General Ledger (GL) Accounts, generally, are records used to sort and store balance sheet and income statement transactions. Cobalt Accounting functionality offers the ability to create default GL Accounts to track transactions at the highest level as well as the ability to create product-specific GL Accounts that can provide more granularity in Accounting reporting. For more information about product-specific GL Accounts, click here.
There must be an active default account for each type for the system to work. The instructions below will show you how to create your own, and define which account for each type is the default.
Note: Cobalt has accounting functionality, but we are not an accounting system. The accounting functionality is mainly used for accounts receivable situations where the Association is making money (receivables) and doesn't owe money (liability).
1. From the Cobalt eCommerce App: Cobalt Accounting Setup heading > GL Accounts.
Confirm that you have all the default GL Accounts required by the system.
*All of the accounts you see in the image should be set up in your system. If not, you will need to create them.
2. Click +New.
3. Fill Out Required Fields and Save.
- Name - This field is for the name of the General Ledger Account.
- Account Type - This field shows an option set of the available account types. An example includes Cash.
- Account Number - This field will identify the account number.
- Mapped Account - This field is no longer used.
- Description - This field allows for a description of the General Ledger Account.
3.1. Default Accounts
You have the option to set any GL Account to the default account for an account type and can do so with the toggles here.
*There must be one, and only one, default GL Account for each account type. Having more than one default GL Account, or no GL Account, for an account type can cause problems with processing payments.
Only the Credits entity has been configured to use the Liability General Ledger Account because the Credit is an amount of money that is owed. The expectation is that there is only one active Liability General Ledger Account. Associations can either use the Default Liability Account as is or we recommend renaming the Default Liability Account to the preferred client value.
4. Product GL Accounts
GL Accounts can be linked to products through a Product GL Account record.
For in-depth instructions on how to create a Product GL Account: Product GL Accounts
Some things to consider when creating a Product GL Account:
- Products should have 0 or 1 Revenue/WIP Product GL Account.
- Products should have 0 or 1 Receivables Product GL Account.
- Product GL Accounts need to have a Type.
- Product GL Accounts need to have a related General Ledger Account.
- The Type on the Product GL Account needs to match the Account Type on the related General Ledger Account.
You can only have Product GLs for Discount, Revenue/WIP, Tax, or Receivables. Products cannot be associated with other GL account types and direct GL entries to those accounts.