Accounting

This covers everything under Accounting on the left side of Utilops. Your books. The chart of accounts. Journal entries. Vendors and the bills you pay them. Deposits. Bank transfers. The budget. Closing the month. And the reports your board and your auditor ask for.

Two rules run through all of it. Nothing posted is ever deleted. A posted entry is cancelled by a new entry dated today, so the trail is whole. A closed month refuses changes until an administrator reopens it. Take the lessons in order the first time. Inside Utilops, the Show me how button at the top of every page replays the walkthrough for that page.

Start with the quick start pages

These are the money jobs you do every day and every month.

• 7. Daily close and deposit
• 15. Pay a vendor bill
• 16. Reconcile the bank statement
• 17. Month end reports for the board

Then the lessons

1. Find an entry in the general ledger
2. Add an account to the chart of accounts
3. Post a journal entry, and cancel one
4. Set up an entry that repeats every month
5. Add a vendor
6. Enter a vendor bill
7. See who owes you and for how long
8. Move money between bank accounts
9. Enter the budget
10. Close the month
11. Run the financial reports
12. Undo a mistake

Then check what you learned. Eight questions, about five minutes.

Each page has a blue Show me button. It opens your Utilops and points at each thing to click. You do the step for real, then press Next. One button walks one path.

If something looks different

Customer money comes in under Billing and Payments. Taking a payment at the counter is quick start page 3. Posting the day's mail and online payments is page 4. Those payments flow into the books here on their own.

Rates and fees live under Rates and Tariffs. Accounting only records what was charged.

Some pages are hidden until an administrator turns them on. Funds, GL Status, Check Stock, Payroll Filings, Grant Management and most of the pages below Board Reporting are for utilities that need them.

Payroll and 1099s. Payroll runs under Payroll. Vendor 1099 forms come from Taxes & 1099s at year end. Both read from what you enter in the lessons here.