Starting an Income/Expense accounting

Creating an accounting file, starting from a template

Proceed as follows:

File menu, New command
Select the Region, the Category and the Accounting type
From the list of the templates that appears, select the template that is closest to your own needs.
Click on the Create button

In the Search area, when entering a key word, the program displays the templates that contain the entered key word.

It is equally possible to start from a blank file, by activating the Create blank file option. In any case, in order to facilitate the start and avoid grouping errors, we recommend that you always start from an existing model.

More information on how to create a new file is available on the Create New File page.

Setting up the File properties

Set up your own data from the File and Accounting properties command and save with your own file name.

Save to disk

With the File-> Save As command, save the data and also assign an name to the file. The typical save dialog of your operating system appears.

It is advisable to use the name of the company followed by the year "Company-2020." to distinguish it from other accounting files.
The program will add the "ac2" extension.
You can keep as many accounting files as you need, each will have its own name.
You can choose the folder you want, (for example, Documents -> Accounting) or the support you want like a disk, usb or cloud.
If you also expect to have documents linked to the current year's accounts, it is suggested that you create a separate directory for each accounting year having to group all the files.

Customize the Accounts table

In the Accounts table, you can customize the estate accounts, according to your own needs:

you can change the Account numbers
you can change the Description
In the Opening column you need to enter your opening balances

Please remember, that for the Liabilities' accounts (f.ex. debts), the opening balance should be preceded by the minus (-) sign.

This operation needs to be executed only the first time using Banana Accounting, since from then on, every end of the year, when creating a New Year (Account2 menu, Create New Year command), the opening balance will be automatically transferred.

Customize the Categories table

In the Categories table, customize the income (earnings/revenue) and expense (expenses/costs) categories.
The Category numbers can be amended, as well as the Description.
The categories don't and must not contain an opening balance, in order to determine the result of the accounting year.

Transactions table

In the Transactions table, the daily income and expense transactions are entered, indicating the account, for which the transaction was made and the category to which the income or expense is attributed.

In the appropriate columns:

Enter the date
Enter the document number that is manually assigned to the paper document. This allows you to easily find documents, once the accounting transaction has been entered.
Enter a description
In the Income column, enter the income amount
In the Expenses column, enter the expense amount
In the Account column enter the account number (it has to be an existing account in the Accounts table, ex. Bank)
In the Category column enter the expense or income category (it has to be an existing category in the Category table).

Speeding up the recording of the transactions

In order to speed up the recording of your 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 (Account2 menu), used to memorize recurring transactions into a separate table.
import of your bank or post office statement.

Transactions with VAT

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

from the File menu, choose New command and choose Income /Expenses accounting with VAT/Sales taxes
Choose one of the existing templates for your nation of the Income/expenses accounting with VAT type
In order to enter transactions with VAT, please refer to 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 or categories (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 of the income or expense and the account from which this amount is debited or credited
in each subsequent row, enter the income or expense amount in the category column, and enter the appropriate category number.
Each individual amount is recorded on different row. When all the individual income and expenses rows are entered there shouldn't be any differences.

The Account card

The Account card allows you to have a complete list of entries relating to the same account or the same group.

To open an account card you click once on the account number cell and then click once on the small blue arrow appearing in the upper right corner of the cell.
To open multiple account cards you must select the Account cards command from Account1 menu.
To update the account cards, following changes in the Transactions table, you must click on the two circular arrows symbol, located at the top right of the account card.

The category card

The Category card allows you to have a complete list of entries relating to the same category.

To open a category card you click on the account number cell and then click once on the small blue arrow appearing in the upper right corner of the cell.
To open multiple category cards you must select the Account cards command from Account1 menu.
To update the category cards, following changes in the Transactions table, you must click on the two circular arrows symbol, located at the top right of the category card.

Account cards per period

To open an account card with account balances at predefined dates, click on Account1 in the menu, Account cards ... and click Period selected in the Period tab to insert your selected period.

Consult the Period page for further information.

Print the Account cards

To print an Account card, open it from any table (Accounts or Transactions) and start printing from the File menu.

To print out several or all the Account cards, click Account1 menu, select Account cards and select the Accounts you wish to print. The filter in the window allows you to select automatic selection of all accounts, cost centers, segments, groups etc.

For further information refer to the Account Cards page.

Enhanced Statement

To view the Enhanced Statement and the Enhanced Statement with groups, choose the Account1 menu and then the Enhanced statement or Enhanced statement with groups command. You can also obtain statements by period.

The Enhanced statement displays all accounts and categories without any subgroups
The Enhanced statement with groups displays all accounts and categories also with subgroups.

Archive data in PDF format

At the end of the year, when the accounting is done, corrected and revised, you can store all accounting data with the Create Pdf dossier command from the File menu.

The Budget

Before starting your accounting year, you can create a budget with your assumed expenses and revenue, in order to have control over the financial and economic situation of your company.

The budget can be set in two different ways:

From the Budget column of the Categories table. For each account the yearly budget is indicated.
In this case, when you process the budget from the Account1 menu, Enhanced statement with groups command, the Budget column shows the amounts that relate to the entire year.
From the Budget table, that you need to manually activate using the Add new functionalities command from the Tools menu.
In this table all estimates are entered as budget transactions, either income or expenses. If you activate this table, the Budget column of the Accounts table is automatically deactivated.
In the Budget table you can setup a detailed budget that takes into account possible variations during the year and in different periods of the year.

Related document: Transactions, Enhanced statement.