Today we launch a new Application in Society Accounting Software ADDA – an Application that gives the last mile solution for ADDA Treasurers for society accounting – The General Ledger & Trial Balance.
General Ledger
A brief history of Accounting applications in Society Accounting Software
Year 2008: It started only with the Income Tracker. As the main financial pain points for Associations were Invoicing and Collecting from Residents who are geographically distributed.
Year 2009: The Expense Tracker and Bank & Cash were released soon after, to capture all the day-to-day transactions.
While double sided society accounting was happening all-along, it was kept at the background. So all the User had to key-in was one side of the entry. This kept it extremely simple as well as fool-proof – a reason why all ADDAs are operated by Estate Managers, and not Accountants.
While the above took care of 364 days of accounting, the 365th day – when the Auditor demand the Trial Balance to generate Accounting Statements, & Journal Entries to substantiate them.
Year 2010: We took inputs from many Treasurers, and Auditors, our challenge was how to provide Accounting that an Auditor desires, without complicating the Applications which will require an Accountant to make all entries. (Aside: For the love of history, The Payment Gateway integration was also released this year – a first in India)
Year 2011: The solution came in form of a whole new Application, which can be used for Accounts Setup & Audit purposes only – we called it the universally identifiable “General Ledger”. (Just can’t get too fancy with Accounting terms!)
The Income Tracker, Expense Tracker and Bank & Cash trinity remain the same oblivious of the accounting happening at the background, and continue to be operated by the Estate Manager!
The “General Ledger”
The General Ledger sits as a separate application on Admin Dashboard in the society accounting software. It provides the below.
1. Chart of Accounts
Previously you only had the Income & the Expense Accounts. Our hats off to those ADDA Treasurers (credits at the end of this Post) who have created many workarounds to make do only with these Accounts in the past.
Now you can create Assets, Liabilities, Income and Expense GL Accounts, all under this Chart of Accounts tab. What’s more you can ‘deactivate’ accounts temporarily as well as permanently.
2. Journal Entries
Previously you could get all day-to-day transactions in: Receivable Invoices, Collections, Payable Invoices, Payments, Bank Transfers etc.
But you were at a loss for Depreciation posting, Accrued Interest, Loan extended to Staff, Capitalizing Assets etc.
Now you can do all these on the “Journal Entries” tab.
3.Query
The “Query” tab lets you query for any selected time period, any GL Account.
4. Trial Balance
Every time we Demo’d ADDA to the Auditors of society accounting, they said “Fabulous, this makes handling Dues & Payments much easier. Now show me the Trial Balance. ”
To all the Auditors of Residential Complexes, this is for you. This is also for the Treasurers/Management Committees who like to have the Big Picture all the time, and not just at the end of the Financial Year. As we area all aware, the Top of the Trial Balance (Assets & Liabilities) goes into the Balance Sheet, and the Bottom (Income & Expense), goes to form the Income & Expense Statement (also called Profit & Loss account in Commercial terms)
This brand new Application comes Free-of-Cost to all existing Premium PRO ADDAs, and is currently available in all of them.
Credits
(not the accounting one, the end-of-movie one 🙂 )
The launch is incomplete without acknowledging the many Treasurers / Auditors whose inputs have gone in this. Below are some.
1. Shobhit Agarwal. Treasurer, Greenwood Regency: A Chartered Accountant, he was the first to say “Hey why don’t you just give me a trial balance, so I don’t have to wait for the accountant to come and make another entry into Tally”? This was way back in 2009.
2. Subramanian. Consultant to Board of Ferns Meadows: Mr. Mani had listed all that he desires to see in ADDA accounting, always offered to be a Beta tester, and was one of the prompt reviewers of our Trial Balance Beta release.
3. Yadunath. President, Habitat Splendour. Another volunteer for Beta testing, always reminded us to release it soon so the Accounts (as understood in accounting) can be presented for review by the Internal Auditor with aplomb!
4. Guruprasad Pandit. Auditor of almost all Complexes in Whitefield. Mr. Pandit is one Auditor who can simplify accounting and make it easier for Engineers to understand. So just like the Treasurers in most Associations, our team that is 100% Engineers had many theoretical queries which were answered by Mr. Pandit when the Application was conceptualized.
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