This option is used to create, edit or delete expense codes
To create or edit an expense code:
From the Autoline Master Menu select the Nominal Ledger option and the company you require.
The Nominal Ledger menu is displayed.
Select the Add/Modify expense codes option.
The NL expense codes form is displayed.
The NL expense codes form is displayed, when the Add/Modify expense codes option is selected from the Nominal Ledger menu.
Create: To create an Expense Code the number must be
previously unused. An Ellipsis button 
will aid searching for existing codes. A blank and copy radio button is available to create a completely new code, or to copy an existing code.
The following fields are available on the expense code form.
Short Name: This field holds a short version of the expense code name, e.g. MFUEL for Motor Fuel Costs.
The short name field is a vital one. It can contain eight alphabetic or numeric characters. You can use it elsewhere in Autoline to find an expense code with the search facility.
To do this, however, you must follow a consistent policy on short names from initial creation. Moreover, the system is, as always, sensitive to the difference in case.
Description: A thirty-character alpha/numeric description of the expense code.
User defined code: This is a four-character alpha-numeric field which, as the name suggests, is for any user-defined analysis which may be required, and is not covered by the other analysis fields in the expense code record. It is usually used in conjunction with Ad-hoc enquiries, Report Generator output, or drill down reporting through the Advanced Analysis module.
M/A Code: The Management Account code is of the same format as the Expense code, and the field defaults to the value of the expense code being created. This field may be overwritten and a Management Account expense code of your choice entered, possibly to give a consolidation for budgeting or a mapping to a different Chart of Accounts.
External System Code: When another dealer management package has been used prior to, or in conjunction with Autoline,an additional code can be assigned to the cost centre for cross reference. This field is not mandatory.
Journal type: An expense code can, if required, be controlled
to be valid with only one Journal type. If this control is required,
then the valid Journal type should be entered here. There is a search
option at this point [use the ellipsis button]
to show a list of valid Journal types. For more
information on how Journal types are set up, refer to the Miscellaneous
Options of this on-line help.
Account Type: This field indicates whether the account is a Profit and Loss or a Balance Sheet account.
P = Profit and Loss
B = Balance Sheet
Cost Centre Analysis: For a Profit and Loss account this check box is set to a tick for Yes [i.e. expense codes can be analysed by cost centre]
For a Balance Sheet account this is unset for No, unless the Nominal Ledger System parameter 'Balance Sheet Cost Centre Analysis' [in NL Codes tab] is set to a tick allowing the production of Balance Sheet Cost Centre Analysis. Bank Accounts cannot be analysed by cost centre.
Normal balance sign: Set to + for Debit Balances and - for Credit Balances. The - sign has the effect of inverting any screen-based graphs. Thus, for sales, the graph will show the increase of sales as a positive ascending value instead of a negative descending value.
Posting Priority: This field can contain a value of 0 to 9 and is used to prevent posting access by a Nominal Ledger user with an access priority lower than this.
Display priority: This field can contain a value of 0 to 9 and is used to prevent display or reporting access by a user with a Nominal Ledger access priority lower than this.
Users cannot amend either of the priorities to a value lower than that to which it is currently set, if user's priority is less than the current value.
VAT analysis: In order to help reconcile turnover in the P&L to VAT statistics, where deferred income may have been posted to the balance sheet such as annual maintenance contracts, this code is used to determine which VAT reporting analysis code should be used on the particular code. The options here are 1 to 3 for three different VAT output analysis headings, T for turnover with VAT implications, and X for turnover which should be excluded from VAT statistical reporting (leaving this field blank will be the same as defining it with an X).
Control account: If this Nominal Ledger account code is being used to control Sales or Purchase Ledger balances, then a code S or P should be entered here.
In addition to this, a code of V should be entered here for VAT control accounts and C for accounts which should only be updated with input through the Vehicle Stock Books.
Control a/c company: If the input in the Control account field
was either S, P or V, then this field contains the company number
of the Sales or Purchase Ledger, or Nominal Ledger for VAT, that is
being controlled through this expense code. It is only possible for
an expense code to control the balances of one Sales or Purchase
Ledger in the case of multiple ledgers updating to one Nominal. In
the case of a V control account, this company number will be the same
as the Nominal Ledger company number. An Ellipsis button
can be used to aid the search.
Bank account: This check box must be set to a tick for Yes if the account is a bank account used for the processing of cash otherwise it is unset for No.
Only Balance Sheet accounts can be designated bank accounts.
Currency code: The currency will default to the base currency of the system for all accounts. In the special case of Bank accounts using a multi-currency system, the relevant currency code must be entered here. The currency code must have previously been created in the Add/Modify currency codes found in the Foreign Currency options menu.
Revalue check box: This will only be effective for foreign currency Bank accounts when the option Currency revaluations in the Nominal Ledger Foreign currency options menu is run. If this check box is unset, then the Bank account will not be revalued. If revaluation is to take place, then set this check box to a tick.
Open item: The Open item indicator is very important for the control of Daybook and End-of-Period consolidation. The codes currently in use are:
N - Postings are consolidated at the Sales Ledger and Purchase Ledger Daybook posting stage if the SL or PL parameter Consolidated Daybooks is set to a tick for Yes.
At period-end all postings are consolidated into one carried forward balance.
Y - Yearly open item. This ensures that postings are unconsolidated and overrides the SL and PL consolidation parameters.
At Period-End no consolidation is performed but the transactions are marked with the financial period and year of the period in which they were posted. At year-end all transactions are consolidated. Suffix Control can now be incorporated at input stage onto yearly indicator. At year-end, transactions are consolidated by suffix.
M - Monthly open item. This ensures that postings are unconsolidated and overrides the SL and PL consolidation parameters. At Period-End all postings are consolidated into one carried forward balance.
R - Rolling open item. The postings are open item and are retained for the number of periods indicated by the System Parameters "Number of periods to retain rolling open-item tran's" after which they are consolidated into the brought forward balance. In order to keep balance sheet transactions for more than a year, the year-end consolidation flag must be set for Period consolidated.
C - Reconciled open item. This is used primarily for a Bank Cash Reconciliation. All transactions which have a Reconciled or Contra'd indicator attached are consolidated at Period-end. The Year-end consolidation field MUST be set to P to ensure that period functionality continues.
c - In addition to the reconciled open item type referred to previously, which supports a mixture of reconciled and contra items, it is possible to have an open item type of c (note that this is a lower case value) for accounts where only contras can clear down previous open items. The reconciliation is still performed manually but will only allow items to be marked as Contra in the reconciliation program. Once again the Year-end consolidation field MUST be set to P to ensure that the functionality continues over a year-end.
S - Suffix controlled open item. The postings are open item and are controlled by the value of the suffix entered on each transaction. At Period-End, for Profit and Loss accounts, a carried-forward figure is generated for each suffix, that is, matching suffixes are consolidated to a single balance. No zero balance will be carried forward. For Balance Sheet accounts all transactions are maintained as open item unless the balance for a matched suffix comes to zero in which case all transactions for that suffix are removed from the file.
B - This B suffix supplements the S suffix code. For Profit and Loss accounts the operation is as S for suffix control. Both P & L and Balance Sheet accounts are consolidated to a single figure per suffix at period-end.
Suffix mask: This field is only to be completed if the open item field is set to S for Suffix control.
Note: If by mistake the open item field is set to S and the Suffix mask is left blank, Autoline will allow any format of suffix at the time of data entry.
To control data entry format, a mask can be entered to which all suffixes for this account must conform. The mask consists of up to eight characters and can be composed from the following:
A - will allow the entry of A-Z, a-z
X - will allow the entry of any character
# - will allow the entry of 0 - 9
i.e. A### will only allow the entry of an alpha and three numeric characters and will be mandatory.
Validation is also available against specific suffix codes created within the Lookup File. Keying FILE will force a format match of any alpha/numeric character if previously created within the lookup file. (See Suffix Lookup File)
Year End Consolidation
All suffix balances are consolidated to a single value
Suffix balances are consolidated per suffix
Period - as period-end, to go over the year-end and retain all suffix details (balance sheet accounts only)
Autoline does not actually produce a daybook for the movements that take place at the year end. It allocates a daybook number to the year end movements so that B/Fwd records generated will bear this daybook number. This daybook number can be identified in the daybook register by a daybook type of '0' (zero). Once you have identified this number it can be used in NL enquiries just the same as any other daybook number.
Be careful not to have a conflict in the setting of the two flags you are using. The open item flag is telling the system what you wish to do with the transactions at a period end. The implication when you set this to Y = Year is that it is automatically going to do something different at the year end period end. This is not the case. This flag means basically to continue carrying forward open item transactions indefinitely as opposed to M = Month which will consolidate at the end of any period (Not necessarily a calendar month depending on your date file). Because these conditions exist you need to be able to indicate that you want to do something different with specific accounts at the accounting year end period end. This is why the Y/E Consolidation flag exists. Therefore if you want Open Item 'Y' items to consolidate into one brought forward balance at the accounting year end period end then this flag needs to be set to 'A' to consolidate all transactions.
Expense Group: Expense codes can be grouped for analysis
purposes. you may create these in the Expense code groups option in
the Miscellaneous menu. At least one group must be created before
expense codes can be entered. The search facility is available on
this field, by clicking the
ellipsis button.
There is another use of the groups as described under the heading "Cost Centre and Expense Code Groups".
Cost Centre Split: The system has a facility to apportion costs automatically by Cost centre (department) for values posted to a default cost centre, and is used in numerous input routines.
This field contains a two-character code which can be left blank for
all expense codes which do not require this facility. All codes must
have previously been created in the option Cost centre split tables
found in the NL Miscellaneous options menu. There is a search option
here, available by clicking the
ellipsis button.
Accounting Division: Two-character field to enable
divisionalized accounting of Balance sheet expense codes whilst
retaining a total accounting company record. If Bank Account flag is
set to blank, then division code is mandatory. There is a search option
here, available by clicking the
ellipsis button.
Contra Expense Code:
This code is used in conjunction with journal entry, specifically
with double line journal entry, whereby postings for some expense codes
will always have an automatic opposite posting. This will necessitate
the source expense code to have a contra expense code entered in the
expense code header. e.g. for expense code 0200, it might have a contra expense
of 0250. To select the relevant expense code, the
ellipsis button is available.
For further information regarding Journal Entry, refer to
Insert Journal Entries
BUTTONS
When you have finished inputting all of the various fields on the form click the Create button again. A dialog box will appear with the options to Create valid-accounts. This will verify that the cost centre you are setting up is a valid one and will create any combination of account codes as dictated by the Inclusion/Exclusion list. At this stage you will be presented with a form displaying all the combinations of account codes that can be created, and the option of selecting two buttons:
Create: This will actually create the account codes as per those listed in the grid.
Cancel: This will cancel the selection- if the user wants to create account codes manually then this option is the best.
Select Create valid-accounts and then click the OK button. This will verify that the cost centre you are setting up is a valid one and will create any combination of account codes as dictated by the Inclusion/Exclusion list.
Amend: When you have selected the code you wish to amend [i.e. obviously one that has already been created] and clicked on the Amend button, you are able to tab through the fields making amendments by over-typing.
From the menu you are then prompted to Save changes or Cancel.
Delete: This option allows you to delete an expense code if no Nominal Ledger accounts exist for it. This means that before an expense code can be deleted, the Nominal Ledger account that use that expense code must be cleared and deleted.
Deletion of the record must be confirmed by clicking the Delete button.
Ad-hoc: Allows the user to perform an enquiry on the expense file.
