Lesson #114
Setup – Chart of Accounts function
Although RB is not a general accounting system, it uses account numbers to keep track of sales, cash receipts, accounts receivable, payables, and other transactions in a basic double-entry bookkeeping system. You can set up RB’s accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.
For example, if you use QuickBooks, you can use QuickBooks Integrator to import your RB data directly into your QuickBooks. But before you can import RB invoices and payments into QuickBooks, you must set up your RB business units’ accounts to match your QuickBooks setup.
If RB’s default set of accounts is not accurate to your in-house setup, you can add, edit, and delete accounts to match RB9 to your general ledger or accounting software.
Set up account types first
The first step in matching RB to your in-house setup would be to customize your account types in the Lists function. Basic accounting rules group all finance-related things into 5 fundamental types of accounts: Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, and Expenses. RB includes these and other account types, which you can edit/delete and add your own. Entries here appear in the Account Type drop-down in individual accounts in the Chart of Accounts function.
Set up your Chart of Accounts
Each account in Chart of Accounts is tied to an Account Type, and includes an account name and reference number (account number). RB uses these accounts for different financial activities in your company’s business units.
The default view in Chart of Accounts shows all accounts in the system in numerical order by account number. It also includes the account names, their account types, and whether the account is active or not. You can restrict the view to a single account type or multiple account types.
You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order). You can export your Chart of Accounts as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.
You can keep the default accounts set up by RB or customize the default Chart of Accounts by adding, editing, and deleting accounts. If an account is not used but you don’t want to delete it, you can make it inactive so it will not appear as a choice in account lists elsewhere in RB.
If you are going to process credit card fees in RB, you must set up two accounts in Chart of Accounts so RB will separate out those fees:
- An Expense-type account for the fees
- An Other Current Assets-type account for undeposited processing fee funds
Then you can assign those accounts to handle those fees in your business units.
Designate accounts to use
After you have set up your accounts, you designate which ones to use for different financial activities. Where you use accounts in RB:
- When setting up business units, you can leave the default accounts set up by RB or select which accounts handle which types of transactions for each of your company’s business units.
- When setting up billable services (called service items in RB), you select an account to associate with each service item.
TL;DR: Use RB’s default accounts as is, or customize the Chart of Accounts to match your in-house system or QuickBooks.
RB concepts in this lesson
Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.
Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients.
