Before you decide to move from period-based to date-based accounting, ensure that you understand the changes required to your day-to-day and period-end processing, as well as reporting and reconciliation tasks.
You can change from period-based to date-based accounting any time – you do not have to wait until end of period or end of year. You can also choose to change to date-based accounting for Suppliers, while still running Customers on a period-based model.
To move customers and suppliers to date-based accounting, follow the process below.
Step 1 – Setups
While still running customers on a period-based model, you can start reviewing your setups to suit for date-based accounting.
Date-driven customer statements (Customers only)
In order to be able to create date-driven customer statements, the Footer section of your statement layout must include the appropriate ageing bands fields to display the amount and description. Therefore, you need to create a date-driven customer statement form layout.
Create a date-driven statement layout
Choose Setups, Customers, Forms Designer, Statement.
Select New to display the New Form dialog box.
In Create new form starting with: choose Copy of Existing Form.
In the Save as field enter a name for the new layout (for example, DATESTAT) and then choose OK.
To delete the “old” ageing band fields, scroll down to the bottom (footer section) of the statement. To highlight multiple fields for deletion, left-click on the field whilst holding down the CTRL key. With all the required fields selected, press the Delete key to remove them.
To add the new ageing band fields, click the Select Field icon on the toolbar
In the Select Field dialog box, select Footer Fields and then scroll to the ageing band fields. To add a field, hold the left mouse button down and drag the field to the footer section of the statement. Repeat this step until you have placed all required fields on the form.
To adjust the font size or text justification, right-click on the field to display the Properties dialog box and make the required changes.
When finished, test the new statement layout by selecting the Test Print icon on the toolbar.
To save the layout, select the Save icon on the toolbar.
🤓Tip: Attaché Software recommends that you use only “Current” and “Overdue” ageing bands, rather than multiple band breakdown. This sends a stronger message to the customers that all overdue balances must be paid, regardless of how old they are. To do this, add ‘Age Band 0 – Amount’ for current and ‘Age Band Overdue – Amount’ for the total overdue balances.
Due Date Options (Customers only)
When using date-based accounting, it is important to specify the actual due date of the invoice. If you are not currently doing this, then you may need to review the Due Date Options. If you are already using due dates on the invoices, you can skip this section.
Set the Due Date Options
Choose Setups, Customers, Options, Customer Options.
In Due Date Options, select your default Payment Terms and Days. This is the default setting for calculating the invoice due date from the invoice date
To set the payment terms for individual customers, choose Customers, Masterfiles, Customers, Maintain.
Select the required Payment Terms and Days for each customer.
🤓Tip: To update a range of customers in bulk, choose Customers, Masterfiles, Customers, Special Maintenance.
Display a due date on the invoices
Choose Setups, Customers, Forms Designer, Invoice.
Add the Due Date field to the header of the invoice layouts.
Step 2 – Parallel processing (Customers and Suppliers)
Continue running end of period rollovers as usual. Print both, date-based and period-based reports and statements and compare them.
Discrepancies between the date-based and period-based reports
You may find some discrepancies between the date-based and period-based reports. This is usually caused by future-dated transactions. These transactions are included on the period-based reports, but not on the date-based reports. Therefore, when printing the Customer/Supplier Ageing Report, set the Include Future Transactions check box to Yes.
🤓Tip: To ensure that the users are not selecting future dates on transactions by mistake, enable date checking.
Enable date checking for each user
Choose File, Maintain Users, Maintain.
Enter the User Name.
In the Date checking area, select Don’t allow if beyond... and set your preferred Number of Days.
Step 3 – Switch to date-based accounting (Customers and Suppliers)
When ready, you can switch to date-based accounting. This will enable the date-based ageing bands throughout the system.
Switch to date-based accounting
Choose Setups, Customers, Options, Customer Options or Setups, Suppliers, Options, Supplier Options.
Move to the Other Options or Date Based Ageing tab and select the Use Date Based Ageing check box.
Select your preferred options for Parameters and Ageing Bands
Choose Accept (F9).
You can now stop processing end of period rollovers.
Running Customers and Suppliers using date-based accounting
Once you switch to date-based accounting, it is important to be aware of and educate other staff about the particulars of date-based accounting.
Using date-driven reports
When you start running Customers and Suppliers using date-based accounting, remember to use the correct date-based rather than period-based reports. For example, use Customer/Supplier Ageing Report instead of Customer/Supplier Aged Trial Balance and use Product Status by Date report instead of the Product Status report.
📌Note: Many other sales and purchasing reports can be run on both, period-based and date-based systems. By default, many customer and supplier reports have the Current Period Only check box selected. When you start using date-based accounting, it is important that you create reports using a report Date Range. You may wish to go through your usual sales and purchasing reports and review the report options.
Review the customer and supplier report options
Choose Customers, Reports, Transactions, Sales Register.
Deselect the Current Period Only check box and choose Save (F5).
Follow steps 1 and 2 for all the customer and supplier reports you normally use.
Processing transactions in multiple periods
Date-based accounting allows you to process transactions that belong in the previous, current and future periods. While you can enter customer and supplier transactions with any date, when posting these transactions to BAS and General Ledger, you must select the posting period number and the date range of the transactions to be posted.
Posting transactions to BAS by date range
To post transactions to BAS by date range:
Choose Period End, Customers, Customer BAS, BAS Update or Period End, Suppliers, Supplier BAS, BAS Update.
Select the BAS Period to post to.
Select a Date Range for the transactions to be posted then choose Update (F9).
Posting transactions to General Ledger by date range
To post transactions to General Ledger by date range:
Choose General Ledger, Transactions, Other Modules, Post from Other Modules.
Select the Period Number to post to.
Select the Modules to Post.
Set Adjust Selections check box to Yes.
Select a Date Range for the transactions to be posted then choose Accept (F9).
🤓Tip: Enable the General Ledger Auto-Period so that the system automatically determines the date range based on the Period Number in General Ledger Other Module Transaction Posting
Enable the General Ledger Auto-Period
Choose Setups, General Ledger, Options, General Ledger Options.
Set the Auto Period check box to Yes.
Confirm that the Days are set correctly for each period then choose Accept (F9).