Transaction data forms have a hidden form called a posting. It has only two fields:
- a reference to a G/L account
- a quantity
The quantity is signed with a negative being a credit (CR) and a positive amount is a debit (DR).
Generating Postings
On the back of each transaction master form, there is a posting procedure for the form and if there is a detail lines field on the form there will be a posting procedure for the detail line.
The posting form procedure accepts a list of procedure steps. A procedure step can be a posting step which picks an account reference from the form or uses an account number for fixed accounts. When the transaction data form is filed the posting procedure is performed and any postings generated are put into the database.
For example, the posting procedure might consist of two procedures steps:
CREDIT 20000 WITH Total Amount
DEBIT Expense Account WITH Total Amount
The posting procedure would generate two postings when the transaction data form is filed.
The first procedure step would generate a posting with a reference to account 20000 (say that is A/P) and an amount of ‘Total Amount’. If ’Total Amount’ is a field on the form the field’s value will be copied to the posting. If ’Total Amount’ is a definition it will be calculated and the result copied to the posting. In either case the sign is reversed.
The second posting procedure step would find the account reference on the form and copy it to the posting form being generated. The ’Total Amount’ would be handled the same way as above except that the sign is not reversed.
Important: The sum of all postings generated by a transaction posting procedure must be zero. If the total is non-zero then the form will not post.
Form Stacks of Postings
For any G/L account there is a form stack of Postings. i.e. all the Postings that reference that G/L account. As in a form stack of Transactions there are special selection criteria to help calculate standard G/L quantities.
These selection criteria are:
- Opening – all postings in the fiscal year before the current period
- Closing – all postings in the fiscal year up to end of current period
- Current period activity. – all postings in current period
The fiscal year can be set to the current fiscal year or the previous fiscal year.
Using these selection criteria you can, with a couple of clicks of the mouse, define the standard opening, activity closing balances for use on G/L and financial reports.
G/L Transaction Description
The relationship between postings and the transaction that generated them is different from other relationships in Formever in that there can be many types of transactions that generate postings.
This means it is not simply a matter of going to the parent form and picking off fields as parent forms may be of different types and not have the same fields.
To allow for a sensible description of the posting in reports a special field has been added to all Transactions called the ‘G/L Transaction Description.’
Each transaction can set that field to describe the posting in terms of the transaction that generated it.
For example on a G/L Detail Report where all the Postings are listed against each G/L account you may want something like
JOURNAL ENTRY J344 56,789.09CR
INVOICE #2456 3,456.00DB
SUPPLIER INVOICE AT&T 66.34DB
Each of these postings comes from a different transaction but can access the G/L Posting Description that was set up in each transaction to better describe the posting and its intent.