Accounting periods: They're locked, but you have the key How do you control each transaction that affects your General Ledger? Stand over staffers as they do their work? Of course not! By locking all accounting periods except for the current one, you are assured that every item posted to the G/L goes exactly where it's supposed to go. Only with the right user access can accounting periods be unlocked. Your fiscal year begins in October? No problem! That's why accounting periods were invented. Regardless of when your fiscal year begins, C&P allows for user-definable accounting periods. (If you're on a calendar year, then January is your period 1.) Each transaction you enter gets both a date and a period. Some reports, like audit trails, look at both date and period; reports like financials only take period into account. Closing the month is as easy as changing the current period designation. There are no complicated steps to go through each month before you start to work on the next month or separate modules to reconcile before you can move to the next month. No more rushing to finish the current year's work or holding back entering next year's work in order to close the year. You continue to work as usual, so there's no falling behind in the new year. Close the year when you're ready to, whether it's one month, or even three months, into the new year.

By Brad Manning, CPA

Work in progress is the financial manager's way to balance out the peaks and valleys in a company's income statements by matching revenues generated with the associated outside costs.

      Clients & Profits can help with this extremely important process. Clients & Profits is a flexible, powerful program giving users the ability to recognize income and job costs in a variety of ways.

      When do most companies recognize revenue and work in progress costs? A recent review of publicly-held advertising agencies indicated that most advertising agencies will recognize revenue when it's billed, including media billings. The most common timeframes for issuing bills were the presentation date for media billings, when costs are incurred for radio and television production, and when print production had been completed. Now that we know when revenue is normally generated, how do we account for it?

      You can track WIP by job, task or individual cost, depending on the level of detail you want or need. Here's how it works: All costs when entered into Clients & Profits are given a cost status of Unbilled.

      When you review the costs at the end of the month, you either create an accounts payable invoice which changes the cost from Unbilled to Billed (oldest cost first), or you leave the cost as Unbilled and it becomes a part of the work in progress month-end adjustment.

      Once the job is ready to close, you can write-off all unbilled costs with the push of a single button.

      You can track WIP by job, task or individual cost, depending on the level of detail you want or need. Here's how it works: All costs when entered into Clients & Profits are given a cost status of Unbilled.

      When you review the costs at the end of the month, you either create an accounts payable invoice which changes the cost from Unbilled to Billed (oldest cost first), or you leave the cost as Unbilled and it becomes a part of the work in progress month-end adjustment.

      Once the job is ready to close, you can write-off all unbilled costs with the push of a single button.