Starting a new accounting file

An even easier start with the new templates

In the new Banana Accounting Plus version, the start of a new accounting is made easier because many predefined templates for every need are included directly in the program. If you don't have specific accounting knowledge, you can use the new Income/Expense templates or the Cash Manager with descriptive accounts. The work will be intuitive, fast and professional.

We advise you to immediately switch to Banana Accounting Plus and take advantage of the many new features.

In order to create a new accounting file, there are different modes.

Creating an accounting file, starting from a template included in the program

Here we explain how to start an accounting file, starting from an existing template included in the program.

File menu, New command
From the Group section, select Double-entry accounting
In the File section, select Double-entry accounting or Double-entry accounting with VAT/Sales tax.
In the Examples/Templates section, select the language/nation and choose one of the templates that is closest to your own needs.
By clicking on the Online Templates button you can access our website where we published all templates available for free.

Setting up the file properties (basic data)

From the File menu, File properties command, indicate the company name that will appear in the headers of the printouts and on the other data.
Select the basic currency, with which the accounting will be kept.

General use of the program

Banana Accounting inspires itself from Excel. The user directions and the commands are kept as similar as possible to the ones of Microsoft Office.
For more information on the general use of the program, we refer to the explanations on our page Program interface.
The accounting is being contained in tables; all of them have the same way of operating.

Saving the file

From the File menu choose the Save as... command, preferably indicating the name of the company and the current year (for example, "company_2017")
Choose the folder where the file should be saved (for example, Documents -> Accounting)
The program will add the "ac2" extension.

Customizing the Chart of accounts

In the Accounts table, customize the Chart of accounts and adapt it to your own needs:

Add new accounts and /or delete existing ones (see Adding new rows)
Modify the account numbers, the descriptions (for example, enter the name of your own Bank account), enter other groups, etc.
To create subgroups, please consult our Groups page.

In the Chart of accounts, you can also define Cost centers or Segments, used to attribute the amounts in a more detailed or specific way.

The Transactions

The Transactions have to be entered into the Transactions table; together they compose the Journal.

In the specific columns:

Enter the Date
Enter the Document number, manually assigned to the paper document. This makes it possible to easily locate the documents once the accounting transaction has been entered.
Enter the Description
Into the Debit account column, enter the destination account
Into the Credit account column, enter the account of origin.
Enter the Amount. In the accounting with VAT, enter the gross amount, VAT included. The program will separate the VAT, splitting the net cost or net income.

Speeding up the recording of the transactions

In order to accelarate the recording of the transactions, you can use

the Smart fill function that allows the automatic autocomplete of data that have already been entered at an earlier date.
the Recurring transactions function, used to memorize recurring transactions into a separate table.
importing your bank or post office statement from the e-banking.

Transactions with VAT

In order to enter transactions with VAT please proceed as follows:

from the File menu, choose New command and choose Double-entry accounting with VAT/Sales taxes
Choose one of the existing templates for your nation with double-entry accounting with VAT codes and VAT Codes table.
In order to enter transactions with VAT, please visit the Transactions page.

Transactions on multiple rows

Transactions on multiple rows or Composed transactions are transactions involving more than two accounts and credits/debits on multiple accounts (for example when you pay different invoices from the bank account). In this case you need to enter the transaction on multiple rows:

in the first row enter the total amount and the account debited or credited
when all the individual debit and credit rows are entered there shouldn't be any difference

For more details, consult the page Composed transactions.

Checking customer and supplier invoices

Banana allows you to keep an eye on the invoices to be paid and the receivable, issued invoices. Please consult:

The Account card

The Account card automatically displays all the transactions that have been recorded on the same account (for example, cash, bank, clients, etc).

To display an account card, just position yourself with the mouse on the account number and click on the small blue symbol that appears.

Account card by period

To display the account card with the balances referring to a specific period, click on the Account1 menu, Account card command, and in the Period section, activate Period Selected, entering the Start and the End date of the period.

For more details, consult the Period page.

Printing the Account card

In order to print one account card, just display the card from the Accounts or the Transactions table and launch the print from on the File menu.

To print several or all account cards, click on the Account1 menu, Account card command, and select the account cards that need to be printed. By means of the Filter, all the account cards, or only a part of all of them (for example, only accounts, cost centers, segments), that need to be printed can be automatically selected.

For more details, consult the Account Card page.

The Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statement

The Balance sheet shows the balances of all the estate accounts, Assets & Liabilities. The difference between the Assets and the Liabilities determines the Share capital.

The Profit & Loss statement shows all the Expense & Revenue accounts. The difference between the Expenses & Revenue determines the Profit or Loss of the Accounting year.

The display and the printing of the Balance Sheet is being executed from the Account1 menu, Enhanced Balance Sheet and Enhanced Balance Sheet with groups commands.

The Enhanced Balance Sheet command simply lists all the accounts without distinguishing Groups and Subgroups
The Enhanced Balance Sheet with groups command lists all the accounts while subdividing Groups and Subgroups; besides, it presents numerous features to customize the presentation, functions that are not provided in the Enhanced Balance Sheet.

Data archiving in PDF format

At the end of the year, when the entire accounting has been completed, corrected and audited, all the accounting data can be archived with the Create PDF dossier command of the File menu.

The Budget

Before you begin a fiscal year, you can estimate the costs and revenue, so you have your company's economic and financial situation under control.

The budget can be set up in two different ways:

Accounts table, Budget column. For each account, the annual budget amount is being indicated.
In this case, when you set up the Budget from the Account1 menu, Enhanced Balance Sheet with groups command, the Budget column displays the amounts that refer to the entire year.
In the Budget table, that can be activated through the Tools menu, Add new functionalities command.

In this table, you can enter all the budgeted costs and revenue by means of entering transactions. If you activate this table, the column of the accounts table will be automatically deactivated.

In this case you can set up a detailed budget, taking into account the possible variations over the year and in different periods of the year.

For more details, consult the page Budget.

This documentation is outdated