User Guide
for Accounting
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Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3
a8 Global Settings ................................................................................................................................... 7
Work Period ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Chart of Accounts................................................................................................................................ 8
Cash Books .......................................................................................................................................... 9
a3 GL Transactions .................................................................................................................................. 9
a6 Batch Posting.................................................................................................................................... 13
i1 Item Master....................................................................................................................................... 14
Blocking Negative Stock Quantities .................................................................................................. 16
Non-Physical Items............................................................................................................................ 16
c1 Creditors ........................................................................................................................................... 17
c2 Purchase Orders and c3 Goods Received ......................................................................................... 18
a2 Payments .......................................................................................................................................... 20
d1 Debtors............................................................................................................................................. 21
d2 Sales Orders and d3 Invoices ........................................................................................................... 22
a1 Deposits / Receipts........................................................................................................................... 24
Bank Reconciliations ............................................................................................................................. 25
Note regarding date inputs ............................................................................................................... 25
i2 Item Adjustments .............................................................................................................................. 26
i3 Item Transfers ................................................................................................................................... 27
a4 Projects............................................................................................................................................. 28
Allocating Personnel Costs to Projects ................................................................................................. 29
a5 Point of Sale ..................................................................................................................................... 31
Production............................................................................................................................................. 34
s2 Business Units ................................................................................................................................... 35
Security Profiles .................................................................................................................................... 35
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Introduction
minimalistic (from hereon m_) offers a clean and efficient way of administrating many aspects of your
business, such as payroll and HR, accounting and inventory. It is a truly-integrated business
management platform, offering a real-time view on your company’s activities and performance.
Because the core database is integrated, you no longer need to worry about data synchronization
issues across loosely-coupled systems.
m_ runs on internet protocols, so you can access the database from any web connection, and no
longer do you need to worry about maintaining back-end data servers or performing daily back-ups.
However, if you prefer, the database can still be hosted on your own server which you could expose
to the web if global access is required, or m_ could sit inside a Virtual Private Network.
Once your company’s database has been set up, you can log on to the main menu:
Use the arrow keys to navigate. The right-arrow expands a menu option:
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Move down to the required option:
, and press the right-arrow again, or press Enter:
On the Main Menu, use TAB to toggle between the tree structure and the search box:
To navigate via Search, type the menu item number, then press Enter. The tree structure will then
navigate to the option. Then just press the right-arrow or Enter to open the screen:
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You will notice the “Q” button at the bottom-left of many screens. Press Alt-Q or click on the button
to navigate back to the main menu.
Screens without the “Q” button, are called “modal” screens in the techno-world. It means you have
to close the screen before you can freely navigate back to the main menu and other non-modal
screens.
To jump between non-modal screens, you can either use the stacked icons in Window’s task bar:
Or you can navigate via Alt-Tab:
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On data capture screens, use Tab and Shift-Tab to move between fields.
Input fields having a dotted button or drop-down arrow, can be opened with F4.
OK saves new information to the database, and Cancel ignores any changes made and just closes the
screen. Useful hints are available via the various context-sensitive Help buttons.
The built-in calculator:
The top-left yellow value will be inserted into the capture field when you press OK. Whenever you
apply a mathematical operation, it will always be between the “yellow” value and the value you type
in the white block. For example:
To calculate 400 / 3, you would type 400 and then click or press +. The yellow value will now contain
400. Now type 3 and click or press /:
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a8 Global Settings
Before you can start processing accounting transactions, you need to configure the system to match
your company’s requirements. You also need to consider how and when opening balances will be
transferred onto m_. Please refer to Main Menu >> System >> Data Import / Sync for more
information on capturing opening balances.
Work Period
m_’s accounting engine is purely date-driven. This allows flexibility in terms of logging transactions in
earlier months or even earlier financial years, whilst still allowing users to continue working in the
current period. This flexibility also makes implementations easier in the sense that you can go live
with just the crucial opening balances for say debtors, creditors, VAT and bank, and then zero
balances for the rest of the GL accounts. As and when the opening balance figures become available
from the previous financial system, the work period can be stretched back open to the month-end
date of the OBs.
But this flexibility should be controlled tightly. For instance, if a transaction is inserted, back-dated
by say two years, all financial reports after this date will then be affected. So, normally you would
only have the active month open. In the above example, September 2012 is the active month.
When you come to the first day of the next month, but there are still outstanding transactions for
the current month, you could set forward “Max Capture Date” by a month, but leave “CashFlow
Postings Top Date” on the current month-end. The system will then allow transactions to be
captured over a two-month period.
“CashFlow Postings Top Date” is a mechanism that ensures that transactions are posted in
sequential month-order. For instance, if there are open transactions in September and October, the
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system will not allow October transactions to be posted unless all September transactions have first
been posted. Please refer to a6 Batch Posting for more information.
Chart of Accounts
m_ supports general ledger account numbers in the nnn/nnn format, belonging to reporting
categories as shown below:
Global Accounts can be used to consolidate financial statements across multiple companies that run
on m_. Please refer to s2 Business Units for more information on global accounts.
NB: A fundamental aspect of Mirror’s approach towards optimal financial management, is NOT to
use the General Ledger for sales- or project-related financial management. Explicitly un-cluttering
the general ledger stems from the minimalistic philosophy. For instance, there is only one Sales
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Account. If you need details on the breakdown of the sales, you would rather draw sales-specific
reports via i7 Sales and Inventory Reports. Similarly, you would not open separate income and
expense GL accounts for projects. Instead you would use m_’s Projects. Because all reports come
from a truly unified database, the control totals in the general ledger will always tally with the totals
produced by the detailed reports.
Cash Books
m_ allows any number of cash books. However, before you can add a new cash book, you first need
to create an associated account in the general ledger. Also ensure that each cash book has its own
general ledger account.
Please refer to a1 Deposits / Receipts and a2 Payments for more information on cash books.
a3 GL Transactions
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“All roads lead to Rome” applied to m_’s accounting engine means that every detailed transaction
will ultimately roll up into a general ledger transaction. For instance, when you issue an invoice, the
system will create the following general ledger transaction:
The View Details button is available for transactions that contain detailed information:
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You can also drill into the details of a general ledger transaction via a specific GL account. Use a7 Per
Account Details:
Note: “IP” transaction types denote transactions that originated in the “Inventory and Production”
section of m_.
You will also notice that “IP” transactions are directly posted to the general ledger (The roll-up
happens at the same time the transaction is issued). Once a transaction has been posted, the only
way to make a correction is to log another transaction. This may seem too rigid, but it is necessary
for the purpose of having a strong audit trail.
Unlike “IP” transactions, general ledger journals and “CashFlow” transactions can remain in open
batch. This is particularly useful for bank reconciliation purposes or verifying the effect of journals
before posting(committing/rolling-up) the transactions to the general ledger. Examples:
Journal to bring in say opening balances from the old financial system:
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Since the transaction has not yet been posted, you can still modify it if necessary. To see what effect
the transaction will have once posted, without having to first post the transaction, use a7 Per
Account Details and ensure to uncheck the box “Skip Unposted” before you click “GET”:
Similarly, an unposted Deposit remains in open batch:
NB: Under a9 Reports: Even though the Cash Books, Debtors and Creditors reports WILL report on
unposted transactions, the “Per GL Account” reports will NOT. The Balance Sheet and Income
Statement should therefore not be released as final unless you have ensured that all transactions up
to the reporting period-end have been logged and posted.
As can be seen above, the balances on the Balance Sheet do not yet reflect the effect of the
open/unposted transactions.
Once you are satisfied with the logic of your open batches, you should post them to avoid accidental
changes whilst in open batch. General Ledger journals are posted via a3 GL Transactions (select
specific transaction)>> Post, and cash book transactions and debtor and creditor journals, are posted
via a6 Batch Posting.
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a6 Batch Posting
The six transaction types shown above are called “CashFlow” transactions. You can use a6 Batch
Posting to check the posting status currently on the system of all open-batch “CashFlow”
transactions, as well as for open General Ledger Journals and open POS transactions.
Receivables and Payables are used to facilitate Debtor and Creditor transactions. For instance, when
you issue an invoice, the system automatically creates and posts a receivable. Similarly, when you
log a Goods Received transaction, the system automatically creates and posts a payable.
Debtor journals are loaded as either positive- or negative-value receivables, with negative-value
receivables showing up as “Unposted Credit Notes / Discounts” on the a6 screen. Similarly, creditor
journals are loaded as either positive- or negative-value payables, with negative-value payables
showing up as “Unposted Debit Notes / Discounts” on the a6 screen.
Some debtor and creditor journals may require two transactions. For instance, say Company XYZ has
both a debtor and creditor account with you. Lets say as a creditor, you owe them R10,000.00, and a
debtor, they owe you R7,000.00. To set off the debtor’s balance against the creditor account, you
would load a negative receivable of –R7,000.00 against XYZ’s debtor account, specifying 999/999
Debtor/Creditor Journal Clearing Account as the contra-account. Then you would load a negative
payable of –R7,000.00 against XYZ’s creditor account and also specify 999/999 as the contraaccount.
Another example, say you refund a debtor. The first transaction would be a Payment with 999/999
as the contra-account, and the second transaction would be a negative receivable also specifying
999/999 as the contra-account.
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The same mechanism of negative receivables and negative payables is used by the system for IPgenerated credit notes and debit notes. For instance, if a client returns faulty items, you could load
an invoice with negative quantities via d3 Invoices >> Reverse. This will create a negative receivable
linked to the negative invoice. (The system will however print the negative invoice as a Credit Note).
The same negative symmetry applies to Goods Received and Payables.
i1 Item Master
The item master must be set up before you can load sales orders or purchase orders or any other
type of stock-related transaction. New items can be imported via Excel (Main Menu >> y7 Item
Master), or use “Add” or “Copy-Add”:
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The Moving Average Cost Price is automatically maintained by the system for Physical Items, and a
stock count per warehouse is also maintained. When physical items are GRVed, the Stock account in
the Balance Sheet is debited, and the moving average cost is adjusted if necessary. When physical
items are invoiced, the Stock account is credited at the current moving average cost price. It is
therefore important to perform stock transactions in the correct order (GRVs before Invoices). For
instance, lets say an item’s current moving average cost is R100.00, and you have placed a purchase
order at a latest cost of say R110 per unit. If you now invoice items BEFORE receiving the new stock,
the system will record the cost of sales at R100 per unit in stead of what the moving average would
have been had you first completed the GRV.
The accuracy of stock costing can be monitored via i7 Sales and Inventory Reports >> Inventory /
Warehouses >> Current Inventory Valuation:
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A zero or small variance between [Inventory Value (= Item quantities * Moving Average) ] and the
[balance of the Stock Account in the general ledger] indicates that stock transactions are recorded
accurately.
Blocking Negative Stock Quantities
To improve the accuracy of stock transactions, you can dis-allow any stock transaction that would
result in negative stock levels. This global switch is available under s0 Global Settings:
During a m_ implementation, stock levels may not be available at the time of going live. In such
case, you would leave the global switch on “No” and then only later, once the item master has been
tidied up and correct stock levels have been loaded, would you start to block transactions that
would result in negative stock levels.
Non-Physical Items
The system logically does not maintain quantities per warehouse nor moving average cost prices for
non-physical items.
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Thus, when non-physical items are invoiced, the cost of sales for the line item will be zero, and no
adjustment is made to stock levels.
When non-physical items are GRVed, in stead of debiting the Stock account as would be the case
with physical items, the system will rather debit an expense account (or balance sheet account) that
you specify for the line item. In the above example, 420/000 will be used as default when you load
the item onto a new purchase order.
NB: m_ tracks the back-order status of sales orders and purchase orders per stock code, and NOT
per line number. This means that stock codes cannot be duplicated per order, otherwise the backorder status calculation may go awry. You would typically set up a few generic non-physical stock
codes, such as STA1, STA2, STA3 etc, and then just over-ride the description per line item on the
sales or purchase order. The purchase order example on the next page demonstrates m_’s nonduplication requirement.
c1 Creditors
Before you can place purchase orders and receive goods, you need to open creditor accounts for
your suppliers:
When you open a creditor account, you can specify the Initial Contact Person. The system will then
add this person to the list of contact persons linked to the creditor account. You can have any
number of contact persons per creditor (or debtor) account:
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You would capture mobile numbers and e-mail addresses per contact person, rather than on the
creditor account. The * in front of the Tel Number, as shown above, indicates that the telephone
number was captured on the creditor screen on not on the individual contact person record.
c2 Purchase Orders and c3 Goods Received
In the above example, an order is being placed against supplier XYZ for the amount of R450
excluding VAT. Note that stock codes are not duplicated, and that we have specified the GL account
to be debited per line item.
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When you receive the goods later, you would locate the order on the system, and then go
“Schedule”:
The Scheduling feature allows you to manage partial deliveries. For partial deliveries, you would Edit
the quantity received per line item. In the above example, the supplier delivered in full.
NB: Ensure to check the Scheduled amount. This should tally with the supplier’s invoice. You should
NOT proceed with the GRV if the amounts don’t tally. If there is a variance, either you have to adjust
your purchase order, or the supplier needs to issue a correct invoice. Once the Scheduled amount
matches the supplier invoice, you would click “Generate GRV” upon which the system creates and
posts the appropriate transaction in the general ledger:
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a2 Payments
Payments will always credit the selected cash book, and debit either the Supplier Control Account or
a different GL Account. In the above example, we are paying supplier XYZ. After selecting the
supplier, click on “Get Open Items”. This will bring up a list of payables that have not yet been
settled fully, and you can then explicitly allocate the payment to one or more payables.
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Some payments are set off straight against a GL Account. For instance, for bank charges, you would
normally not have raised a goods received (or payable) before you did the payment transaction. For
these payment transactions, you would leave blank the Creditor Account, and rather specify an
appropriate GL Account. You can also claim VAT if applicable. (When paying a creditor, you will
notice that the “VAT Applies” checkbox is disabled. This is because VAT was already claimed when
the GRV was logged.)
You may also have noticed the RIDC button on the above screen, and various other screens. RIDC
stands for Re-open Internet Database Connection. Due to the unstable nature of the internet, your
connection might drop whilst working on a data capture screen. If you fill out data and press OK, a
network-related error may appear. In such cases, do not cancel the transaction. Just click RIDC and
re-try the OK button. We have found that the internet is quite stable over ADSL connections,
whereas wireless connections necessitates the RIDC button more frequently.
d1 Debtors
Debtor account information can be imported via Excel (refer to Data Import / Sync >> y3 Debtors) or
via the Add button:
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d2 Sales Orders and d3 Invoices
As with purchase orders, sales orders can also consist of physical and non-physical items, and the
non-duplication-of-stock-codes-rule also applies.
For partial or full deliveries, you can use the Schedule button:
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Then generate the invoice:
The One-line Description will appear on the debtor’s statement as a summary of the invoice. The
default one-line description can be set under a8 Global Settings >> Document Templates / Other:
For more information on setting up source documents with your company’s logo and addresses, click
on the Help button above.
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a1 Deposits / Receipts
When you receive money from a debtor, the Description will appear on the debtor’s statement. To
add entries to the drop-down list, type the description and press F5.
When you receive money from sources other than from debtors, say interest received on your bank
account, you would leave blank the debtor account and specify an appropriate GL Account.
Per debtor account, you can specify either an open-item or balance-forward format for the
statement (Page 2 of the Edit Debtor screen):
Open-item format:
The client can see the outstanding amount per each receivable.
Balance-forward format:
Transactions are just listed chronologically.
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Bank Reconciliations
With the arrival of internet banking, the task of bank reconciliations has become much easier
because all internet transactions are by default reconciled. In the event of having to load a deposit
or payment that will only later show on the bank statement, leave the Bank Statement Date blank,
and set Reconciled to “No”.
Later, when the transaction goes through on the bank statement, locate the un-reconciled entry via
the Filter:
Then select the deposit in the list, and press Alt-F7:
Note regarding date inputs
Dates can be typed in various short formats such as 2 3 (2 March of current year), or 2 3 4 (2 March
2004), or 5 Feb (5 February of current year). Use the up and down arrow keys to move a day at a
time, or Ctr-Up/Down a month at a time. F4 opens the calendar.
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i2 Item Adjustments
You can adjust stock levels either upwards or downwards via Item Adjustments. Upward
adjustments will debit(increase) the stock account, and downward adjustments will decrease(credit)
the stock account. Moving Average costings at the time of loading the item adjustment, are used as
the basis for the stock value change calculation. The GL account that is linked to the item
adjustment type, will receive the contra-leg of the transaction:
The above item adjustment results in this GL Transaction:
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i3 Item Transfers
Item transfers have no associated accounting entry. Stock quantities are merely moved between
warehouses:
The VQ button above (and on other stock-related screens), shows what the stock quantities will be
once the transaction has been logged:
Item movements can also be viewed via the Item Master >> Availability / Movements:
As can be seen above, item transfers have no associated accounting transaction.
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a4 Projects
Each and every transaction on the income statement can be assigned to one or more projects. The
profit or loss that you see on the income statement, can then be shown per project.
You can open projects, also known as “profit objects”, for any managerial purpose. Some projects
will be projects in the classical sense of the word, whereas other “projects” can serve as internal cost
centers.
As you can see above, various documents such as Sales Orders and Purchase Orders can be linked to
a project. Via this link, when the invoice or GRV is later logged, the incomes and expenses allocations
are automatically linked to the project.
Use the GL Matching feature to verify the allocation status of all incomes and expenses:
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Allocating Personnel Costs to Projects
Even though you can assign employees to projects and collect hours via time sheets, the true cost of
employees occurs when the month-end payroll journal is posted:
The expense items of the payroll journal will then appear on the GL Matching screen:
You can now use any statistical method of allocating the costs to the projects. All you need is an
Excel spreadsheet showing each project’s relative cost attraction. In the example below, you could
choose to use either column D – Hours worked, or column G – Cost / Pay as basis for the cost
splitting:
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Once you have logged the payroll journal and set up the cost allocation spreadsheet, you can quickly
assign the employee expenses by pointing to the spreadsheet:
Tip: Ensure to tick the “Excel Import Mode” box when you start with allocations via Excel.
And repeat for the other expense items.
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a5 Point of Sale
You need to open at least one user account for “Till-mode” before you can use m_’s POS feature:
You would typically open one controlling user account per branch, each linked to a separate POS
Control Account. You also need to set up names of the individual till operators per branch:
To activate the POS, log onto m_ with the controlling POS user account:
m_ will then open in POS mode:
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Loading a new POS transaction:
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Completing the POS transaction:
And day-end cash-up: (Log on again as a normal m_ user.)
When you perform >>> POST TO GL, the system will roll up all the POS transactions for the day into
one general ledger transaction: (You can cash up per branch if so required.)
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The POS Clearing account will be cleared as and when you bring deposits into the system:
Debit and Credit card transactions that you capture from the bank statement, will also have the POS
Clearing Account as the contra-entry.
In the example above, we received R250.00 cash, but we only deposited R200.00. The balance that
remains on the POS clearing account, thus represents [float in the till(s)] plus [debit and credit
card transactions that have not yet been captured from the bank statement].
Production
m_ allows the creation of assembled stock items through Bill-of-Materials (BOMs). When you
perform a Production Output, the system increases the stock count of the manufactured/assembled
items, and decreases the stock levels as per the BOM. You can also include into the BOM theoretical
non-stock costs (recoveries for electricity, labour etc) as a means of measuring productivity, and also
as a means to substantiate an inflated stock value of manufactured items at year-end where the
recoveries component of stock on hand can be viewed and journalized as a pre-paid expense.
Production is quite a complicated topic, especially if you start to deal with multiple levels in the
BOM. More information is available from our website and in m_’s help files. It is highly
recommended that you thoroughly experiment with these features on a demo company before you
attempt to implement production.
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s2 Business Units
Business units can be used as a high-level management and reporting unit. Debtors and Projects can
be linked to business units, and as such allows for useful reporting. Different source document
templates can also be assigned to business units. For instance, you may have two branches and
would like different invoice templates with banking and address details for the specific branch.
Business units can also be used to consolidate financial reports across multiple companies that run
on m_.
Security Profiles
Security Profiles can be created for individual users, or a profile can be shared by users having the
same roles and responsibilities. The profile determines to what extent the user can access various
parts of the system:
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