TBA Specialist: Accounting and Reporting · about 10 hours

After this lesson you can #

• Read a journal entry and say whether it balances and why.
• Say what every common transaction posts to the ledger.
• Lock periods, close a year, and explain what the closing entry does.
• Import a bank file, match it, and reconcile an account to a statement.
• Choose the right financial report and explain why two reports can differ.

Why it matters #

The ledger is the company’s record. Every module posts to it, so an accounting specialist can follow any number back to where it came from.

Read #

• Accounting Overview and Banking Overview
• General Ledger and G/L Accounts
• Fiscal Year and Year-End Closing
• Bank Import and Reconciliation
• Deposits and Account Register
• Fixed Assets
• Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, Cash Flow Statement, Cash Flow Forecast
• Report Designer

Double entry and the ledger #

Every posted journal entry has total debits equal to total credits. Assets and expenses normally carry debit balances; liabilities, equity and revenue carry credit balances. The accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Equity. The trial balance lists every account’s balance so you can check that debits equal credits. A posted entry is voided by a reversing entry: the original and its reversal both stay in the ledger, so the history is kept and the net effect is zero. Classes tag entries so reports can be filtered by department, job or other grouping.

What posts automatically #

• Invoice saved: debit accounts receivable; credit revenue and any sales tax owed. Stocked items also debit cost of goods sold and credit inventory.
• Payment received: debit Undeposited Funds; credit accounts receivable.
• Deposit made: debit the bank account; credit Undeposited Funds.
• Bill saved: debit expense or inventory; credit accounts payable.
• Bill payment: debit accounts payable; credit the bank or card account.
• Depreciation: debit depreciation expense; credit accumulated depreciation.
• Invoice voided: a reversing entry, with the original left in place.

Undeposited Funds exists so the bank account matches what the bank will show once the deposit is made.

Periods and year-end #

Locking a period protects finished periods from accidental change. A fiscal year is made of periods, which can be closed one by one or all together with the year. Closing a year posts a closing entry that moves net income into retained earnings; accountants and auditors commonly expect to see it. Closing and reopening a year have their own permissions, separate from ordinary posting. Reopening is supported and recorded in the period history. The “include year-end closing entries” choice on the income statement lets you see the year’s own results even after the entries are posted.

Reconciliation and bank import #

Reconciling checks that the entries you have cleared agree with the bank’s statement. You enter the statement date and ending balance and tick entries until the difference is zero. Reconciled entries are locked from editing or voiding until the reconciliation is undone. Save & Continue Later keeps your ticks as an Incomplete reconciliation to resume.

Bank import takes OFX/QFX/QBO, CSV and BAI2 files. Lines are matched to entries by the exact signed amount within a window of days, with a check number raising the confidence; weak matches are never treated as high confidence. Repeat imports are recognised by transaction ID, so lines are not added twice. A line can be verified (the bank reported it) before it is reconciled (cleared on a statement). Voiding a verified entry returns its bank line to unmatched.

Financial statements and reports #

The income statement shows revenue less expenses for a period. The balance sheet shows assets, liabilities and equity at a date. The Cash Flow Statement looks back at cash that moved; the Cash Flow Forecast looks ahead from open receivables and payables. On the cash basis, income counts when the cash arrives; on the accrual basis, when it is earned. After closing, net income sits in retained earnings. The report designer builds custom reports, and every report exports to PDF or a spreadsheet.

A sound month-end close: finish and approve the month’s entries, reconcile the bank and card accounts, post adjustments such as depreciation, review the reports, then lock the period.

Try it #

1. Post a manual journal entry and try to post an unbalanced one.
2. Void it and look at the reversing entry.
3. Import a bank file, match a line, and reconcile the account to a statement; leave one reconciliation half-way and resume it.
4. Close a period and try to edit an entry inside it.
5. Run the income statement on both bases and explain the difference.

Check yourself #

Explain to a colleague what each common transaction posts, why Undeposited Funds exists, and what the difference is between a line being verified and being reconciled. A Specialist exam is planned for a later release; the areas it will cover are the five sections above.