Finance

Finance keeps the general ledger: the accounts your business reports on, the journal entries that move money between them, and the calendar that decides when the books can still change. Every other module posts into this one ledger, so the figures in your reports come from the same entries your invoices, bills and stock movements created.

How it fits together

Part	What it is
Subsidiary	A company or branch that keeps its own books, in its own currency, on its own fiscal calendar.
Currency	A currency you trade in, with the number of decimals amounts are rounded to.
Exchange rate	The rate that converts one currency into another from a given date.
Account	A line of the chart of accounts. Heading accounts group others; Posting accounts take entries.
Dimension	A second way to analyse entries, such as a department or a project, with its own list of values.
Posting profile	A set of default accounts. Customers, vendors, warehouses and tax codes each name one, so their documents post without you picking accounts.
Fiscal year and periods	Twelve monthly periods per subsidiary. An entry posts only into an open period.
Bank account	A bank or cash account, tied to the ledger account its money moves through.
Payment term	When a customer or vendor document falls due.
Journal entry	Balanced debit and credit lines on one date. You write some by hand; the other modules raise the rest.

What reaches the ledger

You do not post most entries yourself. When a document in another module is posted, Axon Suite writes its journal entry at the same moment:

• A customer invoice books the receivable, the revenue and the tax due; a customer payment clears the receivable against the bank.
• A vendor bill books the payable, the expense or the goods received, and the tax to reclaim; a vendor payment clears the payable.
• A goods receipt, shipment, transfer or stock adjustment books the movement in the value of your stock.
• An approved point of sale shift raises a draft entry moving the drawer’s cash to the main drawer; you post it in Finance. The sales themselves were booked by their invoices.

Each of these entries shows in Finance ‣ General ledger ‣ Journal entries, with its Source naming the document behind it. The accounts come from the posting profile on the customer, vendor, warehouse or tax code, so set the profiles up before the first document is posted.

Nota

Customer invoices, payments and credit notes are covered in the Receivables guides, vendor bills and payments in the Payables guides, and the trial balance, income statement and balance sheet in the Reports guides.

The workspace

Go to Finance ‣ Workspace for a daily view. It shows net income for the month to date, total assets and equity, and how many journal entries are still drafts. Recent GL activity lists the last eight journal entries, and Quick actions open a new journal entry, the reports and the setup screens.

Where to start

1. Set up your subsidiaries: the currency each one keeps its books in, and the month its fiscal year starts.
2. Add currencies and exchange rates for every currency you trade in.
3. Build the chart of accounts, by hand or from a file.
4. Set up dimensions if you analyse entries by department or project.
5. Set up posting profiles, so documents know which accounts to use.
6. Generate the fiscal year, so entries have a period to post into.
7. Add your bank accounts.
8. Set up payment terms for customers and vendors.
9. Record journal entries for what no other module posts.
10. Close each period and, at year end, close the fiscal year.