Accounting Transaction Export: prerequisites, daily deposits and monthly export

Export formats

Exports contain Account Code, Amount, Description and TrxDate in tab-delimited format, with a single daily total for each account in the date range (a summary, not each transaction).

The recommended process

1. Once: complete the prerequisites so your accounts and fee items line up with your accounting software.
2. Daily: record deposits and refunds in your accounting software.
3. Monthly: create the export file for the previous month and import it.

Prerequisites (do these once)

• Verify that all Account Numbers in your GrowthZone Chart of Accounts match, EXACTLY, to the Accounts in QuickBooks.
  
  Best Practice: If you are using Account Numbers in QuickBooks, enter Account Numbers in GrowthZone under Finance, Administrative section, Billing Settings, Chart of Accounts. Make sure that the Account Numbers match your QuickBooks numbers and then, when performing the export, choose Export Account Numbers. See Setup Your Chart of Accounts for further information.
   
• Verify proper configuration of all Fee Items (See Setup Fee Items for further information on configuring your Fee Items )

•   Verify that your Fee Items have a Deposit Account set to Un-deposited Funds:
  • The Deposit Account selection should NOT be a bank account. The selected account is where payments are recorded (debited) when a payment transaction is created in GrowthZone. In the case of Cash/Check, if you do not deposit the amounts in the bank on the same day as the transaction was created, then the bank account entry will not be on the correct date. In the case of credit card payments, the payment amount does not actually get deposited in the bank until several days later and is not controlled by you. At the time of actual deposit, then a manual journal entry can be created to record the deposit to the bank and the associated credit card fees. This allows you to have an entry in your books that will match the deposit amount that actually is being deposited into your bank and on the correct day. NOTE: If you need to update existing Fee Items account, this will only affect new transactions going forward. Transactions completed prior to making this change will not be updated to a different account. Payments made prior to this change will come thru the export as being deposited in the account that was selected at that time.
     
• Verify that all 'Accounting Types' for your Fee Items are set to the proper recognition types.
• Verify that all Fee Items are set to the proper income and A/R account.
• Verify that balances in your QuickBooks Undeposited Funds and Accounts Receivable accounts match the balances in the GrowthZone accounts. 
  
  Before imports into your accounting software will ever balance, the current balances in GrowthZone must match the balance you have in your accounting software for that same date. For Example: If you wish to start using the summary export method in GrowthZone on July 1st, you would run the reports for Accounts Receivable, Undeposited Funds (outstanding deposits), and Accounts Payable (typically only applicable if you have sales tax payable) for June 30. The amounts that you show in GrowthZone for those accounts on 6/30 should match the amount that you show in your current accounting software for that date.
   
  • Accounts Receivable: Generate the Accounts Receivable Aging Summary report, and compare the balance to the Accounts Receivable in your accounting software. Fix any discrepancies. See Accounts Receivable Aging Summary for further information on generating this report.
  • Undeposited Funds: If this is a new account for you in your accounting software, you’ll want to create a beginning balance entry into this new Undeposited Funds asset account. See your software instructions for entering the beginning balance. This would typically be a debit balance account. In GrowthZone, make sure all deposits have been created and are current up to the date that you want to begin your exporting. Then view the deposits that are still outstanding under Billing > Deposits tab, Create Deposit. The total of the amounts here can be entered as the beginning debit balance for the Undeposited Funds in your accounting software. See Deposits: create and view for additional instructions.

Daily: record deposits and refunds

Deposits must manually entered into your accounting software, therefore, best practice is to complete this task daily. Deposits should include your credit card deposits, as well as your cash/check deposits.

Generate/Record GrowthZone Pay Deposits

Best Practice: We recommend checking for deposits every day and creating the appropriate journal entry accordingly.

With GrowthZone Pay, Credit Card/ACH payments begin processing on the day they are entered but the money is not deposited in the bank until a day to two later or sometimes longer. That is why best practice is to have your fee items be setup to go first into an account called Undeposited Funds, a holding account until the money is deposited into the bank. At that time, a journal entry can be made that takes the money from Undeposited Funds and records it as a deposit in your bank account. This also gives opportunity to record the processing fees that are immediately subtracted from the amount collected. With GrowthZone pay, you will use the GZ Pay Transfers Details Report to view the deposit and associated fees. You will create your journal entry for each deposit.

To generate the report:

1. Select Reports > GZ Pay Transfers Details Report.
2. Select the Date Range for the time frame for which you are checking for deposits.
3. In the Fields to Display select “Payment Gateway”. (This is important if you have multiple payment gateways)
4. Select Summarize By “Transfer ID”
5. Click Run Report.

Find the summary totals for each transfer ID and use those numbers to create your journal entry. The journal entry date will be the Transfer Paid Date column. This is the date that the deposit was made to your bank. Example: Journal entries you would make from the above report on 8/1/2019.

Record GrowthZone Pay Refunds

Generate the GZ Pay Transfers Details Report as described above. Look for refunds in the Type column.

If there are refunds, this must be reflected in your accounting software.

Example A: Journal Entry to show the details of where numbers come from

Example B: Journal Entry with the totals combined - see how the numbers are easily found on the Refund report.

Either Example A or Example B are correct; choose whichever example fits best with how your accountant wants to see the amounts entered.

Create & Record Cash/Check Deposits

1. Reports > Deposit Details report.
2. Select the Date Range for the time frame you are checking for deposits.
3. Select Summarize By “Deposit ID” and click Run Report.
4. Look for (or filter to) the deposits that are not the automatic deposits for GrowthZone Pay because those are recorded in the GrowthZone Pay Transfers Details report.
5. Find the summary totals for each Deposit ID and use those numbers to create your journal entry in QuickBooks.

Monthly: create the export file

1. Go to Finance, Billing section, click Dashboard. Under Reports > Accounting General Ledger, click Export Accounting Transactions.

   

2. On the Accounting Transaction Export screen use the   to filter to the transactions that you wish to export. 
3. On the Accounting Export Filter screen enter desired filters:
   • Select the previous month Date Range.
   • Select Exclude Refund Transactions. Best Practice: never export today's transactions so you don’t miss any late night incoming payments or transactions.
   • Add any additional filtering criteria as needed.

     NOTE: We do not recommend filtering the export items so that you don’t filter out part of the transaction that should be included to make a complete transaction. Our database architecture is not built to reliably export to separate companies/books. Exporting to separate companies/books would be done at your own risk.

   • Best Practice: Select Exclude Previously Exported Transactions.

     

4. Click Done. 

    

5. On the transactions displayed on the Accounting Transaction Export screen are now transactions based on your filters. Click EXPORT.

   

6. Complete the Accounting Export Options screen:
   • Export Type: Select the type appropriate for your accounting software- IIF (QuickBooks Desktop only!), CSV, or Great Plains Dynamics.
   • Select Summarize and total by Account (in order to export the summary), if you wish to export only the totals for each account. If de-selected, full details will be exported. Best Practice: Export only summary amounts. See this white paper Strategies for Efficient Accounts Receivable Tracking for more information. If this option is selected the following fields will be displayed:
   • Select your GrowthZone Accounts Receivable Account. The accounting summary only supports a single Accounts Receivable account at this time.
     • Enter the name of the Customer in your QuickBooks Customer List that you will use to hold the GrowthZone Accounts Receivable summary amounts. We recommend a customer name in QuickBooks that matches the name of the A/R account in GrowthZone that you are exporting this from.
     • Select Export Account Numbers instead of Names if you have Account numbers enabled in QuickBooks and you also have entered those matching account numbers in the GrowthZone Chart of Accounts. Best Practice: Matching by numbers is recommended as it eliminates errors that deal with typos in account names and relies solely on a match between account numbers. IMPORTANT: If your accounts in QuickBooks include sub-accounts, you must export by Account Numbers.
   • Click to Create Batch so that a copy of the export file is available to be viewed later by clicking View Past Exports. NOTE: Transactions included within the View Past Exports list will not be included your export if “Exclude Previously Exported Transactions” is selected on Customize Results when ready to export. If clicking to Create Batch, enter a Batch Name that will be meaningful to you, for example, include today’s date and time and a general description of the export. 

     

7. Click Export. The saved export file can now be imported into your accounting software.

Best Practice: Always perform a backup of your accounting software before importing any file.

Tip! The best report to review the details of what is included in the export is the Revenue Recognition report or the Billing Accounting Summary tab

Note on Cash Basis vs Accrual

The actual export process is the same for both accrual and cash basis accounting. The main difference is that any cash basis items are only going to have accounting transactions when there is a cash related transaction (i.e. payment/deposits, refunds). Transactions such as invoices, write-offs, credits of cash basis items will never show up in the accounting export file because with cash accounting the only time the GL is posted to is when there is cash activity. You’ll never see a cash basis item posted to A/R, for example.