AWRA Help Center

Everything here starts from Accounting → Journal. The New journal button is on the Journal page, and Asset Register and Accounting Periods are in the accounting sidebar. A typical month-end runs in this order:

1. Make sure the month’s documents are in: sales, invoices, bills, expenses, payroll, petty cash vouchers and advance retirements.
2. Post the month’s depreciation.
3. Post any manual journals — accruals, prepayments, reclassifications, corrections.
4. Review the Trial Balance and the Income Statement (by department, branch or project if you use them).
5. Close the period.

Manual Journals

Every other posting in AWRA is made by a business document. A manual journal is for everything else.

1. Open Accounting → Journal and choose New journal.
2. Enter the date the journal belongs to and a memo.
3. Add the lines: an account, and either a debit or a credit, with an optional description. Each line can be tagged with a Department, a Branch and a Project. Blank rows are ignored.
4. Post it. The journal needs at least two lines (up to 50), and debits must equal credits to the cent.

The journal gets one MJ reference shared by all its lines, and the posting is recorded in the audit log with who posted it, the date and the total. A line with no description takes the memo. The equity accounts you need for opening balances — Owner’s Equity, Opening Balance Equity and Retained Earnings — are always offered, even in a new workspace that has never posted to them.

Department, Branch And Project Tags

All three tags appear on manual journal lines, expenses and supplier bills. Petty cash vouchers and staff advances carry a department and a project, and a petty cash float’s branch goes on every voucher from it. A branch is one of your warehouses. On an expense or bill the branch starts as your own branch, if you have one, and the department starts empty on purpose — pick the department the cost is for rather than the department of whoever typed it.

The Income Statement filters by any of the three, so you can read a profit and loss for one branch, one department or one project.

Monthly Depreciation

Fixed assets are depreciated from the Asset Register in the accounting sidebar (it is also listed as the Fixed Asset Register in quick actions). Set an asset up once with Depreciate an asset:

• Pick the asset from your asset register, enter its cost (the capitalised cost, which may include delivery and installation) and the date it went into service.
• Choose straight line (with a useful life in months) or reducing balance (with an annual rate), and an optional salvage value.
• For an asset that was part-way through its life before it came into AWRA, enter the depreciation already charged.
• Choose the asset, accumulated depreciation and expense accounts. If the purchase has not already put the asset on the books, choose the account to put it on the books from — for an opening balance, use Opening Balance Equity. Leave it blank if a purchase order or bill already posted it, or you will count it twice.

The register shows each asset’s book value and what is not yet posted. Choose a month, review the preview, and post. The rules are fixed rather than configurable:

• An asset is charged a full month for the month it comes into service, and nothing for the month it is disposed of.
• Posting a month also posts any earlier month not yet charged, oldest first, so a skipped month is caught up rather than lost. Running it twice posts nothing extra.
• No charge takes book value below salvage; the last charge is whatever is left, so the asset lands on salvage exactly.
• A month that has not started yet cannot be posted.
• An asset retired in the Assets module stops being charged from the month it was retired. Dispose of it in the register to take it off the books.

Each month posts a debit to the asset’s expense account (Depreciation Expense unless you chose another) and a credit to its accumulated depreciation account, tagged with the asset’s branch where it has one. On the 1st of every month, everyone who can manage accounts gets an in-app reminder of any depreciation outstanding for the month just ended, with the total and a link. The reminder posts nothing — a person reviews and posts.

A set-up can be corrected or removed while nothing has been posted from it. Once a month has been charged the figures are history: dispose of the asset and set it up again.

Disposing Of An Asset

From the asset’s page in the register, enter the disposal date, any proceeds and the account they were received into. AWRA first charges the months the asset was still in use, then removes the cost and the accumulated depreciation and books the difference to Gain on Asset Disposal or Loss on Asset Disposal. The disposal date cannot be in the future or in a closed month, and it must fall after the last month already charged.

The register also compares its totals with the general ledger, so a difference between the two shows up before your auditor finds it.

Closing And Reopening A Period

Open Accounting Periods, choose the month (last month is filled in) and add a note if you want one, then Close period. From then on, for every part of AWRA that posts — POS, invoices, payments, payroll, expenses, petty cash, advances, depreciation and manual journals:

• An entry dated in the closed month is refused, and nothing in it can be changed or removed.
• An automatic posting made while the month is closed — a till sale, say — is not refused. It lands on the first day of the next open month, so closing a month early never stops trading.
• Depreciation for a closed month is still charged in sequence, and its journal lands on the first open date with a note that it was booked late.
• A petty cash voucher or advance retirement that was waiting for approval when its month closed still posts on approval, on the first open day.

To correct a closed month, Reopen it from the same list. A reason is required, and closing and reopening are both recorded with who did it and when. The list shows the last 24 periods you have closed or reopened; a month that has never been closed is open.

Permissions

• Create journal entries — post manual journals.
• View accounting — see Accounting Periods and the Asset Register.
• Manage accounts — close and reopen periods, set up depreciation, run it and dispose of assets.

Common Mistakes

• An unbalanced journal. Debits and credits must agree to the cent, and each line carries one or the other, never both.
• Posting depreciation by manual journal as well as from the register. The asset is then charged twice. Use the register.
• Capitalising an asset a purchase already posted. Leave the put-it-on-the-books account blank for anything bought through a purchase order or bill.
• Closing before depreciation is posted. It still posts, but on the first open day rather than in the month it belongs to.

Related

• Journal Entries and General Ledger — reading what was posted.
• Financial Reports — trial balance, income statement and balance sheet.
• Asset Register — the operational record a depreciation set-up hangs off.
• Accounting controls and Fixed asset register — the feature overviews.