Accounts, Set-up Control Accounts

Before proceeding you may like to refer to the sections…

“Accounts, Set-up Account Sets”

“Accounts, Standard Sets of Nominal & Control Accounts”

“Accounts, Nominal & Control Accounts Explained”

Then starting from the “Accounts Menu”…

· If it’s not already in front of the others, click the “Nominal accounts” tab

· Click the “Set-up” button

· Use the “Show accounts for” dropdown at the top right to select Control accounts

· Click the “Find First” button on the toolbar (i.e. two to the left of the “Binoculars” button)

· To check existing control accounts simply click the “Find Next” button (i.e. right of the “Binoculars” button)

· Edit any details, as required, accepting the prompt to save changes as you move to the next account

Add A New Control Account

1. Click the “Starburst” button on the toolbar to create a new record

2. Enter the “Account short name” (e.g. “SHAR” or “0100”, etc)

3. Enter the “Account long name” (e.g. “Share Capital”, etc)

4. Set “Include in spreadsheet” to “No” unless the account is to do with commission that is either transferable or in suspense

5. See the section below regarding “Make available for invoicing”

6. Ignore the two dropdowns entitled “If this is a transferable account transfer to” except for General Insurance, in which case see section below regarding “Suspense & Transferable Controls”

7. Click the “Save” button on the toolbar

8. There is no point in setting up budgets for control accounts, so ignore the “Bulk setup account budget” button

9. At any time you may click the “Budget and actual monthly totals” button, bottom right of screen, to review the movement of monies through the control, as shown below

Delete Existing Control Account

To delete an existing control account simply click the “Bin” button when the account is displayed on screen. You will be unable to delete active control accounts, and also certain controls required by the system, such as for “Debtors Control”. However you can change their long names, so for example, although you cannot delete the control “DEBT”, you can change its long name from “Debtors Control” to “What I’m Owed”.

Making Control Accounts Available to Invoices

It is common practice to initially allocate all purchase invoices for assets (e.g. cars and computers) to purchase nominal accounts, then subsequently to make journal entries to move their values to control accounts (e.g. Assets, Tangible, Computers). In some other accounting systems you have no choice but to complete this process in two stages, whether you like it or not. In Durell’s system, when setting up control accounts, you can optionally choose to tick the box entitled “Make available for invoicing”, in which case invoices can then be allocated to that control immediately (e.g. Assets, Tangible, Computers), without the need of a journal. Durell recommends you make all your asset control accounts available for invoicing (N.B. except those for depreciation). The example below shows an invoice for computer equipment and training. Note how the first two transaction lines for the computers and printers have been allocated to the control account “ATAC - Assets, Tangible, Computers” while the last line for training has been allocated to a normal purchase nominal for “OTRN – Overheads, Training”.

Suspense & Transferable Controls

You are advised to use suspense and transferable controls ONLY for General Insurance. These are optional features that may be used to distinguish commission at different stages…

· Commission in suspense commission due for business written, but not yet received

· Transferable commission commission received, but currently in a “client” bank account

· Commission earnings commission received and passed to any of the “office” bank accounts

The example below shows an invoice for £630, originally divided into £558.00 of GPRM (General Premiums) and £72 of G*CS (Commission in Suspense). At this point the client has made a down payment of £500, leaving £130 still due. During the process of reconciling the £500 the system has automatically re-proportioned the commission into £57.14 received (so now called Transferable Commission) and £14.86 still outstanding (still Commission in Suspense).

At any time subsequently the brokerage can choose to check how much “Transferable Commission” has been received and is currently in the “Client” bank account, from where they may then move it to the “Office” account via the “Transferable” routine accessible from the “Period End” button on the “Accounts Menu”. After the transferable commission has been moved each invoice line containing a transferred sum is automatically re-adjusted to a nominal account (e.g. the £57.14 Transferable Commission shown above would be automatically re-allocated to GCEA - General Commission Earnings). This success of this process is dependent on the following three set-ups…

The system must be set-up with posting defaults (see “Accounts, Set-up Posting Defaults”) that indicate which “Transferable” control to use for received sums
One bank account must be designated as the “Client” one, and another as the “Office” one (see “Accounts, Set-up Bank Accounts”) so the system knows which banks to move the sums from and to
Each “Transferable” control account must have a nominal account (e.g. GCEA as shown on first illustration, above) to which the transferred lines can be re-set (to avoid being re-transferred)

The third of these three set-ups is controlled via the two dropdowns on the Control Account set-up screen, as shown on the first illustration above, entitled “If this is a transferable account transfer to”. Typically there will be three such transferable control accounts…

· G*CT (Transferable Commission) -> GCEA (General Commission, Received)

· CADT (Adviser Commission, Transferable) -> CADV (Adviser Commission, Settled)

· CICT (Introducer Commission, Transferable) -> CINT (Introducer Commission, Settled)