price for stock related transactions. Some users may want to enter selling prices which are inclusive of sales tax and others may want to enter selling prices which are exclusive of sales tax. These different requirements have been accommodated in the template design by adding a selection field below the sales tax codes which enable users to select the basis for entering selling prices on the Income sheet. Sales tax, inclusive amounts and exclusive amounts are automatically adjusted based on the selection on the Setup sheet.

All the sales tax codes are available in both sales tax columns but you can use different sales tax codes and therefore different percentages for national or federal sales tax and state sales tax by simply selecting the relevant codes in the appropriate column which automatically results in the appropriate sales tax percentage being applied to the sales tax calculations. If the sales tax percentages change, you can simply create a new sales tax code for the new percentage and use it from the effective date for the new sales tax percentage.

If you do not need sales tax to be calculated, you can simply leave the sales tax code columns blank or select any code with a zero percentage on the Setup sheet which will result in no sales tax being calculated.

If you do not need both sales tax columns, we recommend selecting the appropriate sales tax codes in the first column and simply leaving the second sales tax code column blank or using a sales tax code with a zero percentage which would result in no sales tax being calculated in the second sales tax amount column. You can delete the second sales tax code and amount columns without affecting the sales tax calculations in the first sales tax code and amount columns but it may result in a data validation warning being displayed in the first sales tax amount column. These warnings just refer to the missing parts for the second sales tax calculations in the formulas and can safely be ignored.

We have also included a SalesTax sheet which is automatically calculated and requires no user input. This sheet contains a monthly analysis of sales tax amounts and can be used to populate sales tax returns. The calculations can also be displayed for a specific sales tax code by simply selecting the appropriate code from the list box at the top of the sheet. When you then clear the contents of the list box, totals for all sales tax codes are displayed.

Bank Accounts

The template also accommodates an unlimited number of bank accounts. You can include as many bank accounts as you want by editing the list of bank account codes on the Setup sheet and adding additional bank account codes by inserting the required number of additional rows, entering a bank account code and entering a description of the bank account. You also then need to copy the formulas in columns D and E (indicated with light blue cell background) from one of the existing bank account codes.

Note: When adding bank account codes, we recommend inserting new rows anywhere above the JC bank account code and using a two character bank code for all new bank accounts. The JC bank account code is reserved for journal entries and the default code for this bank code should not be changed. Journals do not really have a cash effect but we are using the JC code to facilitate including general ledger journal type entries in the template.

All the bank codes that are added to the Setup sheet are automatically included in the drop-down list boxes on the Income and Expenses sheets and are available for selection immediately after being added to the Setup sheet. If the default number of bank account codes (four including petty cash) is not sufficient for your requirements and you have added additional bank account codes to the Setup sheet, you also need to add these bank account codes to the TB and BS sheets.

Note: It is very important that you add the additional bank account codes to the TB and BS sheets otherwise your trial balance and balance sheet will not balance!

The bank accounts on the TB sheet are part of the control accounts section at the bottom of the sheet. If you need to add additional bank codes, we recommend doing so above the JC bank account (BS-BJC in column A). Adding the additional bank codes is a simple exercise - insert the required number of additional rows and copy the formulas from one of the existing bank account rows. The template will automatically display your bank account codes in the same sequence as they are included on the Setup sheet.

After adding the additional bank account codes to the TB sheet, you also need to add the new codes to the BS sheet. The procedure to follow is again really simple - insert the required number of additional rows above the JC bank account code (BS-BJC key in column A) and copy the formulas from one of the existing rows. You can copy the entire row to ensure that you have included the formulas in all columns. The formulas will automatically pick up the correct bank account codes.

Note: If an additional bank account has been added to the Setup sheet and not included on the TB or BS sheets, the appropriate row will contain an "add!" status in column D or E. This indicates that the bank account still needs to be added to the appropriate sheet.

Note: We have also included a Bank sheet in the template which enables users to analyse bank account movements in a lot more detail especially when preparing bank reconciliations. This sheet enables users to select a bank account code and month at the top of the sheet in order to display daily and monthly bank account movements. Aside from selecting the bank code and month, the sheet requires no user input.

Banking Details

The information that is entered in the banking details section is included on the tax invoice. If you clear the default data from the input field, no banking details will be included in the section at the bottom of the invoice. If you do enter banking details and you change the description of the input fields, these changes will also be affected on the tax invoice on the Invoice sheet.

Note: The last input field provides for any text that you want to display at the bottom of the banking details section on the Invoice sheet.

Input Error Codes

The input error codes at the bottom of the sheet are included for information purposes only and provide users with a reason for the error codes that may be encountered when entering transactions on the Income and Expenses sheets. These error codes are covered in more detail in the Error Codes section of these instructions.

Account Groups

The accounts that are included on the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet are based on a pre-defined account structure which consists of pre-defined account groups that are used to populate the appropriate line items. A detailed list of these account groups is included on the Groups sheet.

Note: Changes to the Groups sheet do not influence any of the calculations on the other sheets and only have an effect on the account group descriptions that are included on the IS, CFS and BS sheets. If you want to make changes to our default account groups, we only recommend doing so if absolutely necessary and that you customize existing account groups before considering adding new account groups. Customizing similar, existing account groups which are not required is a lot easier than adding new account groups.

Note: If you do not change any of the default account groups, it is not necessary to review the rest of the instructions in the Account Groups section.

The description of line items on the balance sheet can be changed quite easily by changing the description of the appropriate account group on the Groups sheet and then changing the account descriptions of the appropriate accounts which are included in the account group on the TB sheet. Account groups can accommodate up to 100 individual accounts which are linked to the account group by the same first 5 account number characters.

Example: The account group key for property, plant & equipment (cost) is BS-00 and the account group is included as a group total on the balance sheet (key of BS-00G) which means that all accounts that start with BS-00 will be included in this account group total on the balance sheet. The default account number for Land & Buildings (cost) is BS-0005 which starts with BS-00 and therefore forms part of this account group.

The same account integration principle is applied to most balance sheet account groups where the default integration is to report account group totals (as indicated by the "G" at the end of the account group keys). Although it is not difficult to add new account group keys to the Groups sheet and to then include the new keys in the balance sheet or income statement, there is a risk of balance sheet imbalances occurring if the cash flow statement movements are not included correctly. We therefore recommend completing the following steps if you want to add new account groups to the income statement or balance sheet:

• Scan the Groups sheet for similar items which you are not going to use. For an item to be similar, it needs to be of the same nature as the item that you want to add. For example, current assets can only be replaced by other current assets and liabilities can only be replaced by other liabilities. If the items differ in nature, you should add a new account group instead of using an existing one.
• If no suitable existing item can be found, insert a new row and add a new account group by entering the appropriate account group key and a description for the account group. When adding keys, you need to stick to the principle of a five character key which is unique and account numbers that need to be linked to this key, need to also start with the same five characters followed by a number between 00 and 99.
• When adding new account groups, we suggest using the next available account group number after the "BS-". The default balance sheet account groups end after "BS-20" which means that the first available account group is "BS-21". The default income statement account groups end after "IS-10" which means that the first available account group is "IS-11".
• After adding the appropriate account group to the Groups sheet, go to the TB sheet and add the required individual accounts which need to be included in the account group total on the balance sheet. Remember that the appropriate account numbers all need to start with the same first five characters as the account group and refer to the New Accounts section of these instructions for guidance on adding new accounts to the TB sheet.
• Next, you need to add the new account group to the income statement or balance sheet. This is relatively simple - find a similar income statement or balance sheet item, insert a row above or below it, copy the entire row from the existing item into the new empty row and then change the account key in column A so that the new account group that you just created on the Groups sheet will be included in the calculations in the new line. For example, if your new account group has been created as BS-21, the key in column A on the balance sheet should be "BS-21G". Only similar items with a green key in column A should be used - the items with orange keys are custom formulas which cannot be copied for similar line items!
• After adding the new account group to either the income statement or balance sheet, make sure that the total that this item is included in is correct. For most income statement or balance sheet items, this should automatically be the case but in some instances especially with regards to the income statement, you may need to edit some of the default formulas to ensure that the new account group is taken into account in the relevant totals.
• Next, if you have added a new balance sheet account group, you will also need to make changes to the cash flow statement. Income statement items are included in a cash flow statement by including a profit or loss from the income statement and it therefore probably won't be necessary to make changes to the cash flow statement if you have added a new income statement account group.
• If necessary, find a similar balance sheet item on the cash flow statement (CFS sheet), insert a new row above or below it, copy the entire row from the existing, similar line item and enter the new key in column A. Only similar items with a green key in column A should be used - the items with orange keys are custom formulas which cannot be copied for similar line items!
• You also need to ensure that the appropriate total on the cash flow statement includes the new account group which has been added otherwise your balance sheet may not balance.

As you can see, it becomes relatively complex when needing to add new account groups to the template and it is therefore much easier to change the descriptions of one of the existing line items in order to accommodate new or renamed account groups.

Note: Refer to the Account Integration section of the instructions for guidance on how to include individual accounts on the income statement or balance sheet. This section is part of the main Trial Balance section below.

Chart Of Accounts & Trial Balance

The TB sheet has a dual purpose - it contains the chart of accounts which represents a detailed list of the account numbers which are available for the allocation of transactions & the reporting of transaction totals and it contains a detailed trial balance which is automatically calculated based on the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets and allocated to accounts in the Account Number columns.

Chart of Accounts

The default chart of accounts on the TB sheet includes all the individual accounts that have been created in each of the default account groups. Account groups constitute the first 5 characters of the account number and the individual account numbers are represented by the next two characters in the account numbers. Each account group can therefore accommodate up to 100 account numbers (00 to 99).

Note: The template has been designed based on a fixed account number format. All account numbers start with a two character code which identifies whether an account is an income statement account (IS) or a balance sheet account (BS) followed by a hyphen, the two-digit account group (as listed on the Groups sheet) and a two-digit account number. This default account number format should not be deviated from otherwise the template calculations may not be accurate.

The template can be customized for your business by reviewing the accounts that are included for each account group (as per the Groups sheet), changing the account descriptions in column B (where required) and inserting additional accounts if the number of accounts that are provided for in the default chart of accounts are not sufficient.

Additional accounts can be created on the TB sheet by inserting a new row, entering the appropriate account number, entering an account description and copying the formulas in columns E to H from one of the existing rows. We also recommend inserting the new row in the appropriate location based on the account number sequence (in an ascending order). The list boxes in the Account Number columns on the Income and Expenses sheets include the accounts in the same sequence as on the TB sheet - if account numbers are therefore not added in the correct order, it may be confusing when selecting accounts.

Note: All new accounts need to be created within the existing account group structure (as per the Groups sheet) otherwise the template calculations may not be accurate and your balance sheet may not balance. New account groups can be created as per the Account Groups section of the instructions.

Note: You can also delete any of the default accounts that are included in the chart of accounts on the TB sheet if they are not required for your business. Just be careful when doing so - if you have allocated transactions to an account and you subsequently delete it, it may cause errors and template imbalances!

Note: The default chart of accounts includes two accounts that should not be deleted because they serve a specific purpose. The Cash Transfer Control account (BS-0799) should be used when recording transfers between bank accounts on the Expenses sheet. The Direct Costs Control account (IS-0299) is used when any of the cost of sales accounts which have been assigned to individual stock codes on the Stock sheet are invalid.

Account Integration

The template provides for including accounts as a group total or as individual accounts on the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. If an account is integrated on an account group basis on the IS, CFS or BS sheets, the key in column A should contain the account group number followed by a "G". If an account is integrated on an individual account basis, the key in column A on the IS, CFS or BS sheets should be the full account number with no additional characters at the end.

Note: If the accounts in an account group are integrated on an individual account number basis, you need to manually add all the individual accounts to the appropriate sheet in order to ensure that all accounts that are included in the appropriate account group are included on the appropriate sheet. If an individual account in the appropriate account group is omitted and transactions are allocated to it, the balance sheet may not balance.

If you stick to the default account numbers and do not add any new accounts, you do not need to be concerned about the integration because all accounts will be included correctly. If you make changes to the account groups or account numbers, it is important to ensure that you have added account groups or accounts where necessary otherwise the template calculations may become inaccurate.

We have therefore added an account status in column H on the TB sheet where it is necessary to check the integration of an account (not necessary for control accounts). This column can have any of the following statuses:

• Group - individual account balances will be included as a group total on the income statement or balance sheet.
• Account - individual account balances will be included on the income statement or balance sheet.
• Error! - this status means that an account number has been created but no integration could be found for the new account number. You should check the account number format that you have entered and correct it if necessary. If the account number is correct, the error is probably the result of the account number not being included on the income statement or balance sheet.
• Double! - this status means that an account number integration has been added for the account number on both the individual account number and account group basis. If the integration for an account group is set up in such a way that accounts are integrated individually, you cannot also integrate the accounts on a group basis because the affected account balances will be included twice. The template calculations will be inaccurate if there is double integration. If individual account integration is applied, all the individual accounts that form part of an account group need to be included individually on the income statement or balance sheet.

Note: If any row on the TB sheet contains an error or double status, the appropriate cell will be highlighted in red until the error is fixed. These errors usually result in imbalances on the balance sheet and therefore need to be fixed before the template calculations will be accurate.

Note: Only the Income and Expenses account groups (excluding interest, taxation, dividends & other income and expenses) are integrated on an individual account basis by default. If you therefore add additional accounts to these account groups or change any of the default account numbers in these sections, you will need to manually make the same changes to the appropriate items on the IS sheet.

Note: If you need to add a line to any section of the income statement or balance sheet, insert a new row in the appropriate location, copy the formulas in all columns from one of the existing rows and change the key in column A to the appropriate full account number. The calculations will be updated automatically and the error on the TB sheet in the Status column should be resolved.

Control Accounts

Control accounts are accounts that have a specific purpose in the context of the template design and can therefore not be edited or selected for the allocation of transactions. These accounts are automatically calculated based on the transactions that are recorded on the Income & Expenses sheets and are included individually on the balance sheet and cash flow statement. This is also why all the control accounts are included in a separate section below the other accounts on the TB sheet.

Note: Control accounts include all the individual bank accounts, an inventory account, a trade debtors account, trade creditors account and a retained earnings account. These accounts are integral to the proper functioning of the template and should not be amended in any way (aside from adding additional bank accounts if required).

Opening Balances

If you are using the template for an existing business, you will need to enter the appropriate balance sheet opening balances as at the end of the year before the first financial year that is included in the template (as specified on the Setup sheet) in column C on the TB sheet. The template can only be used for full financial years and opening balances can therefore only be entered for balance sheet accounts.

If you switch to our accounting template during the financial year, you need to enter the balance sheet accounts opening balances for the previous financial year as the template opening balances in column C on the TB sheet and record all transactions from the first day of the financial year on the Income and Expenses sheets.

Note: The balance sheet opening balances should be based on a trial balance produced in your previous accounting solution as at the end of the financial year immediately before the first financial year that is included in the template. After entering all the opening balances, you also need to make sure that the total at the bottom of the TB sheet is nil otherwise your balance sheet will not balance.

Note: The opening balances of all asset accounts should be entered as positive values and the opening balances of all liability & equity accounts should be entered as negative values. This should be exactly as they are reflected on the trial balance in your previous accounting software.

All the opening balances that need to be entered on the TB sheet contain yellow cell backgrounds. The opening balances for the individual bank balances, the inventory line, the trade debtors line and the trade creditors line in the Control Accounts section however contain light blue cell backgrounds. This is because the subsequent movement in these opening balances will have an effect on the cash flow during the first financial period that is included in the template. These opening balances should therefore be entered on the Stock, Income or Expenses sheets and will be calculated automatically on the TB sheet based on the formulas which have been included in column C.

Note: The total of all opening balances in column C on the TB sheet should still be nil and the formulas in the cells with light blue column headings in the control accounts section should not be amended or replaced by values otherwise the template calculations will be inaccurate. If the total in column C is not nil, it is not as a result of any formula but as a result of opening balances not being entered correctly. DO NOT change any of the formulas in the cells with light blue cell backgrounds!

The opening balance for each of the bank codes that are included on the Setup sheet should be entered on the Income sheet as positive values. The month-end date of the month that precedes the first financial year which is specified on the Setup sheet should be entered in the invoice/document date and payment date columns. This approach will ensure that the opening bank balances are calculated correctly on the TB sheet.

Example: If the opening B1 bank balance is $5,000 and the first day of the financial year is 1 March, an opening bank balance transaction needs to be recorded on the Income sheet with an inclusive invoice amount of $5,000, a document date & payment date of 28 February, an exempt sales tax code (with a zero sales tax percentage), a bank code of B1 and a payment amount of $5,000. This balance will then be included automatically as the opening B1 bank balance in column C on the TB sheet.

The opening stock quantities and costs should be entered in the Startup columns on the Stock sheet. The opening stock valuation is automatically calculated based on the quantities and costs that are entered for each individual stock code and included on the TB sheet as the inventory control account opening balance.

The opening trade debtors balance should also be entered on the Income sheet. You can enter the total in one row or enter the outstanding invoices individually (we recommend the latter because all outstanding invoices may not be paid on the same date). The invoice date that is entered in column B should be before the first day of the first financial year that is specified on the Setup sheet and the payment date should be the actual payment date (which will obviously be after the first day of the first financial year that is included in the template because the invoice is outstanding at the beginning of the first financial year).

Example: If the year-end is February and the opening trade debtor balance at 28 February of the year before the first financial year which is included in the template consists of two invoices, enter the actual invoice dates in the Invoice Date column (invoices should be dated on or before 28 February). The payment date can be left blank until the invoices are paid and the actual date when the payment is received should be entered in the Payment Date column with the actual payment amount in the Payment Amount column. The opening trade debtor balance will then automatically be calculated and included on the TB sheet.

The opening trade creditors balance should be entered on the Expenses sheet (as a positive amount). You can enter the total in one row or enter the outstanding invoices individually (we recommend the latter because all outstanding invoices may not be paid on the same date and will also probably be paid to different suppliers). The document date should be before the first day of the first financial year that is included in the template (as per the Setup sheet) and the payment date should be left blank until the appropriate supplier has been paid.

Example: If the opening trade creditor balance at 1 March consists of two invoices, enter the actual invoice dates in the Document Date column (the invoices should be dated on or before 28 February). The payment date column can be left blank until the invoices are paid and the actual date when the invoices are paid then needs to be entered in the Payment Date column. The opening trade creditors balance will then be calculated automatically and included on the TB sheet as a negative amount because trade creditors are liabilities.

Note: If the opening balances for trade debtors or trade creditors relate to stock items, the stock codes need to be left out because the opening stock quantities on hand are already included on the Stock sheet and including stock quantities with your trade debtors or trade creditors opening balances would change these start-up quantities.

Note: When recording opening balances for bank accounts, trade debtors and trade creditors on the Income and Expenses sheets, we recommend assigning these entries to a balance sheet account and using a sales tax code which does not result in the calculation of sales tax (code E in the standard template). Any balance sheet account can be used but we recommend using account BS-0799 which is the Cash Transfer Control account.

Trial Balance

The TB sheet effectively combines the chart of accounts and trial balance features. The trial balance consists of the opening balances at the start of the reporting period (which is specified on the Setup sheet), the account movement for the appropriate financial year and the closing balance at the end of the selected monthly period during the current financial year. All of these trial balance calculations are automatically calculated and included in columns E to G on the TB sheet.

Note: The closing balances in column G are calculated based on the monthly period which is selected at the top of the sheet in the cell with the yellow cell background. If the reporting year on the Setup sheet is amended in such a way that the selected monthly period does not fall within the current financial year, this cell will be highlighted in red. You then need to select a valid month in order for the red highlighting to be removed.

The monthly periods that are available for selection are the same as the monthly periods that are included on the monthly income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. You are therefore able to view a trial balance for any of the monthly periods in the current financial year by simply selecting the appropriate monthly period from the list box at the top of column G.

A trail balance for any previous financial period which has been included in the template can also be viewed by simply changing the reporting year on the Setup sheet and then selecting the appropriate monthly period from the list box at the top of column G on the TB sheet.

Adding new bank accounts

The template includes five default bank codes but you can add an unlimited number of additional bank codes (or accounts) by adding the appropriate bank account codes & descriptions to the Setup sheet. The new bank codes then also need to be added manually to the control accounts section on the TB sheet.

This is actually a very simple exercise - simply insert the required number of new rows anywhere between the existing bank accounts in the control account section and copy the entire row from one of the existing bank account rows. All the formulas are automatically calculated & updated with the correct bank codes.

Note: Also remember that opening balances for all bank accounts need to be recorded on the Income sheet. If you add additional bank accounts to the TB sheet, the opening balances also need to be added to the Income sheet.

Customer Accounts

The Customers sheet can be used to create unique customer codes and enter the billing details of all customers. The customer codes created on the Customers sheet are included in a list box in the Customer column on the Income sheet. We recommend using an abbreviated version of the customer name when creating customer codes because you will not need to refer back to the Customers sheet in order to select the appropriate customer code when recording transactions on the Income sheet.

Note: All the columns on the Customers sheet have been included in an Excel table. This feature is extremely useful when entering data in a table format because the formulas that are included in the calculated columns (the columns with light blue column headings) are automatically copied when new rows are inserted into the table or when data is entered into the first blank row below the table. You can therefore add a new customer code by simply entering a new code in column A - the table will then automatically extend to include the new customer code.

The other user input columns on the Customers sheet consist of the billing name, billing address and the customer's sales tax reference number. These details are included on the invoice and customer statement by linking the customer details on the Customers sheet to the customer code which is selected on the Income sheet.

Note: You are required to select a customer code when recording all income transactions. If you therefore have a lot of cash customers, it may be pointless to create individual customer codes for all of these customers. We therefore recommend setting up a default customer code that can be used when entering any transaction where a customer code is not required. The customer information that is entered for this code on the Customers sheet will however be included on the tax invoices for the transactions that are allocated to the default customer code. The customer information should therefore be left blank if you don't want to include it on the tax invoice or you can include a general description like "Cash" instead.

Note: The Income sheet contains invoices and all other receipt transactions. For some of these transactions there may not be a specific customer and you may therefore want to create a default customer code that can be used to record all transactions where an individual customer code may not be applicable.

The Customers sheet also contains a number of calculated columns that contain formulas which are automatically copied when adding new customer codes to the sheet. These columns contain a calculation of the outstanding balances of customers which can be calculated for any user defined date by simply entering the appropriate balance date at the top of the sheet.

The sheet also contains an ageing of the outstanding customer balances. The ageing on this sheet is calculated based on calendar months and also based on the balance date that is specified. If no balance date is specified, the current system date is used.

Stock

The Stock sheet can be used to create unique stock codes for all stock items and to enter a description and unit of measure (UOM) for each stock item. The stock codes that are created on the Stock sheet are included in a list box in the Stock Code columns on the Income and Expenses sheets. We recommend using alpha numeric stock codes which start with a letter followed by at least four numbers for all stock codes.

Note: All the columns on the Stock sheet have been included in an Excel table. This feature is extremely useful when entering data in a table format because the formulas that are included in the calculated columns (the columns with light blue column headings) are automatically copied when new rows are inserted into the table or when data is entered into the first blank row below the table. You can therefore add a new stock code by simply entering a new code in column A - the table will then automatically extend to include the new stock code.

The unit of measure (UOM) column can be used to specify the unit of measure for each stock item. Examples are units, kilograms, litres, bags, drums, etc. It is important that the quantity and selling price or inclusive invoice value on the Income and Expenses sheets are entered in the same unit of measure otherwise the cost calculations may not be accurate.

You are also required to specify the cost of sales account for each stock item. The account that is specified in this column determines into which cost of sales line the stock item will be included on the income statement. Only accounts that are included in the IS-02 account group for cost of sales should be included in this column. If you include any account which is not part of this account group, the appropriate cost of sales account entries will be reallocated to the IS-0299 direct costs account.

Note: The IS-0299 direct costs account is an important default account for inventory entries and should therefore not be removed from the chart of accounts on the TB sheet even if you do not need to record any direct costs as part of cost of sales.

If you are using the template for an existing business, you also need to include the opening stock quantities and costs on for all stock items on the Stock sheet in columns E and F. These quantities and costs are used to calculate the opening stock valuation in column J which is included on the trial balance as the template opening balance for the inventory control account.

Note: The opening stock balances which need to be included in the Startup columns on the Stock sheet should be the quantities and costs as at the end of the financial year before the first financial year that is included in the template. When you select the first financial year on the Setup sheet, the first day of the appropriate financial year is displayed next to the year selection - the opening stock quantities and costs should basically be the balances that are on hand at the start of that day.

Inventory Valuation & Movement

The Stock sheet also includes a number of calculated columns with light blue column headings. The first three calculated columns reflect the inventory valuation, unit cost and quantity on hand. All three of these columns are based on the "To Date" which is specified at the top of the sheet. You can therefore determine the inventory valuation at the end of any user defined date by entering the appropriate date in the "To Date" input cell at the top of the sheet.

All the calculated columns after the Startup Valuation column represent inventory movements for the user defined period which is defined by entering the appropriate "From Date" and "To Date" at the top of the sheet. These columns are reflected both in quantity and value terms and also include calculations of gross profit amounts and percentages. You can therefore display inventory movements for any user defined date range by specifying the appropriate date range at the top of the Stock sheet.

Note: We have also included a GP sheet in the template which makes it easy to analyse monthly gross profit percentages and stock quantities on hand for any individual stock code.

Recording Sales & Purchases

All stock sales & purchases should be recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets by selecting the appropriate stock code from the list boxes in the Stock Code columns. These sheets also accommodate entering non-stock related income and expenses - the difference between a stock and non-stock entry is simply that a stock code needs to be selected when entering stock related entries and the stock code needs to be left blank if the transaction does not relate to inventory.

All the stock codes that are added to the Stock sheet will be available for selection. If a stock code that is included in the Stock Code columns is not a valid stock code, an error will be reflected in the Error Code column. Only valid codes will be included in the list boxes but invalid codes may be encountered when copying data into the Stock Code columns or deleting or changing stock codes on the Stock sheet which were previously used for the allocation of transactions on the Income or Expenses sheets.

All stock sales need to be recorded on the Income sheet by selecting the appropriate stock code and entering a quantity and selling price per unit. The selling prices can be entered inclusive or exclusive of sales tax depending on the selection in the Sales Tax section on the Setup sheet. All sales transactions need to be allocated to the appropriate sales account which forms part of the IS-10 account group. The cost of sales account that will be used for transaction is determined by the account which is specified for the appropriate stock item on the Stock sheet.

All stock purchases need to be recorded on the Expenses sheet by selecting the appropriate stock code and entering a quantity and tax inclusive invoice amount. Note that the method of entering purchases therefore differs from the method of entering sales in that you do not enter a purchase price but the full tax inclusive value on the supplier's invoice. This method is used to ensure that supplier invoices agree to payment amounts.

Recording Stock Adjustments

Stock adjustments as a result of a stock takes or other reasons need to be entered on the Income sheet by entering the quantities and entering a zero selling price. This will ensure that the stock adjustments are removed from the stock on hand and allocated to cost of sales on the income statement which results in the stock effectively being written off. A general customer code can be used for these transactions and they can be allocated to the appropriate sales accounts because the sales values will be nil.

Recording Direct Costs

The template also accommodates recording direct costs with the option of including these costs in the inventory valuation & cost of sales or including them as a separate line item under cost of sales in the income statement. An example of direct costs which you may want to include in inventory valuations and cost of sales is transport costs.

Direct costs need to be added to the Expenses sheet as separate line items and the treatment of these costs is determined by whether a stock code is selected or not. If you select a stock code, the costs that are entered will be added to your inventory costs and included in cost of sales. It is important to note that a zero quantity needs to be entered because the increase in stock quantities will have been recorded when the initial stock purchase transaction was recorded. If a quantity is entered, the stock on hand will therefore be inflated. The inclusive amount of the direct costs which are entered is however added to the stock valuation and will therefore also form part of any subsequent cost of sales transactions.

If direct costs should not be added to stock items, you do not need to select a stock code and the transaction can simply be allocated to the IS-0299 direct cost control account which is included as a separate line item under cost of sales on the income statement. The direct costs will therefore not form part of the cost of sales and margin calculations of individual stock items but will still form part of the overall cost of sales and margin calculations as per the income statement.

Recording of credit notes & supplier claims

Credit notes and supplier claims are recorded in exactly the same way as stock sales or purchases but the values that are entered in the selling price or tax inclusive amount columns on the Income or Expenses sheets should be negative values.

Stock codes should be selected if the credit note or claim has a stock effect. If the credit note or claim is price related and therefore does not have a stock effect, no stock code should be selected, the quantity entered should be zero and you simply need to select the appropriate account for allocation of the transaction. These non-stock entries are therefore entered in the same way as any non-stock transaction.

Average Costing

The templates automatically calculates the unit costs of all stock on hand and cost of sales values based on an average costing system. When stock purchases are recorded, the stock items purchased are automatically added to the inventory valuation based on the actual purchase prices. When stock sales are recorded, the calculation is a bit more complicated.

For stock sales purposes, stock items are valued based on the quantity on hand at the time of the sale and the cost of sales value of all previous sales. What this effectively comes down to is that the average cost for stock valuation purposes is not calculated based on all previous stock purchases and sales but based only on the stock quantity on hand at the time of the next stock purchase. This method of valuation is therefore a much closer reflection of actual costs than valuing stock on overall average costs would be!

Note: The average cost calculation as described above is the only method of valuation which is practical for the purpose of this template and cannot be changed to any other basis. We will not be able to customize the template for any other basis like first-in-first-out (FIFO) or last-in-first-out (LIFO) which requires the use of a database in order to ensure accurate calculations. You will however find that our average cost approach is a quite accurate approach especially for businesses which have a reasonably high rate of stock turnover.

Example: You purchase 1,000 units of a stock item at $1 per item, sell 800 units and then purchase another 1,000 units at $2 per unit. Some users' understanding of average cost would be that stock and cost of sales would be valued at $1.50 per unit ($3,000 divided by 2,000 units). This is however not the case. The cost of sales of the 800 units sold would be $800 which means that the value of the remaining stock would be $200. When the subsequent purchase of another 1,000 units occurs, the stock on hand would be 1,200 units at a cost of $2,200 which means that the average cost per unit would be $1.83. The average cost valuation is therefore only affected by previous purchases to the extent of the stock that is still on hand.

Inaccuracies

If you enter a sales transaction on the Income sheet and there is not sufficient stock on hand based on the quantity that you have entered, the cost of sales amount may be inaccurate. This is especially the case where there is no stock on hand for a particular stock item and a sale is recorded because the cost of sales amount will be nil as a result of zero stock on hand.

These types of inaccuracies are usually the result of previous transactions that have been recorded incorrectly or not recorded at all for the affected stock item. There is no quick fix in such circumstances - you need to review all previous transactions for the particular stock code and fix the entries or omissions which resulted in the inaccurate calculation of stock on hand.

Note: We have included an error code on the Income sheet which highlights transactions that are recorded with insufficient stock on hand. If you therefore see error code E6 in the Error Code column, it indicates that your stock on hand is inaccurate and needs to be investigated.

Recording Transactions - Income

All income and other receipt transactions should be recorded on the Income sheet. User input is only required in the columns with yellow column headings. All the columns with light blue column headings contain formulas which are automatically copied when adding new transactions to the sheet.

Note: All the columns on the Income sheet have been included in an Excel table. This feature is extremely useful when entering data in a table format because the formulas that are included in calculated columns (the columns with light blue column headings) are automatically copied when new rows are inserted into the table or when data is entered into the first blank row below the table. You can therefore enter a new transaction by simply entering an invoice number in column A - the table will then automatically extend to include the new transaction.

The Income sheet contains the following user input columns:
Invoice Number - enter your invoice number or the appropriate transaction reference for cash receipt transactions. This column should always contain a value - if you do not issue document numbers for all your invoices & receipts, any unique transaction reference can be used.
Invoice Date - enter the date of the tax invoice or the bank statement date for cash receipt transactions. We've added data validation to this column to ensure that only valid dates are entered - you therefore need to ensure that you enter dates in accordance with the regional date settings that are specified in the System Control Panel.
Customer - select a customer code from the drop-down list in this column. All customer codes that have been added to the Customers sheet will be available for selection. A generic customer code can be added to the Customers sheet and used for all transactions where a customer code is not applicable.
Stock Code - select a stock code from the drop-down list in this column if the transaction that you are recording is stock related. If the transaction is not stock related, leave the cell blank. All stock codes that have been added to the Stock sheet will be available for selection.
Description - enter a transaction description in this column.
Quantity - if the transaction is stock related, enter the stock quantity in this column. If the transaction is not stock related, enter a nil value.
Selling Price - if the transaction is stock related enter the selling price in this column. Stock transactions can be entered inclusive or exclusive of sales tax depending on your selection in the Sales Tax section of the Setup sheet. If your transaction is not stock related, enter the inclusive or exclusive invoice amount in this column.
Tax 1 Code - this column contains a drop-down list which enables you to select one of the tax codes on to the Setup sheet and should be used for national or federal sales tax. The sales tax percentage applied to the transaction is determined based on the selected sales tax code. If your business is not registered for sales tax purposes, all transactions should be recorded by using a sales tax code with a zero percentage. If no sales tax code is selected, no sales tax will be calculated.
Tax 2 Code - this column contains a drop-down list which enables you to select one of the tax codes on to the Setup sheet and should be used for state sales tax. The sales tax percentage applied to the transaction is determined based on the selected sales tax code. If your business is not registered for sales tax purposes, all transactions should be recorded by using a sales tax code with a zero percentage. If no sales tax code is selected, no sales tax will be calculated.
Bank Code - this column contains a drop-down list which includes all the bank codes that have been added to the Setup sheet. Select the bank code of the bank account that will be affected by the particular transaction. Note that it is imperative that a bank code is assigned to each transaction.
Account Number - the drop-down list in this column contains all the account codes (and descriptions) that have been created on the TB sheet. You therefore need to create the appropriate account on the TB sheet before transactions can be allocated to the account. An account number should be selected for every transaction otherwise template imbalances may be encountered.
Payment Amount - when a customer pays an invoice, the payment amount should be entered into this column.
Payment Date - enter the actual payment date in this column. The date that should be entered in this column should be the date on which the payment was received from the customer. The payment date and payment amount should be left blank if payment has not been received from the customer - the outstanding amount will then be included in trade debtors. Note that the payment date should always be greater than or equal to the invoice date.

The Income sheet contains the following calculated columns:
Inclusive Amount - this column is based on the quantities and selling prices that are entered by the user. The inclusive amount is calculated based on the selection on the Setup sheet in the Sales Tax section.
Exclusive Amount - the formula in this column deducts the sales tax amount from the inclusive invoice amount in order to calculate an amount excluding sales tax. For accounting purposes, the exclusive amounts are allocated to the income statement, the sales tax amounts are allocated to the sales tax control account and the inclusive amounts are allocated to trade debtors or bank (depending on whether the amounts have been paid or not).
Sales Tax 1 Amount - this column contains a formula which calculates the national or federal sales tax amount based on the tax code selected in column H. Sales tax will only be calculated if a sales tax code has been selected in column H. The calculation is based on the sales tax percentages specified on the Setup sheet.
Sales Tax 1 Amount - this column contains a formula which calculates the state sales tax amount based on the tax code selected in column I. Sales tax will only be calculated if a sales tax code has been selected in column I. The calculation is based on the sales tax percentages specified on the Setup sheet.
Outstanding Balance - if an invoice has not been paid in full, the outstanding balance will be reflected in this column. The outstanding balance is determined based on the balance date that is entered in cell R2 at the top of the sheet. If the balance date contains no value, the current system date will be used to determine which invoices are currently outstanding. You can therefore use the balance date input cell to calculate the trade debtors balance as at any user defined date.
Transaction Type - this column will reflect "STOCK" if the transaction is stock related and nothing if the transaction is not stock related.
Previous Quantity - if the transaction is stock related, the quantity on hand before taking the quantity entered for the transaction into account will be reflected in this column. Note that if there is no stock on hand and a sale is recorded, the cost of sales value would be nil because there cannot be cost related to no stock on hand. An insufficient stock error will then be reflected in the Error Code column.
Previous Cost - if the transaction is stock related, the unit cost before taking the transaction into account will be included in this column.
Transaction Cost - if the transaction is stock related, the cost of the transaction will be included in this column. The cost is calculated by multiplying the quantity entered and the previous cost on hand.
Cost of Sales Amount - if the transaction is stock related, the cost of sales amount will be included in this column. The cost of sales amount will be the same as the transaction cost for all stock related transactions.
Gross Profit Amount - if the transaction is stock related, the gross profit amount is calculated by deducting the cost of sales amount from the tax exclusive sales amount.
Gross Profit Percentage - the gross profit percentage is calculated by dividing the gross profit amount by the tax exclusive sales amount. If the transaction is not stock related, a zero percentage will be reflected.
Cost of Sales Account - the cost of sales account is determined based on the account linked to each stock code on the Stock sheet. If no account has been linked to a particular stock code or an account has been linked which is not part of the cost of sales (IS-02) account group, the direct costs control account (IS-0299) will be included instead of the user input on the Stock sheet.
Unique Invoice Date - this column converts the invoice date in column B to a unique invoice date which uses the row number as a time of day.
Unique INV - the formula in this column is used to determine whether the invoice number is unique. Invoices can be entered in multiple lines and this formula is used to prevent the duplication of the calculation of outstanding invoice balances.
ST1 - the formula in this column is used to identify the appropriate list of outstanding invoices which needs to be included on the customer statement.
Error Code - this column will contain an error code if there is a problem with the input in any of the previous columns. All the error codes that are displayed in this column should therefore be corrected in order to ensure that all the template calculations remain accurate. Refer to the Error Codes section of these instructions for more information about the reasons for an error code and how to resolve it.

Note: The drop-down lists in the Account Number column contains both the account number and description but only the account number should be selected when allocating transactions. Excel doesn't actually allow the inclusion of two columns in a drop-down list but we have implemented a work around to provide the account description together with the account number in the drop-down list. The disadvantage of this work around is that you will not be able to enter account numbers - you either need to select the account number from the list or copy a similar transaction that you have entered before. The column will also contain an error indicator which refers to a data validation error - this is to be expected because of the work around that we implemented and can safely be ignored.

All the transactions that are entered on the Income sheet are automatically updated to the other sheets in this template. It is therefore imperative that all transactions are entered according to the guidance that is outlined in this section of the instructions otherwise it could result in imbalances in the template.

Filtering Transactions

All the column headings on this sheet contain a filter selection arrow - this feature indicates that the Filter feature has been activated for the data on this sheet. This Excel feature is very useful when you need to filter the data that forms part of a table based on the filter criteria that are available after clicking the selection arrow.

Example: If you only want to display the income transactions for a particular invoice or payment month, you can filter the data based on the Invoice Date or Payment Date column by selecting the appropriate date filter from the filter menu that is displayed after clicking the selection arrow. After reviewing the filtered data, simply select the "Clear filter" option in the filtered column in order to remove the filter and to display all the transactions on the worksheet.

Note that the visible row numbers are typically displayed in blue when a filter has been applied to the sheet. New transactions should not be entered while a filter is active on the sheet - if you see blue row numbers, all filters need to be removed before data is entered in the next blank row otherwise the Excel table may not extend automatically to include the new transaction.

The sheet also contains totals above the column headings for all columns which contain values and which are suitable for the calculation of transaction totals. The formulas in these cells result in only the transactions that are visible on the worksheet being included in the calculation of the appropriate totals. If you therefore print the sheet while a filter is in effect, the totals above the column headings will be calculated accurately and only include the transactions that have been printed.

Invoices with Multiple Lines

If an invoice consists of multiple lines, the invoice needs to be entered by repeating the invoice number, invoice date and customer name in all the rows that relate to the invoice. When the invoice is paid in full, the payment dates need to be repeated in all the lines that relate to the particular invoice and the payment amounts can be copied from the inclusive invoice values for each line.

If a multiple line invoice is partially paid, the payment date and payment amount of the first payment can be entered in the first line that relates to the particular invoice and the other lines need to be left blank. This will ensure that the outstanding invoice balance contains only the part of the invoice which has not been paid. When the next payment is made, the next payment amount and date needs to be entered and if there is still an unpaid part, it will be included in the outstanding balance calculation.

Partial Payments

If a partial payment of an invoice occurs, you should only enter the amount that has actually been paid in the Payment Amount column and the appropriate payment date in the Payment Date column. The unpaid balance will automatically be reflected as the outstanding balance for the appropriate invoice.

When the remaining outstanding part of the invoice is subsequently paid, there may not be space to enter the next payment date and amount if the invoice was included in a single line. You therefore need to insert a new row below the original invoice row, copy all the data from column A to K from the original invoice line, replace the values in the Quantity and Selling Price columns with zero values and enter the new payment amount & date into the row that has been added. These steps need to be repeated if more than two payments are made for any invoice and there aren't sufficient lines to record payment dates & amounts.

Trade Debtors Balances

If you want to view the list of invoices which make up any of the monthly trade debtor balances on the balance sheet, simply enter the month-end date as the balance date in cell R2 and then use the filter arrow next to the column heading in the outstanding balance column to deselect all zero values. All the invoices with balances at the month-end date will then be displayed.

Note: If the total of all the outstanding invoices does not agree to the balance sheet total, make sure that you have entered a unique invoice number for all invoices in column A and that there are no blank values in column A. If you leave invoice numbers blank, it may result in inaccurate outstanding balance calculations if any of the blank entries have not been paid in full.

Sales Tax

The template provides for two sales tax types namely national or federal sales tax and state sales tax. If you only require one sales tax type and you would like to delete the second sales tax type, you will be able to do so without affecting the template formulas by simply deleting the columns for Tax 2 Code (column I) and Sales Tax 2 Amount (column P). All the appropriate sales tax calculations will then only be based on the one sales tax type.

Note: You cannot delete both sales tax types. If you do not require any sales tax calculations, you can leave the sales tax 1 codes in column H blank and delete the sales tax 2 columns indicated above. No sales tax amounts will then be calculated.

Note: No new columns should be added between the Inclusive Amount and Exclusive Amount columns otherwise it will influence some of the sales tax calculations in this template. Also, if you delete the columns for the second sales tax type, the Sales Tax 1 Amount column may display a validation warning but this can safely be ignored as it has no effect on the template calculations. If you do not want to see these validation warnings, just keep both sales tax types and just don't select any tax codes in the second sales tax column.

Tax Invoice

An automated tax invoice has been included on the Invoice sheet. You can create, view or print any tax invoice by simply copying or entering the appropriate invoice number into cell D16 on the Invoice sheet. All the information that is included on the tax invoice should be entered on the Setup, Stock, Customers and Income sheets and the tax invoice is automatically updated based on the invoice number that is specified.

The invoice heading and business details (business name, business address, contact details, tax reference number and business registration number) are entered on the Setup sheet. The billing name, billing address and customer sales tax number are populated from the Customers sheet based on the customer code that is entered on the Income sheet for the specified invoice.

The invoice date is populated based on the data that is entered on the Income sheet for the specified invoice number. If you need to include multiple items on the same invoice, simply enter the same invoice number in multiple rows on the Income sheet. All the rows on the Income sheet up to a maximum of 20 rows per invoice will automatically be added to the Invoice sheet.

If the invoice relates to a stock item, the stock codes are included on the invoice are based on the stock codes that are selected on the Income sheet. The stock descriptions & units of measure are included based on the contents of the Stock sheet and the quantities, selling prices and amounts are based on the entries on the Income sheet.

If the invoice does not relate to a stock item, the stock code will be indicated as "NONSTOCK" and the description for the transaction that has been entered on the Income sheet will be included instead of the stock item's description. The unit of measure will be blank and a quantity of 1 will be included. The tax exclusive amount of the transaction will be included in both the selling price and amount columns.

The banking details that are displayed at the bottom of the invoice are entered on the Setup sheet. If you don't want to include your banking details on your invoices, simply delete this section from the Invoice sheet. You can then also delete the banking details section from the Setup sheet.

Note: We have included an image placeholder at the top of the Invoice sheet which can be deleted and replaced by your business logo artwork.

Customer Account Statement

An automated account statement has been included on the Statement sheet. You can create, view, print or reprint any account statement by simply specifying the appropriate customer code and statement date in cells H16 and H17 respectively. All the other information that is included on the account statement is automatically compiled based on the data that has been entered on the Setup, Customers and Income sheets.

The business details (business name, registration number, business address, contact details and tax reference number) are entered on the Setup sheet. The customer billing name and billing address are populated based on the information entered on the Customers sheet for the customer code that is selected from the list box in cell H16.

The outstanding balance, the balances in the ageing section and the list of outstanding invoices are all automatically calculated based on the invoice details on the Income sheet, the customer code in cell H16 and the statement date in cell H17.

If the statement date falls on a month-end date, all the ageing calculations are based on calendar months but if the statement date falls on any other day of the month, the ageing calculations are based on the day component that forms part of the statement date.

Example: If the statement date is specified as the 20th of January, all invoices dated between the 21st of December and the 20th of January are included in the "Current" ageing group, all invoices between the 21st of November and the 20th of December are included in the "30 Days" ageing group, all invoices between the 21st of October and the 20th of November are included in the "60 Days" ageing group and so forth.

If the statement date is specified as the 31st of January (a month-end date), the ageing is calculated based on calendar months. For example, all invoices dated between 1 January and 31 January are included in the "Current" ageing group, all invoices dated between 1 December and 31 December are included in the "30 Days" ageing group, all invoices between 1 November and 30 November are included in the "60 Days" ageing group and so forth.

It is also important to note that only the invoices that are outstanding on the statement date are included on the customer account statement. Outstanding invoices are invoices that are dated before the statement date with payment dates that are after the statement date, invoices with blank payment dates which indicate that the invoices have not yet been paid and invoices which have been partially paid.

Account statements are therefore compiled on an open item basis - this means that only open or outstanding items are included on account statements and not all the movements on the customer account during a specific period (opening balances, invoices and payments that are included separately). We believe that this is the most efficient method of compiling account statements because it negates the need for complicated account reconciliations.

Note: The Statement sheet includes a maximum of 30 invoices but you can add additional invoices to this sheet by simply copying the formulas from the last row that contains data (row 60) and pasting them into the appropriate number of additional rows. We recommend that you select the entire row before copying & pasting the formulas.

Note: Invoices are listed on the account statement in the same order in which the invoices appear on the Income sheet. If you therefore want to change the order in which invoices are listed, you need to sort the data on the Income sheet accordingly.

Note: We have included an image placeholder at the top of the Statement sheet which can be deleted and replaced by your business logo artwork.

Recording Transactions - Expenses

All expenses and other payment transactions should be recorded on the Expenses sheet. We also recommend entering all journal entries on this sheet. User input is only required in the columns with yellow column headings. All the columns with light blue column headings contain formulas which are automatically copied when adding new transactions to the sheet.

Note: All the columns on the Expenses sheet have been included in an Excel table. This feature is extremely useful when entering data in a table format because the formulas that are included in calculated columns (the columns with light blue column headings) are automatically copied when new rows are inserted into the table or when data is entered into the first blank row below the table. You can therefore enter a new transaction by simply entering a document date in column A - the table will then automatically extend to include the new transaction.

The Expenses sheet contains the following user input columns:
Document Date - enter the supplier invoice date, date of other supporting document or the bank statement date. We've added data validation to this column to ensure that only valid dates are entered - you therefore need to ensure that you enter dates in accordance with the regional date settings that are specified in the System Control Panel.
Supplier - enter the name of the supplier. If the Auto Complete feature is enabled, you should be able to accept its suggestion of the supplier name after entering only a few characters. Note that it is important to enter supplier names accurately if you want to use the Filter feature to display only the transactions for a specific supplier.
Stock Code - select a stock code from the drop-down list in this column if the transaction that you are recording is stock related. If the transaction is not stock related, leave the cell blank. All stock codes that have been added to the Stock sheet will be available for selection.
Reference - enter a reference for the transaction in this column. For example, this could be the supplier invoice number or a more general reference like "Debit Order" or "Bank Statement".
Description - enter a transaction description in this column.
Quantity - if the transaction is stock related, enter the stock quantity in this column. If the transaction is not stock related, enter a nil value.
Tax Inclusive Amount - enter the transaction amount inclusive of sales tax. Expenses and payments should be entered as positive amounts but if you have an income or receipt type transaction that is of an expense or payment nature, the transaction can be entered as a negative value. For example, entering a supplier claim that relates to a supplier invoice which has been recorded previously. In most instances, income and receipt transactions should however be recorded on the Income sheet.
Tax 1 Code - this column contains a drop-down list which enables you to select one of the tax codes added to the Setup sheet and relates to national or federal sales tax. The sales tax percentage which is applied to the transaction is determined based on the sales tax code selected. If your business is not registered for sales tax purposes, all transactions should be recorded by using a sales tax code which has a zero percentage on the Setup sheet. If no sales tax code is selected, no sales tax will be calculated.
Tax 2 Code - this column contains a drop-down list which enables you to select one of the tax codes added to the Setup sheet and relates to state sales tax. The sales tax percentage which is applied to the transaction is determined based on the sales tax code selected. If your business is not registered for sales tax purposes, all transactions should be recorded by using a sales tax code which has a zero percentage on the Setup sheet. If no sales tax code is selected, no sales tax will be calculated.
Bank Code - this column contains a drop-down list which includes all the bank codes that have been added to the Setup sheet. Select the bank code of the bank account that will be affected by the particular transaction. Note that it is imperative that a bank code is assigned to each transaction.
Account Number - the drop-down list in this column contains all the account codes that have been created on the TB sheet. You therefore need to create the appropriate account on the TB sheet before transactions can be allocated to the account. An account number should be selected for every transaction otherwise template imbalances may be encountered. If the transaction is stock related, the account number which has been selected will be replaced by the inventory control account (BS-STG) to ensure that all stock purchases are added to the balance sheet control account for inventory. It therefore does not matter which account is selected for stock related transactions because it will be replaced anyway but we recommend using the direct costs control account (IS-0299).
Payment Date - enter the actual payment date in this column. The date that should be entered in this column should be the date on which the payment is made to the supplier. The payment date should be left blank if payment has not been made to the supplier - the outstanding balance will then be included in trade creditors. Note that the payment date should always be greater than or equal to the document date.

The Expenses sheet contains the following calculated columns:
Expense Type - if the transaction is stock related and the stock code that has been selected is matched to the stock codes on the Stock sheet, the column will contain "STOCK". If the transaction is not stock related or if the stock code which has been selected cannot be matched to the Stock sheet, the column will contain no value.
Outstanding Balance - if an expense has not been paid in full, the outstanding balance will be reflected in this column. The outstanding balance is determined based on the balance date that is entered in cell N2 at the top of the sheet. If the balance date contains no value, the current system date will be used to determine which invoices are currently outstanding. You can therefore use the balance date input cell to calculate the trade creditors balance as at any user defined date.
Exclusive Amount - the formula in this column deducts the sales tax amount from the tax inclusive amount in order to calculate an amount excluding sales tax. For accounting purposes, the exclusive amounts are allocated to the income statement, the sales tax amounts are allocated to the sales tax control accounts and the inclusive amounts are allocated to trade creditors or bank (depending on whether the amounts have been paid or not).
Sales Tax 1 Amount - this column contains a formula which calculates the national or federal sales tax amounts based on the tax codes selected in column H. Sales tax will only be calculated if a sales tax code has been selected in column H. The calculation is based on the sales tax percentages specified on the Setup sheet.
Sales Tax 2 Amount - this column contains a formula which calculates the state sales tax amounts based on the tax codes selected in column I. Sales tax will only be calculated if a sales tax code has been selected in column I. The calculation is based on the sales tax percentages specified on the Setup sheet.
Inclusive Amount - this column is based on the tax inclusive amount which the user enters in column G.
Price Per Unit - if the transaction is stock related, the tax exclusive purchase price per unit will be included in this column. If the transaction is not stock related, a nil value will be displayed.
Final Account - if the transaction is stock related, the account number selected will be replaced by the inventory control account (BS-STG) to ensure that all stock purchases are added to the balance sheet control account for inventory. It therefore does not matter which account is selected for stock related transactions because it will be replaced anyway but we recommend using the direct costs control account (IS-0299). If the transaction is not stock related, the account selection will be used.
Error Code - this column will contain an error code if there is a problem with the input in any of the previous columns. All the error codes that are displayed in this column should therefore be corrected in order to ensure that all the template calculations remain accurate. Refer to the Error Codes section of these instructions for more information about the reasons for an error code and how to resolve it.

Note: The drop-down lists in the Account Number column contains both the account number and description but only the account number should be selected when allocating transactions. Excel doesn't actually allow the inclusion of two columns in a drop-down list but we have implemented a work around to provide the account description together with the account number in the drop-down list. The disadvantage of this work around is that you will not be able to enter account numbers - you either need to select the account number from the list or copy a similar transaction that you have entered before. The column will also contain an error indicator which refers to a data validation error - this is to be expected because of the work around that we implemented and can safely be ignored.

All the transactions that are entered on the Expenses sheet are automatically updated to the other sheets in this template. It is therefore imperative that all transactions are entered according to the guidance that is outlined in this section of the instructions otherwise it could result in imbalances in the template.

Filtering Transactions

All the column headings on this sheet contain a filter selection arrow - this feature indicates that the Filter feature has been activated for the data on this sheet. This Excel feature is very useful when you need to filter the data that forms part of a table based on the filter criteria that are available after clicking the selection arrow.

Example: If you only want to display the transactions for a particular invoice or payment month, you can filter the data based on the Document Date or Payment Date column by selecting the appropriate date filter from the filter menu that is displayed after clicking the selection arrow. After reviewing the filtered data, simply select the "Clear filter" option in the filtered column in order to remove the filter and to display all the transactions on the worksheet.

Note that the visible row numbers are typically displayed in blue when a filter has been applied to the sheet. New transactions should not be entered while a filter is active on the sheet - if you see blue row numbers, all filters need to be removed before data is entered in the next blank row otherwise the Excel table may not extend automatically to include the new transaction.

The sheet also contains totals above the column headings for all columns which contain values and which are suitable for the calculation of transaction totals. The formulas in these cells result in only the transactions that are visible on the worksheet being included in the calculation of the appropriate totals. If you therefore print the sheet while a filter is in effect, the totals above the column headings will be calculated accurately and only include the transactions that have been printed.

Trade Creditors Balances

If you want to view the list of expenses which make up any of the monthly trade creditor balances on the balance sheet, simply enter the appropriate month-end date as the balance date in cell N2 and then use the filter arrow next to the column heading in the outstanding balance column to deselect all zero values. All the expenses with balances at the appropriate month-end date will then be displayed.

Sales Tax

The template provides for two sales tax types namely national or federal sales tax and state sales tax. If you only require one sales tax type and you would like to delete the second sales tax type, you will be able to do so without affecting the template formulas by simply deleting the columns for Tax 2 Code (column I) and Sales Tax 2 Amount (column Q). All the appropriate sales tax calculations will then only be based on the one sales tax type.

Note: You cannot delete both sales tax types. If you do not require any sales tax calculations, you can leave the sales tax 1 codes in column H blank and delete the sales tax 2 columns indicated above. No sales tax amounts will then be calculated.

Note: No new columns should be added between the Inclusive Amount and Exclusive Amount columns otherwise it will influence some of the sales tax calculations in this template. Also, if you delete the columns for the second sales tax type, the Sales Tax 1 Amount column may display a validation warning but this can safely be ignored as it has no effect on the template calculations. If you do not want to see these validation warnings, just keep both sales tax types and just don't select any tax codes in the second sales tax column.

Recording Transactions - Transfers between Bank Accounts

When funds are transferred between two bank accounts, both the deposit and withdrawal entries need to be recorded. We recommend recording both entries on the Expenses sheet. The deposit entry should be recorded by selecting the bank account into which the funds are transferred and entering the transfer amount as a negative value. The withdrawal entry should be recorded by selecting the bank account from which the funds are transferred and entering a positive amount.

All transfers between bank accounts should be allocated to the Cash Transfer Control account (BS-0799). By using this default account for all bank transfers, you can easily determine when only one of the entries (deposit or withdrawal) has been recorded.

Note: You can check whether the balance of the Cash Transfer Control account is nil by selecting the appropriate month end from the list box in cell G3 on the TB sheet and checking whether the balance for account BS-0799 is nil. If the balance is not nil, the transactions for the appropriate period should be reviewed in order to determine why the allocations to the Cash Transfer Control account do not result in a nil balance.

Note: Petty cash transactions should be treated in the same way as transactions that are processed through a bank account. This means that petty cash reimbursements should also be treated as transfers between bank accounts and allocated to the Cash Transfer Control account. Both the withdrawal out of the appropriate bank account and the "deposit" of cash into the petty cash account should therefore be recorded.

Recording Transactions - General Ledger Journal Entries

We recommend that all general ledger journal type entries are also recorded on the Expenses sheet. We have basically created a specific bank code for the recording of journal entries so that these transactions will not have any cash effect when recorded incorrectly.

The debit part of the journal entry should be recorded as a positive value and the credit part should be recorded as a negative value on the Expenses sheet. Both entries should be allocated to the JC bank code.

Note: If the debit and credit parts of all journal entries balance to a total of nil, the JC bank account should always have a nil balance. If you therefore notice that the JC bank account has a balance, it means that you have made an error in recording some of your journal entries. You can then filter the Expenses sheet for all transactions with a bank code of JC and filter the document dates for the appropriate month in order to review all the journal entries for the particular month.

Error Codes

The following error codes may result from inaccurate input on the Income and Expenses sheets and will be displayed in the Error Code columns. The heading of the affected input column will be highlighted in orange:

• E1 - this error code means that the payment date on the Income or Expenses sheet is before the invoice or document date. These errors can be rectified by either amending the appropriate invoice or document date or amending the appropriate payment date.
• E2 - this error code means that the account number that has been selected on the Income or Expenses sheet is invalid. All the accounts that have been entered on the TB sheet will be included in the account number list boxes and the error can therefore be rectified by simply selecting a valid account number from the list box. New accounts must be created on the TB sheet before being available for selection.
• E3 - this error code means that the bank account code that has been selected is invalid. All the bank account codes that have been created on the Setup sheet will be included in the bank code list boxes and the error can therefore be rectified by simply selecting a valid bank account code from the list box. New bank account codes must be created on the Setup sheet before being available for selection.
• E4 - this error code means that the customer account code that has been selected is invalid. All the customer account codes that have been created on the Customers sheet will be included in the customer code list boxes and the error can therefore be rectified by simply selecting a valid customer account code from the list box. New customer account codes must be created on the Customers sheet before being available for selection.
• E5 - this error code means that the stock code that has been selected is invalid. All the stock codes that have been created on the Stock sheet will be included in the stock code list boxes and the error can therefore be rectified by simply selecting a valid stock code from the list box. New stock codes must be created on the Stock sheet before being available for selection. Note that stock codes only need to be selected if a stock related transaction is recorded - if a transaction is not stock related, the Stock Code column should be left blank.
• E6 - this error code indicates that there is a stock on hand inaccuracy. The error usually occurs when a sale is recorded and there is insufficient stock on hand in order for the specified quantity to be sold. There is no quick fix for this error - you need to review all the previous transactions for the affected stock code in order to ascertain why the quantity on hand at the time of recording the sale is inaccurate. Corrections of previous transactions or additions of omitted transactions should be made to resolve this error.

Note: Input errors may result in inaccurate template calculations and it is therefore imperative that all errors are resolved before reviewing the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. These errors may in fact also cause the balance sheet not to balance.

Income Statement

All the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets are automatically updated to the monthly income statement which is included on the IS sheet. All of these income statement accounts are reflected exclusive of any sales tax that may be applicable to the source transactions.

The income statement includes 12 monthly periods, an annual total and a column for comparison to a prior year. The periods are based on the reporting year which is specified on the Setup sheet. If you want to amend the 12 month reporting period, you only need to change the reporting year on this sheet in order for the reporting period and all calculations on the IS sheet to be updated.

The default account integration has been set up in such a way that the turnover, cost of sales, gross profit, operating expenses, staff costs and depreciation & amortization account groups are the only ones that are integrated on an individual account basis. All other account groups are integrated on a group basis which means that all the accounts that are included in the appropriate account groups are included in one total line on the income statement.

Note: You can easily identify a group integration on the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet by the key in column A ending in a "G". If the key does not end in a "G" but includes complete account numbers, it means that the appropriate lines are integrated on an individual account basis.

When an account group is integrated on an individual account basis and you make changes to the account numbers on the TB sheet or if you add new accounts to the account group, you basically also need to make the same changes to the income statement or balance sheet. This means that you either need to update the key in column A if the account numbers have been changed or that you need to insert additional lines for new accounts, copy the formulas from one of the existing lines and edit the key in column A to reflect the new account number(s).

The same process can be followed if you want to change the integration of an account group from account group reporting (with the "G" at the end) to individual account reporting. Additional lines need to be added for all the account numbers that form part of the appropriate account group, the formulas in all columns on the sheet can be copied from the existing line and the keys in column A then need to be replaced by the full account numbers. It may also be necessary to update the appropriate total or profit line which the account groups forms part of.

Note: If you change the reporting of any account group from group to individual reporting and you do not include all account numbers on the income statement, your balance sheet may not balance. It is therefore imperative that you add all individual accounts to the appropriate account group if it is set up to report on an individual account basis. Refer to the TB sheet and more specifically the Status column where all integration errors will be highlighted in red.

Note: If you are not going to use any of the default account groups included on the income statement, we suggest hiding the rows instead of deleting them. If you do decide to delete the rows containing the affected account groups, you may have to fix some of the total or profit calculations. After deleting the account groups, you should also delete the individual accounts on the TB sheet that are linked to the appropriate account groups so that no transactions can be allocated to these account groups.

Turnover, Cost of Sales & Gross Profit

The default template design includes two turnover, cost of sales, gross profit amount and gross profit percentage lines. You can add as many additional lines as required by inserting the appropriate number of new rows in each section, copying one of the existing rows in each section and changing the account numbers in column A.

Note: It is important to insert the new rows in all sections and to insert the new rows in the same place in each section before copying the formulas because the formulas in the gross profit sections are dependent on the relative positions of each row and will not be accurate if the new rows are not included in the same relative positions.

Note: The cost of sales and gross profit amount sections include an additional row for the direct costs control account (IS-0299) which should not be removed. This control account is used as a default account in the cost of sales account allocation on the Stock sheet and should therefore never be deleted. If you do not use direct costs and you do not want the account to be visible on the income statement, you can hide the row.

The account numbers in the gross profit sections are only used in order to populate the descriptions on the income statement. The turnover accounts (IS-01 account group) should therefore be used for all new line items and the cost of sales account number should be used for the direct costs control account.

The formulas in the turnover section calculate the total of all exclusive values that are allocated to the turnover accounts on the Income sheet. These calculations are therefore based on the quantities and selling prices that are entered on the Income sheet and allocated to the appropriate turnover account.

The formulas in the cost of sales section calculate the total of all cost of sales amounts on the Income sheet which are linked to the appropriate cost of sales account. The cost of sales account links are established on an individual stock code basis by linking each stock code on the Stock sheet to a cost of sales account. The cost of sales accounts must form part of the IS-02 account group otherwise the specified account will be replaced by the IS-0299 direct costs control account.

Note: Cost of sales accounts are assigned to stock codes on an individual stock code basis which means that you have the option of including multiple stock codes in each cost of sales account or linking stock codes to their own cost of sales account.

The formulas in the gross profit amount and percentage lines are based on the relative position of the line to the same line in the turnover and cost of sales sections. It is therefore important to include lines consistently if you add more line items to each of these sections.

Note: The direct costs control account does not have a turnover account and the formula which is based on this account in the gross profit section should therefore not be copied when inserting new lines. All new lines should also be inserted above this line in the cost of sales and gross profit amount sections.

Cash Flow Statement

All the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets are also automatically updated to the monthly cash flow statement which is included on the CFS sheet. No user input is required on this sheet.

Note: The same principles with regards to account group integration as included in the Income Statement section applies to the cash flow statement. We do not however recommend changing the default account group integration on this sheet. Most account groups are set to report on an account group total basis and there is no real benefit in switching to individual account integration on the cash flow statement.

Note: The only changes that may be required are the addition of new lines if you have added any new account groups to the template. You then basically need to copy a line of a similar nature (which has a green key in column A) and change the key in column A so that the monthly amounts are calculated based on the new account group.

Note: All the keys in column A which are reflected in orange contain custom calculations relating to specific control accounts which should not be copied for any new account group lines.

Balance Sheet

All the transactions that are recorded on the Income and Expenses sheets are also automatically updated to the monthly balance sheet which is included on the BS sheet. No user input is required on this sheet.

The balances sheet account integration is set up to report account group totals for most of the balance sheet items. The exception is the individual bank accounts in the current assets section which all report individually. If you therefore add additional bank codes to the Setup sheet, you also need to add additional rows in this section to include the new bank codes in the balance sheet. You only need to insert the required number of additional rows and copy the formulas from one of the existing bank account lines to complete this process. The formulas will automatically pick up the correct bank codes.

If you want to change the account integration for any line on the balance sheet from group reporting to individual reporting, you again need to insert the required number of additional rows, copy the formulas from the existing line and replace the account group key in column A with the full account numbers. If you do not add all the accounts that form part of the appropriate account group, your balance sheet may not balance.

Note: If you convert one or more account groups from account group reporting to individual account reporting, you may also need to update the appropriate total column on the balance sheet.

Note: Only the balance sheet items with green account keys can be changed to individual account reporting. The items with orange keys are general ledger control accounts which have unique formulas which cannot be used for any of the other line items on the balance sheet.

Balance Sheet Imbalances

We have included two rows below the balance sheet that contain control totals which indicate whether the balance sheet is in balance. The first row indicates whether the balance sheet balances (which means that the total assets equal the total equity & liabilities) and the second row indicates whether the total of all the bank account balances on the balance sheet agrees to the monthly closing cash balance on the cash flow statement.

Both control totals should always display an "ok" text string but if there is a problem with the appropriate control total, an "error" message which is highlighted in orange will be displayed. This error message means that there is an imbalance in the template and the value of the imbalance will be displayed above the error message for balance sheet errors and below the error message for cash flow statement errors.

We recommend completing the following steps when encountering errors:

• Review the Income and Expenses sheets and ensure that there are no error codes in the Error Code columns. The Error Code columns on both sheets should contain no error codes - if an error code is displayed in any transaction row, refer to the Error Codes section of these instructions for guidance on the reason why an error code is displayed and the corrective action that needs to be taken.
• Review the Income and Expenses sheets and ensure that a bank code has been allocated to all transactions. If there are any blank cells in the Bank Code column, select the appropriate bank code from the list box.
• Review the Income and Expenses sheets and ensure that a valid account number has been selected for all transactions. If there are any blank cells in the Account Number column, select a valid account number from the drop-down list.
• Review the invoice date, document date and payment date columns on the Income and Expenses sheets and ensure that all dates have been entered in accordance with the regional date settings that are specified in the System Control Panel. A quick way of checking this is to format the appropriate date column as values - all valid dates will then be displayed as values and invalid date entries will still be displayed as text which looks like a date. After reviewing all dates, remember to undo the value formatting otherwise the contents of the affected date column will contain values instead of dates.
• Open the Setup sheet and ensure that all additional bank accounts have been added to the TB and BS sheets. If a bank account has not been added to these sheets, the status in column D or E will show as "add!". Refer to the Setup - Bank Accounts section of the instructions for guidance on how to add bank accounts to the appropriate sheet. Once the bank account has been added, the status will automatically change to "ok".
• Open the TB sheet and ensure that the template opening balances (column C) add up to a total of nil. If your opening balances don't balance, the balance sheet will also not balance.
• Review the Status column on the TB sheet and ensure that there are no items highlighted in red. If an item is highlighted in red and contains an error message, it indicates that the appropriate account group has been set to report on an individual account basis and that the highlighted account has not been added to the income statement or balance sheet. If an item is highlighted in red and contains a double error, it means that the account group has been integrated on the individual account number basis but that the group integration (ending in a "G") is also still active on the income statement or balance sheet. The row with the group integration in the Key column on the income statement or balance sheet therefore needs to be deleted.
• Review the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet and check that there are no duplicate keys in column A. If you duplicate an account number or group key, the balance sheet will not balance.

If you've completed all of the above steps and still cannot resolve the imbalance on the balance sheet, contact our Support function for assistance. You probably need to send us your version of the template so that we can determine what the cause of the imbalance is.

Bank Account Movement Analysis

We have included the Bank sheet to enable users to analyse bank account movements for any bank account on a daily and monthly basis. The only user input that is required on this sheet is to select the appropriate bank code and monthly period from the drop-down lists at the top of the sheet.

Note: If you want to display the bank account movement totals for all bank codes, simply clear the contents of the bank code input cell. If no monthly period is selected, the calculations will default to the last month of the current financial year.

Note: Negative values that have been included on the Expenses sheet are deemed to be income and therefore included in the Income columns. Transactions that have been allocated to the JC general journal bank code are not included in the calculations on this sheet.

Sales Tax Analysis

We have also included an additional sheet which enables users to analyse sales tax movements on a monthly basis. The SalesTax sheet breaks the movement in the sales tax control accounts (BS-1700 and BS-1710) down into individual components which makes it easier to calculate sales tax return and paid amounts. If your business is not subject to sales tax, this sheet can be deleted.

The main components of the sales tax control accounts are output tax, input tax and payments. The output tax totals are calculated based on the Sales Tax Amount columns on the Income sheet, the input tax totals are calculated based on the Sales Tax Amount columns on the Expenses sheet and the Payment column includes all transactions on the Income and Expenses sheets which have been allocated to account BS-1700 or BS-1710.

Note: All sales tax payments should be recorded on the Expenses sheet and allocated to the appropriate sales tax control account while all sales tax refunds should be recorded on the Income sheet and allocated to the sales tax control accounts (BS-1700 for national or federal sales tax or BS-1710 for state sales tax).

The Inclusive section provides the monthly totals inclusive of sales tax - as per the Income sheet for the Output column and as per the Expenses sheet for the Input column. These totals are usually required when completing sales tax returns.

The net monthly column is calculated by deducting the monthly input tax value from the monthly output tax value and therefore represents the net monthly sales tax liability (or asset if the input exceeds the output). The effective monthly sales tax percentages are also calculated and included on the sheet.

Note: You can select the tax type from the list box in cell D2 - options include national / federal sales tax, state sales tax or both. If cell D2 is empty, the both option is assumed and the calculations are reflected for both sales taxes and therefore both sales tax control accounts.

Note: You can also select individual sales tax codes from the list boxes in cell E2 and F2 at the top of the sheet to display the calculations based on any of the tax codes which have been included on the Setup sheet. The content of these list box can then simply be cleared to display the values for all sales tax codes.

Note: The template provides for two sales tax types namely national or federal sales tax and state sales tax. If you only require one sales tax type and you would like to delete the second sales tax type, you will be able to do so without affecting the template formulas by simply deleting the columns for Tax 2 Code and Sales Tax 2 Amount on the Income and Expenses sheets. All the appropriate sales tax calculations will then only be based on the one sales tax type.

Note: You cannot delete both sales tax types. If you do not require any sales tax calculations, you can leave the sales tax 1 codes blank and delete the sales tax 2 columns as indicated above. No sales tax amounts will then be calculated.

Gross Profit Analysis

The GP sheet includes a monthly analysis of gross profit percentages and inventory movements which has been added to the template to make it easier to analyse the data for individual stock codes. No user input is required on this sheet - you only need to select the appropriate stock code from the list box at the top of the sheet.

Note: If you delete the contents of the list box, the values on the sheet will be calculated for all stock codes. Only the first four columns will however contain data because individual stock items may have different units of measure and calculating quantity based totals on this basis may therefore be inaccurate.

Roll Forward for Subsequent Financial Periods

After specifying the first financial year on the Setup sheet and including the appropriate opening balances in column C on the TB sheet, the template can be rolled forward for subsequent financial years quite easily. All you need to do in order to roll the template forward for subsequent financial years or back for previous financial years is to amend the reporting year on the Setup sheet.

When you change the reporting year, the monthly reporting periods on all the sheets that are included in the template are automatically changed and all calculations are automatically updated. You therefore do not need to save a separate version of the template for each financial year - you simply continue adding transactions to the Income and Expenses sheets and use the reporting year setting on the Setup sheet to navigate between financial years.