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Elosimple excel accounting User Guide

Elosimple excel accounting User Guide A user friendly MS Excel Accounting Records Template; eases preparation of financial statements

Peter Elolo Darrah, C.A.(Gh)

Tax Audit, DTRD, Ghana Revenue Authority

[email protected]

+233244592866

12/19/2012

elosimple excel accounting template

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FOREWORD ................................................................................................................................... 3

GETTING STARTED ...................................................................................................................... 3

HOW TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE elosimple excel accounting template ........................... 3

HOW TO SAVE A COPY OF THE elosimple excel accounting template ................................ 3

HOW TO OPEN THE elosimple excel accounting template .................................................... 3

OVERVIEW OF elosimple EXCEL TEMPLATE ........................................................................... 4

elosimple SHEETS ...................................................................................................................... 4

Index sheet ............................................................................................................................... 4

AccountSetup sheet.................................................................................................................. 5

CashJournal sheet .................................................................................................................... 5

FinStatement sheet .................................................................................................................. 6

HOW TO USE elosimple EXCEL TEMPLATE.......................................................................... 6

INDEXING .............................................................................................................................. 6

ACCOUNTS SETUP ................................................................................................................ 7

COMBINED CASHBOOK AND JOURNAL .......................................................................... 7

Making Entries .................................................................................................................... 8

Accounting Periods ............................................................................................................. 9

Ledgers ................................................................................................................................. 9

Management Accounts ..................................................................................................... 10

SECURITY ..................................................................................................................................... 13

SHORTCUT KEYS ........................................................................................................................ 14

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 15

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 15


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FOREWORD

elosimple excel accounting template has been designed to ease preparation of accounting

records as well as relevant financial reports such as Income Statement and Balance Sheet

(Andrews). The user is not burdened with the drudgery of preparing columns for accounting

heads (items) on several worksheets involved in the record-keeping. All the user needs to do

is just to set up the required Chart of Accounts (with Account Codes) under desirable groups

of accounts just like any conventional accounting application system and begins to record

transactions in the combined Cash/Journal table.

However, the eloAccountRecords is only effective and accurate to the extent that the formula

cells are not inadvertently removed or altered by the user. The user, therefore, is ultimately

responsible for the accuracy of the records prepared; using this template.

GETTING STARTED

HOW TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE elosimple excel accounting

template

The template can be obtained from the address on the Index and CashJournal sheets (i.e.

+233244592866, +233202441763 or [email protected]).

HOW TO SAVE A COPY OF THE elosimple excel accounting

template It is important to have MS Office Application which should be of a version not lower than MS

Office 2007 before the template can be saved on your system. If there is a lower version like

MS Office 2003 on your system, then the template must be saved as MS Office Excel 2003

before copied for transfer (saving).

HOW TO OPEN THE elosimple excel accounting template

A password request may be prompted at each time that an attempt is made at opening a

protected template; which must be supplied by the user.


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OVERVIEW OF elosimple EXCEL TEMPLATE

elosimple SHEETS

We have the following sheets in elosimple excel accounting template Workbook:

Index sheet


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AccountSetup sheet

CashJournal sheet


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FinStatement sheet

HOW TO USE elosimple EXCEL TEMPLATE

INDEXING

All the resources in elosimple excel accounting template workbook are found in the index

sheet. Each of these is linked (i.e. hyperlinked) to its location in the workbook. The index

page is accessible on any resource in the workbook.

The headings for Account Codes in the CashJournal are linked to the AccountSetUp Sheet.

This is activated by just a click on the heading: Allocation.

After getting the code click on the CashJournal link in AccountSetUp to return to the

CashJournal to complete the record.

Alternatively, simply click on the sheet tabs:


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ACCOUNTS SETUP

This is the most important aspect of the recording process. With reference to the

AccountSetup sheet in OVERVIEW, type in the Business or Organisation Name, Start Date,

End Date and Accounting year

This is best explained in the table below:

CELL

NUMBER EXPECTED CONTENT

C3 Business or organisation name

C4 Start date; e.g. 01/01

E4 End date; e.g. 31/12 or 12/31 for US-English system

G4 Accounting or period year: e.g. 2012

Proceed to type in the Account codes and respective Account items (heads). Those Account

Codes with respective Account Groups found on the template are somewhat suggestive. User

may use or apply own codes, items and group of accounts. You may insert more rows while

ensuring that you maintain the serial numbering in column A.

Utmost care need to be taken when preparing the chart of accounts. The grouping of the

codes determines the outlook of the management reports; Balance Sheet and Income

Statement. You may employ the services of an accountant to set up the accounts to be

displayed in the management reports.

COMBINED CASHBOOK AND JOURNAL

There is a combined cashbook and journal table in the CashJournal sheet. We need to observe

this table carefully because this is where all the recording and posting of the transactions are

done:


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COLUMN

USERS REQUIRED

RESPONSE FUNCTION

Date Make entry Transaction date

Details Make entry

Third party name or brief

description of transaction

Reference Make entry

Voucher/Document serial

number

Cash Make entry View the balance in cell D11

Bank 1 Make entry View the balance in cell E11

Bank 2 Make entry View the balance in cell F11

Bank 3 Make entry View the balance in cell G11

JOURNAL Make entry

View the balance in cell

journal_sum which must be

equal to zero (.00).

Allocation Amount No entry

Formulated to post amounts

in Cash and Bank fields.

View balance for account

ledger in cell i11

Allocation Make entry Posts account names

Account No entry

Formulated to post Account

names

Making Entries

The column headings, with specific reference to Banks, can be changed or replaced with real

bank accounts. Furthermore, more columns can be inserted to accommodate more banks.

Non cash transactions or opening entries can be made via the Journal. In all cases involving

amounts all credit entries should be preceded by a minus (-).

Cash (including bank) transaction amounts involving payments should be preceded by a

minus (-).

It is very important to enter the account code. Without the entry of an account code such a

record can never be complete.


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Please do not leave empty rows in between the records.

Accounting Periods

The user can get accounts for any period by selecting from the date heading any particular

date as illustrated below:

The user has selected the period up to October and transactions from January 1 to October 31

should be displayed.

Ledgers

The combined cashbook and journal table can, also, be manipulated to show transactions for

a particular account and thus produce a ledger account.

The user can get transactions for a particular account by selecting such an account from the

allocation heading as shown below:


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The user has selected the code 412 for ELAC (Insurance). Transactions, therefore, for ELAC

(Insurance) have been displayed as this:

Management Accounts

The Balance Sheet and the Income Statement in the FinStatement sheet are being referred to

as management accounts. The main function of any management account is the facilitation of

decision making, planning and control regarding a business concern. The user is in a position


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to employ these key management functions using the template to prepare live accounts which

measure profitability instantly. Similarly, even in the process of recording the accounts the

financial position (whether you owe or owed so much) is known right on time and to date.

The Balance Sheet and Income Statement happen to be the direct interpretation and summary

of the records on the Combined Cashbook and Journal Table.

Now, linking the serial numbers on the set up sheet to the specific cells on the FinStatetment

Sheet causes the account codes with descriptions to be properly positioned to display the

amounts in formulated cells accurately.

All that one needs to do on this sheet is to ensure that the serial numbers (i.e. on column A) of

the AccountSetUp sheet are properly linked to the cells in column A of FinStatements Sheet.

For instance, type in an equal to (=) sign in cell A11 of Financial Statements sheet and

select the cell A59 of AccountSetUp sheet. To complete this link, hit the enter key once. You

have just finished linking up the cells identifying fixed assets on both sheets. The procedure

is repeated for linking other accounts.

This is illustrated below:

The equal to sign has been typed into cell A11 on the FinStatement Sheet.


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Cell A59 of AccountSetUp sheet has been selected.

The link has been completed by hitting the enter key once.

Simply fill A11 of Financial Statements sheet (i.e. after selecting A11, hover the mouse

pointer to the bottom right of that cell until it turns into a plus+) and drag downwards to the

desirable point.

You may perform fill and drag downwards procedure in any of the columns wherever

desirable. Copying and pasting is another alternative.


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However, the cash and bank account balances cells in the FinStatement sheet needed to be

linked to their balance cells in the CashJournal sheet.

The rest of the formulated cells be copied and pasted downwards or filled and dragged

downwards.

+

A demonstration of a fill and drag downwards procedure is illustrated above.

SECURITY

It is possible to loose all your documents unexpectedly due to the

presence of virus in your system; loss of soft materials. How about the

possibility of hardware loss through theft, robbery, fire, damage etc.?

That is all the more reason one needs to give prior attention to matters of

security in a computing environment.

To safeguard your work, please do the following from time to time:

Check on your systems health status; Go to start and click on

control panel and then on Review your computers status or

Action Center to check on the effectiveness of your Anti Virus

Application.

Scan your system and memory sticks (pen drives) on suspicion of a

virus.

Ensure that you have a backup and get an external storage device

i.e. pen drive, hard drive etc for backing up important documents.

Hint: do not keep your system (computer) and the secondary drive

together.

Important documents or files may be attached to emails or

uploaded to a trusted site (e.g. Google Drive) on a dedicated

remote server.

Save Financial Statements and CashJournal (the combined

Cashbook and Journal) in a PDF to avoid unwanted alterations.


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You may put a password on your documents to restrict or prevent

access. (Hint: please do remember the password).

SHORTCUT KEYS The following shortcut keys could help in saving time spent on performing some basic but

important tasks:

Press this key To do this

F1 Display Help

Ctrl+C (or Ctrl+Insert) Copy the selected item

Ctrl+X Cut the selected item

Ctrl+V (or Shift+Insert) Paste the selected item

Ctrl+Z Undo an action

Ctrl+Y Redo an action

F2 or fn+F2 Rename the selected item

Ctrl+home Move the cursor to the beginning of the document

Ctrl+Right Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next word

Ctrl+Left Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word

Ctrl+Down Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph

Ctrl+Up Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph

Ctrl+end Move the cursor to the end of the document

Ctrl+Shift with an

arrow key Select a block of text

Ctrl+A Select all items in a document or window

F3 Search for a file or folder

Ctrl+Shift+plus

Insert a selected row or column in MS Excel (Hint: select row or

column by clicking on the row or column label)

Ctrl+minus

Delete a selected row or column in MS Excel (Hint: select row or

column by clicking on the row or column label)

Ctrl+;(colon) Insert date in an MS Excel cell

Ctrl+(apostrophe) Repeat a an action in the previous MS Excel cell above

Alt+Tab Switch between open items

Alt+F4 Close the active item, or exit the active program


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CONCLUSION The elosimple excel accounting template is a concept formulated for spreadsheet users

desirous of preparing accounting records for any entity. The entity could be a church, an

NGO, an enterprise, a partnership, a joint venture or any company.

This is no accounting software but rather an idea facilitating spreadsheet accounting.

The useful advantage offered is that; by making the entries in the CashJournal one

concurrently produces a Balance Sheet with Income Statement to state the entitys financial

position and measure profitability, respectively, at any time.

This concept gives the same level of convenience, speed and accuracy offered by any other

accounting system.

To avert the possibility of unauthorised alterations and loss of data, the following actions are

recommended:

1. Set up your savings in a back up mode; go to Save As dialog box, select Excel

Workbook, then to tools, select general options and check the Always create backup

box, OK and save.

2. Periodically save the CashJournal and FinStatement sheets, weekly, monthly and

quarterly or to your own taste in a Portable Document Format (PDF).

This concept is very reliable as it is capable of preventing errors except for the fact that no

one else can be held accountable for your own inputs apart from your good self.

I am very grateful to all and sundry, especially Messrs. Sammy Ametefe of Total Ghana and

Vincent Sokpoli of Ghana Revenue Authority, who assisted in the development, testing and

deployment of this concept.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews, J. J. Accounting Campus.

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