Computer accounting with peachtree by sage complete accounting 2010 pdf

In the Cash Account list, enter or select the bank account in which the receipt is deposited. On the Apply to Invoices tab, select the Pay check box next to each invoice that the customer is paying. Peachtree will fill in the Amount Paid field. Peachtree will automatically select the Pay check box. Note: If your customer overpays the amount, a credit is made to the customer's ledger; for underpayments, the payment amount is applied to the invoice balance.

Select the Print button if you want to print and save the receipt. Page 17 of 29 16 Enter Customer Returns 1. From the Tasks menu, select Credit Memos. Peachtree displays the Credit Memos window. In the Credit field, enter the ID that you want to apply to the credit memo.

If the transaction date is different from the one displayed, enter or select a new date. When line-item information for the invoice appears, find the item or items to be returned, and in the Returned column enter the quantity. Peachtree will automatically restore this quantity to inventory. If you want to print the credit memo, we recommend that you print it at this time and not from Reports. To print the credit memo, select the Print button.

When finished, select Save. Enter or select the Vendor ID. To display a list of existing vendor, type? Page 18 of 29 17 When the vendor is selected, Peachtree supplies the vendor default information, including billing and shipping addresses, purchase account, shipping method, payment terms. If this vendor has open purchase orders, the Apply to purchase Order tab appears in front. Otherwise, enter an invoice number or other reference number.

If you have entered a default shipping address in the vendor's record, the first shipping address will appear on the invoice. If not, you can enter the vedor's purchase order number now or change the default to any other piece of information that will identify this invoice to the vendor. If you have entered a default shipping method in the vendor's record, it will appear.

Peachtree uses the default terms you have entered for the vendor, but you may want to select the Terms button to change the default discount dates or amounts for this invoice. Apply Payment to Vendors. To select a range of vendors whose invoices you want to pay: 1.

From the Tasks menu, choose Select for Payment. Enter the check date. This is the date that will be printed on the checks. Next, you can filter invoices based on the due date or the discounts lost by date. For example, if it is March 18th and you want to see all invoices due before March 31st, enter March 31st in the Invoices Due Before field.

If, instead, you want to see invoices whose discounts will be lost by March 30th, enter March 30th in the Discounts Lost By field. Select which invoices you want to include. You can include all invoices or specific ones based on the number of days overdue and the balance amount.

Enter either a range of vendors, or enter the starting vendor if you want to print a check for a single vendor. Select the Always take discounts regardless of due date check box if you want discounts calculated even if the discount date has passed. When all selections are correct, click OK.

From the Tasks menu, select Vendor Credit Memos. To display a list of existing Vendors, type? If you want to print the Vendor credit memo, we recommend that you print it at this time and not from Reports. Write Checks 1. From the Tasks menu, select Write Checks. Enter or select the ID of the vendor you want to pay. If you are entering a handwritten check, enter the check number in the Check Number field. If you want Peachtree to print the check, Page 21 of 29 20 leave this field blank.

If this is an electronic payment, the Check Number field will read "Electronic. Enter or select the date of the disbursement, not necessarily today's date.

Enter the total amount of the check. If desired, enter a memo up to 30 characters long. Enter or select the cash account from which you will be writing the check.

If you want to distribute this payment to multiple individual line items, select the Split button. The Split Transaction window appears, allowing you to make additional distributions.

In the Description field, Peachtree offers a default description for the distribution. If needed, change it. Page 22 of 29 21 9. Typical General Journal entries include chart of account beginning balances, depreciation, and account transfers.

Here, you also enter adjustments you need to make during Account Reconciliation. Such adjustments are necessary to account for errors, service charges, check charges, or unrecorded withdrawals or deposits.

Unlike other screens in Peachtree, you provide all the accounting distributions in the General Journal. At other times, Peachtree automatically distributes certain amounts, based on guidelines you set in Maintain menus. Peachtree defaults this date to the Peachtree system date. Select the Reverse check box to have the transaction automatically reversed the first day of the next accounting period. Reversing means that debits become credits and credits become debits.

Page 23 of 29 22 For each line enter or select an account ID. If the transaction is associated with a job, enter or select a job ID. You can later apply the General Journal entry to a customer invoice, if needed. To record an inventory adjustment 1. From the Tasks menu, select Inventory Adjustments.

Peachtree displays the Inventory Adjustment window. Enter or select the item ID you want to adjust. To display a list of existing items, type? This can only be an item classified as a stock item, serialized stock item, assembly item, or serialized assembly item. If the item is serialized, the Serial No button will become available when you select the item ID. You will need to enter or select serial numbers after you have entered an adjustment quantity in Step 7.

Enter anything you like in the Reference field up to 20 alphanumeric characters. For example, you could enter your initials or the date in this field. Enter or select the date the change in inventory occurred or the date of the physical inventory count.

The date is automatically filled in as the current system date. If you are tracking jobs, enter or select a job to attach this adjustment to. Page 24 of 29 23 6. The other account affected by adjustments is the inventory account. The Unit Cost default is the current cost of the item and must be positive. Enter the amount to adjust the quantity by. The Quantity on Hand is already filled in, and Peachtree calculates the New Quantity after you enter the adjustment.

If this adjustment is being made to a serialized inventory item, select the Serial No button. Depending upon whether you enter a positive or negative quantity, either the Serial Number Entry or the Serial Number Selection window will appear. To find out which window will appear, click here. After you have entered or selected serial numbers, click OK to return to the Inventory Adjustments window.

If you know the reason for the adjustment, enter it. For example, Found in warehouse or Theft. Save the adjustment. Accounts: Depreciation Expense, Accum. Depreciation-Equipment 2. From the Tasks menu, select Account Reconciliation. Peachtree displays the Account Reconciliation window. Enter or select the account you want to reconcile. Enter the Statement Ending Balance the ending balance amount included on the bank statement in the lower-right section of the window.

Transactions that are available to be cleared are listed at the center of the window; you can use the Show drop-down arrow button to select which transactions you would like to appear.

By default, checks are sorted by check number. You can change the sort order by clicking the heading of the column you want to sort by. Check to see if these amounts are correct. If any items represent duplicate entries or bank errors, you can delete them in this window. Select the Clear check box next to each item that is included on the bank statement.

You can also use the right-click menu buttons that appear when you select a row; both give you additional options. In addition, you can select the All button to select all transactions as cleared.

Or you can select the Range button to choose a range of checks or deposits to clear. Page 26 of 29 25 When all transactions listed on the bank statement are entered and cleared in Peachtree and outstanding transactions have been accounted for, the unreconciled difference should be zero 0.

If not, check the bank statement to make sure that each transaction listed is also entered in Peachtree. For example, a service charge listed on the statement may need to be entered in Peachtree.

Peachtree Complete Accounting and higher only: If the list of transactions includes bank records imported electronically, some may not have been autocleared by Peachtree. Once the program has been removed and the process is complete, select the Finish button. Troubleshooting Installation Below are frequently asked questions that may help you resolve errors when starting Peachtree.

This is a Windows message that may appear, especially if you are operating in a network environment. In order to install Peachtree on your computer, you must have full access administrative rights to your local hard drive. This allows Peachtree Setup to install the program files and make the proper entries to the Windows Registry. Please exit and log into Windows as a user who has full administrative rights and try again.

Or, contact your system administrator to change your user rights. Your data will be converted to the new Peachtree format the first time you open your company.

Once you convert your company to the new release, you cannot use your data with any prior releases of Peachtree. For that rea- son, we strongly suggest that you back up your data to diskettes before con- verting your company files. Q: What will happen to my custom reports, forms, and financial statements?

They will be converted and available for use in the new Peachtree format. You can no longer use them in prior releases. In most cases, your custom reports, forms, and financial statements will not change.

However, you may notice new functionality in design areas. How should I install Peachtree? Install Peachtree now as a normal stand-alone computer not attached to a network. When you install on the server, you will specify a company data file path on the server machine. Next, copy your company data folder to the server, to the same path you specified in the previous step.

Then, install Peachtree on each workstation, pointing each one to the company data folder on the server. Finally, uninstall Peachtree on the original machine and reinstall it so you can point it to the new company data path.

What should I do? Your computer is having difficulties installing one of the files from the Peachtree compact disc. Try installing the program on another computer. Turning off screen savers and virus checkers may also help.

If you suspect that the compact disc is damaged, please contact Peachtree Customer Sup- port for a replacement. Peachtree either does not have enough memory to load these files or it can- not find the files to load. If Peachtree is on a network, check your network connections. You may have to restart your computer to establish the connec- tion to remote network drives. Restarting your computer will also reset your memory. Peachtree does not support large system fonts in your Windows display set- tings.

To use Peachtree, please switch your system fonts to the small font typically used in Windows. First, check your network connections. You may have to restart your computer to establish the connection to remote network drives. Check to see if these files are actually installed to your data path. If not, reinstall Peacht- ree. You should also check the system requirements for your Peachtree prod- uct to make sure you are using supported network software.

If you have First Accounting , you can convert to First Accounting Before you launch the wizard, there are some precautionary tasks you may want to perform. This will speed up the conversion process and avoid errors.

The conversion may require up to three times the size of your company data to convert successfully, depending on the version you are converting. For example, if your com- pany is 6 MB, make sure 18 MB of hard disk space is free. Peachtree uses the extra space temporarily while converting.

If there is a lot of company data, we recommend performing conversion at the end of the workday. Also, while the wizard requires that you back up your company data during the conversion process, you can do so beforehand too.

In either case, back- ing up company data is highly recommended. Never overwrite an existing conversion backup. If your company is in a prior Peachtree format, the Data Conversion wizard appears. If it does not, data conversion is not necessary. The Data Conversion wizard walks you through converting your Peachtree company data to an updated format.

At every point in the process, the wiz- ard makes your options clear and tells you the consequences of every action you might take.

Data Conversion Wizard - Introduction window informs you that your company data needs to be converted. If you need additional information or instructions, click Help on any wizard window. Peachtree will convert most QuickBooks and DacEasy lists such as accounts, customers, vendors, employees, items, and jobs and current balances. PDF is available. To view or print the DacEasy Conversion Guide, follow these steps: 1 Open the folder on your hard drive where Peachtree is located.

The PDF is located there. It keeps track of the money you earn through selling products and services to customers and the money you spend buying what you need from other companies vendors. It keeps track of the inventory that you sell, reordering items as they are sold. It makes it easier to pay your employees and track their benefits and taxes.

Through reports, it also provides you with data for making important deci- sions about your business. Because we are doing a walkthrough in a Peachtree sample company, you can open Peachtree and follow along by actually entering information in Peachtree as you read this chapter. Customers can be individuals or other businesses who pay you money.

In accounting and in Peachtree, tasks and reports that pertain to customers are categorized as Accounts Receivable AR. Because Thompson is a new customer, the salesperson will need to create a new customer record in Peachtree. Once the customer record is created, the salesperson will create a Sales Order. Creating a Sales Order A Sales Order tracks the items that a customer has ordered from your com- pany. Usually, you use a sales order if there is going to be a delay between the time a customer orders the goods or services and the time you actually deliver them.

Select the customer and. Sales orders are optional. If your business sells items over the counter or you ship items and create a bill for the customer an Note invoice immediately, you may not need to use sales orders.

At this point, the employee from Thompson has placed the order. The following illustration shows you this process. To notify them that their goods have been shipped and that they owe you money, a bill, or invoice, is created and sent, sometimes with the goods or sometimes separately.

Sales Invoices show the goods that were shipped and how much the cus- tomer is being billed for them. They are usually used for customers who are given a certain number of days to pay, that is, customers who buy on credit.

Invoices show the customer name, shipping address, invoice number, pay- ment terms, and items that were shipped, including a total and any sales tax.

Peachtree also has a library of service business forms, such as a service invoice form, that you can use to print your invoices just the way you want. It is time to bill Thompson for the goods that were sold. For this, the billing department will create a Sales Invoice. The Apply to Sales Order No. In Peachtree, you can print a hard copy of an invoice to mail to the customer or send with the goods; or you can e-mail the invoice in Note PDF format if you send invoices separately.

Just click Print or E- mail on the Sales Invoicing toolbar. Peachtree helps you to record payments from your customers and cre- ate bank deposit slips.

In Peachtree, these customer payments are called Receipts. Receipts are records that track any sorts of money received from customers.

If you are entering over the counter sales, you can use the Apply to Revenues tab to select the items that were shipped. When you print the Receipt, it will show the items and If the customer is paying invoices, amounts.

Creating Deposit Slips Once payments made in cash or by check have been entered into the system, they can be taken to the bank for deposit. A bellwether employee creates a deposit slip to take checks and cash to the bank. Select the items you are depositing. Purchasing Goods and Services Every business needs to make purchases and spend money, whether it is buying items for inventory, purchasing equipment and supplies for internal use, or just paying utility bills and taxes.

These purchases are made from other businesses and individuals who are called vendors in Peachtree. Each vendor has its own record that tracks addresses, phone numbers, payment terms, and so on. The following example shows a business using the main Accounts Payable tasks. A business may not need or want to use all tasks. Entering a Purchase Order Purchase Orders are a way to track items that have been ordered from ven- dors.

They include the vendor name and address, date, a unique number, payment terms, and a list of the items being ordered. Also, they can protect both the purchaser and the vendor in the case of a dis- pute over price or items shipped.

In many businesses, only certain individu- als are authorized to issue purchase orders and they must initial or sign an order before it is sent out. Bellwether needs to order several items that are low in quantity on hand. The agent calls Akerson to verify the prices of the items she wants to purchase and creates a Purchase Order in Peachtree.

This invoice could be for items on Purchase Orders or other types of bills, such as utility bills. The bill will show what items were received, how much they cost, and the total amount that the company now owes the vendor. Bellwether has received the items it ordered from Akerson and the bill arrived with the package. To track this bill its amount and due date and to update the quantity-on- hand of the inventory items that were received, a Bill, or Purchase Invoice, will be entered in Peachtree.

If this purchase invoice records If any of this bill was paid for at items received from a Purchase the time of purchase, you can Order, use the Apply to Purchase enter it here. Order tab. In this way, Peachtree knows how much of a Purchase order has been filled.

Plus, you can compare the actual quantities and prices against what you ordered. Several days have passed since Bellwether received the bill from Akerson. To cut a check, the clerk will use Payments. Making a Payment In Peachtree, payments you make to vendors are recorded using Payments.

A Payment is any amount of money sent to a vendor for goods or services purchased. It could be made in cash, by check, or with a credit card. If you are paying any other type If an invoice is being paid, use of bill, for instance, a utility bill the Apply to Invoices tab and or another bill that did not have specify the invoices being paid.

You can also enter deposits sent to vendors here. Managing Inventory Different types of businesses buy and sell different types of things that can be managed as inventory. Retail businesses, such as clothing stores, maintain stock items that are purchased and sold, and whose cost and quantity are tracked.

Service-oriented businesses, such as day care centers, sell services that have fixed costs and prices, such as fees per hour or per day. Bellwether has decided to stock several additional gardening handbooks. These need to be added to inventory so they can be bought and sold.

These are items that can be bought or sold and whose cost and quantity-on-hand are tracked. Peachtree keeps track of the cost of these items as you purchase them. These are items that can be sold but have a fixed cost, entered by you. Some ser- vice businesses will also use Stock items because they also sell merchan- dise.

A beauty salon, for instance, sells various services but sells supplies as well. Activity items are different types of time, phone calls, meetings, etc. Once the item has been created using Maintain Inventory, you can select it. Peachtree will automatically display the Description and Unit Price of the item. Paying Employees Peachtree offers a full-service payroll management feature that allows you to maintain employee records, set up deductions and taxes, pay employees, and generate tax documents for quarterly and year-end reporting.

Once you have set up payroll by creating deductions and taxes and employee records, you can use Payroll Entry to print checks for employees for either paper distribution or direct deposit. See www. Note The payroll clerk needs to cut a bonus check for a Bellwether salesperson. This check will include deductions for income taxes.

Otherwise, leave the field blank. Peachtree will assign a check number when you print the check. Using Reports to Make Decisions Being able to see how your business is doing--who owes you money, who you need to pay, what items need reordering, and so on--is integral to run- ning your business. Peachtree includes a wide variety of standard reports that show you what you need to know about your business to make key business decisions and keep the cash flowing properly.

Click Print to print the report to If you want to attach the report to an e-mail, paper, or click Display to view the generate a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with report on the screen. On the left, you see the general On the right, you see the list of reports areas of the program, with the and a description of each. Double-click current selection highlighted. The AR clerk wants to see who owes the customer money. She will print the Aged Receivables report.

You can modify these reports to suit your needs. Depending on the report, the fields or data that you can filter will vary. The Aged Receivables report will be filtered to show only customers who have balances over 90 days overdue.

You can change the date range, change the order of the report Sort by , or choose to summarize omit the details and show only high-level totals. When you select a Filter here You can also change which columns of data appear on each report.

If certain columns that appear on a report are not pertinent for your company, you can choose to remove them from the report. In addition, you can add col- umns for information that is not normally shown on the report.

Now, the Aged Receivables report will be modified so that it no longer shows the tele- phone number. To move a column, select it, then use these buttons. You can also save these changes to filtering and columns by clicking Save in the toolbar. This will include the basic information about your company, such as name, address, accounting method, and accounting peri- ods.

This is discussed in this book in the next chapter. To get more training on how to use Peachtree, look up www. Peachtree walks you through the process of creating a new company.

This makes it easier to get your new company started. You need only enter a minimum of information to initially set up your com- pany. This information includes the chart of accounts, your accounting method, your posting method, and your accounting period structure.

Accounting Methods One up-front decision is the type of accounting method used. The two dif- ferent accounting methods reflect the way you record income and expenses. In cash-basis accounting, you recognize income and expenses only when you receive or spend cash. You will enter transactions for the cash receipts or disbursements when you get money from your customers or when you pay your bills.

In cash-basis accounting, you recognize revenue only when the money actually comes in. In accrual accounting, you recognize revenue as soon as you invoice the customer, even though the customer has not paid you yet.

You should use Accrual Accounting when. This includes any merchandise you sell. The IRS requires this. For example, publicly traded companies are required to follow GAAP and issue their financial statements using accrual based account- ing. Otherwise, you are largely free to choose which method you use.

We highly recommend that you consult your accountant, if you have one, before making a choice. Benefits of Cash-Basis Accounting Many small, service-type businesses accountants, lawyers, consultants like cash-basis accounting. There are three main benefits to this method. Since most small service companies have more receivables than payables, cash basis may be the best bet. Benefits of Accrual Accounting Businesses with inventory or that work on credit should use Accrual accounting.

Income and expenses are recognized when they are earned or incurred, regardless of when they are received or paid. There are two Posting: Posting is the options: batch and real-time posting. In batch process of updating the posting, the transactions you enter are saved to a General Ledger's chart of temporary holding area, where you can review accounts to reflect all journal entries that have them before posting the batch to the General been entered into the Ledger.

In real-time posting, the transactions system. Posting also you enter are both posted and saved when you updates all GL and other click the Save button.

In batch posting, transac- accounting reports. Check with your accountant, if you have one, to see which method you should use. While you need to make a choice between posting methods whenever you create a new company, you can always change this option at any time. When you change from batch to real-time, all unposted batches are posted before the switch is made. Dates and Accounting Periods A really important thing to think about is the starting date for converting to Peachtree.

It must be a date on which you know all your account balances, customer balances, vendor balances, and so on. If possible, the start date should be the end of the previous fiscal year. If you want reports comparing this year to last year, the starting date could be the end of the previous year.

A special feature of Peachtree is that you can have two years open at once up to twenty-six periods. It also gives you flexibility as to when you convert. For example, you can set the first accounting period to the first period of your fiscal year, mak- ing it easier to close your next accounting year. You also get to decide how often you want to run financial statements.

Peachtree lets you have from one to thirteen periods in your fiscal year; a twelve-period fiscal year based on the calendar year is standard. But some companies start their fiscal year with some month other than January and end it with some month other than December.

Account Aging Finally, you should know something about account aging before you create your Peachtree company. Peachtree can age vendor and customer invoices by due date or invoice date. If you age by invoice date, the aging reports show how old each invoice and each balance is.

If you age by due date, the aging reports show how overdue each invoice is. For this reason, many busi- nesses choose to age accounts payable by due date and accounts receivable by invoice date.

The way you age invoices is established in Vendor and Customer Defaults. The leftmost column on the aging reports shows balances for the most recent or least overdue invoices, while the rightmost column shows balances for the oldest or most overdue.

The range is either the number of days beyond the invoice date or beyond the due date, depending on how you choose to age your invoices. This wizard walks you through creating a new company and prompts you for each piece of information you enter; you need to enter all information the wizard asks for. The buttons at the bottom of each window let you go back, move forward, or cancel the setup process.

The Help button gives you immediate assistance for the current setup window. Click here to move Click here to stop forward one step. This is the toolbar that appears on the Click here to save your last setup page. The Create a New Company - Introduction window appears. Company Information Window The next window lets you enter general information about your company.

The business type defines the kind of business you run and determines the makeup of the Equity section of your chart of accounts. You can change the business type at any time. Accounts are used to classify transactions for reporting purposes. Using a Sample Business Type Selecting this option will allow you to choose a sample business type from many that Peachtree has on file.

Each account you set up in your chart of accounts contains an identifier known as an account ID ; a description for each account; and a type code. As you add accounts, Peachtree recommends you number accounts in a way similar to that for other accounts of the same account type.

This helps you locate accounts more easily. Even if you choose to create a brand new account structure, Peachtree still recommends that you identify accounts within a given account type in a similar way. For example, you might number all asset accounts The simplified chart of accounts contains the basic accounts you need to get started. Later, you can modify these elements to suit your new company.

Convert a Company If you choose to convert a company, you will not make any other Chart of Accounts selections. You will go directly to the window where you choose your accounting method. You have the ability to cre- ate and define up to five segments for your account ID. Seg- ments are useful if you departmentalize your chart of accounts or use any other parts of your account ID to define different parts of your company. A consolidated company is one that combines the charts of accounts of a number of existing Peachtree companies to create a new con- solidated chart of accounts.

The new consolidated company created in this way will let you see consolidated financial statements for a number of sub- sidiary companies operating under an umbrella organization. To add an available Click Add Peachtree company to the new consolidated company, select it here. It will appear in the Selected subsidiary companies list box. So be sure to choose the right one. Choose either Real Time or Batch. Accounting Periods The first window you see lets you choose one of two options: 12 monthly accounting periods or Accounting periods that do not match the calendar months.

When you complete Create a New Company, your system date for Peacht- ree will be the date of your computer. When you are ready to begin entering data, you will need to change the accounting period. Make sure you have these set Warning correctly before you select the Finish button.

Just click the Finish button, and Peachtree will create your new company. Of course, if you want to make any changes beforehand, you can always click the Back button to return to the appropriate Create a New Company wizard window. We recommend that you follow the order laid out in this book for setting up your company, beginning with your chart of accounts.

Generally, you should set up defaults for a section of your company before you enter records. Ideally, you would enter all your records and their beginning balances prior to entering transactions but this is not practical, so Peachtree provides the Fast Add feature that helps you enter customer records at the same time as you enter transactions.

You can re-open it at any time by selecting the Company option on the Navigation Bar, and then clicking the Setup Guide button under Company Tasks. Or you can re-open it by simply selecting File, then Setup Guide.

This guide is designed to walk you through the process of completing new company setup. Click one of the links to begin setting up the parts of that area of Peachtree. Each link will open a window with several easy to follow steps for setting up that area of the program. When you select one of the links to an area of the program, a second win- dow opens.

Follow the steps to set up that part of your company. To proceed to the next step, click Next. Each time you save or post a transaction, an entry is made to at least two accounts—a debit and a credit. In this time-honored way, you ensure that your books are always in balance.

We recommend that you copy one of the many Peachtree charts of accounts. Because account names are often standardized in accounting, you will surely be able to save time by tweaking the Peachtree chart of accounts versus entering one from scratch. Peachtree checks to make sure your beginning-balance entries balance—that the sum of assets and expenses equals the sum of liabilities, equity, and income.

The net difference is added to the retained earnings account. You can only create one account using the Equity Retained Earnings account type. In all tasks except the General Journal, Peachtree performs some of the accounting dis- tribution for you, based on accounts you establish in the default information accessed through the Maintain menu or the setup checklist.

However, you should establish a consistent, logical system that everyone who uses Peachtree can easily understand. Spaces in the middle are allowed. There is no rigid scheme for departments and sub-accounts. Most of Accounting, you can the time account numbers containing these spe- use a feature named cial codes will not require any special treatment. Two other important points about coding your See page Entering or Modifying Accounts The Maintain Chart of Accounts window is used to add new accounts, including your bank accounts.

You can modify the description of an existing account, delete an existing account, make an account inactive, or change the account type for an account. Select the Account account ID here. Beginning Balances button to adjust balances. Bank accounts are set up just like other Cash-type asset accounts. They should follow the numbering scheme of your chart of accounts. These adjustments result from an error in recording revenues or expenses for a previously closed fiscal year.

If you enter a new account, Peachtree assumes that this account has a zero balance. You may find it easier to add all necessary accounts and then create one cumulative beginning balance entry. Then, select the accounting period in which you want to enter or adjust balances, and click OK. Click or tab to any of the white cells in the grid to change or add an amount.

You can add a new account from this window. The Trial Balance should be zero when assets and expenses equal liabilities, equity and income. The gray cells are disabled. If necessary, you can enter a negative amount; just type a minus sign before the number. Note that for each period, a run- ning beginning balance is kept. Thus, if you change an amount in Period 1, the amounts for subsequent periods are also changed.

However, if you change an amount in Period 2, the same account balance in Period 1 is unchanged. If you are out of balance, a message will appear warning you that an equity account will be created or updated to contain the difference or out-of-bal- ance amount. This account does not appear in the Beginning Bal- ances window, but it will appear in the list of accounts and on financial statements and general ledger reports. You should try to find the reason for the out-of-balance situation and cor- rect it if possible.

Select Cancel when the warning message appears. If you are entering beginning balances from financial statements supplied by your previous accounting system or by your accountant, you most likely made an error in data entry. If you still cannot find the error, you can select OK at the warning message. Your books will be in balance, and you can proceed with setting up your company. Then later, if you find the cause of the out-of-balance situation, you can go back to the Beginning Balances or Prior Period Adjustments window and correct the situation.

You can even begin entering and posting transactions. Remember that once you post transactions, you will need to enter Prior Period Adjustments and not Beginning Balances.

Once the Beginning Balance Equity account has no transactions associated with it, you can delete the account. You can filter the accounts you budget for by account type income statement accounts, expenses, etc. In Peachtree Premium and higher, you can also filter by account segment. Maintain Budgets is not available in Peachtree First Account- ing. You can create budgets with data for up to four fiscal years the two open years and the year before and after.

When you close the year in Peachtree, your budget automatically "rolls over. If you close , the available budget years are , , , and The budget data for , , and will remain the same as it was before the year was closed. The budget data for will be blank. You can then tweak the budget data as needed. You can filter the accounts that display by You can quickly build a account type, accounting segments if budget by copying an existing used , or fiscal year.

You can also copy amounts from another budget Peachtree Premium and above or from the open budget. When you select to build a budget from actual amounts, you can then select a range of accounting periods to copy from. New Budget Peachtree Premium and above : Click the New but- ton to create a new budget for projections or comparisons.

Autofill Budget: Use autofill to fill in the displayed budget with either amounts copied from a budget or actual data. Excel: You can copy your budget to Microsoft Excel to manipulate data or perform calculations, then copy sections back to Peachtree.

The account you select can be any account since it is a temporary holding area, but we recommend you use an equity account. This account is only used to store rounding differences for financial statements. You can select any account, but we recommend the Retained Earnings account.

Account Segments Peachtree Premium Accounting Account segmentation allows you to formally segment your chart of accounts. Then you can use the segment selection features in Peachtree's reporting to filter reports based on particular segments of the account ID.

Using this feature, you can quickly and easily produce and print reports and financial statements for a particular department or division of your business, or any other segment such as location, restriction status, and so on. Enter your segment descriptions, lengths, and separators in the appropriate fields. Here, you can create or change formal segments for your chart of accounts ID. This will allow you to take full advantage of the masking and filtering features of Peachtree Premium when you print reports and financial state- ments.

You can use this feature for printing reports that are filtered by department, division, account ID, or any other segment you create. If your chart of accounts is already set up and you change the segment structure, Peachtree Premium will scan your chart of accounts and inform you if any do not fit the new segment structure. You can then print your Chart of Accounts report to identify those accounts. You can formally segment your chart of accounts ID by creating descrip- tions, lengths, and separators for up to five segments.

You can set up both default and specific customer information. Default informa- tion is good for all of the customers you deal with, but each customer will need special treatment too.

Customer Default Information Setting up customer default information helps streamline the process of entering customer transactions and populates customer reports and forms.

For instance, Net due in 30 days will be the default value in Maintain Customers. Here, you enter defaults for finance vendor and customer invoices by invoice date charges and different ways that your customers OR due date. If you age by pay you. Finally, if there are special terms you invoice date, aging reports use to identify your customers, you can set them show how old each up as custom fields. If you age by due date, Standard Payment Terms aging reports show how The nice thing about standard terms is, once you overdue each invoice is.

So it might be smart to set them up, you can go to the Maintain Cus- age customer invoices by tomers window and tell Peachtree you want a invoice date and vendor certain customer to be covered by them.

Then enter the Discount Percent. If you want to specify a default sales account, you can do that. If certain customers have special payment terms, you can modify their records individually in Maintain Customers.

The QuickBooks Conversion Tool is a free downloadable tool that easily imports business data Simple Start A solution to synchronize transactions invoices and payments from FreshBooks to Sage Peachtree. During synchronizing Valid amount for Sage Peachtree Open your bank file in format you have and convert to OFX format.

Peachtree Password Recovery is a program to recover lost or forgotten passwords for Peachtree Accounting company files. Peachtree Password Recovery Peachtree Key recovers passwords for Peachtree Complete Accounting company files. Time Guardian is an employee time tracking software designed to minimize payroll management. Simply Free Inventory Software!