Chapter 2 - How to enter customer details, post sales and bank money.

Introduction

2 ezBooks is unusual in that it has adopted a free form of entry which allows you to enter most data in the order you wish. For example you can enter a sale before you have entered the customers details or before you have brought the item you are selling into stock. Most systems will not allow you to do this and users become frustrated by the excessive structuring of their behavior.

We have run through the functions below in their most logical order but with ezBooks you can start by raising an invoice and add a new customers details later. This means in real life you can pick your own order of doing things.

ezBooks comes in two versions (Full and Lite) and you can select a cash basis or an accruals basis of accounting. All these versions appear similar on the screen but there are differences. We have used the full cash basis in this section of the tutorial as it contains all the features you are likely to come across. If you are using the Lite Version you should skip the sections on customer details, posting sales, etc. The section How to bank money is the only one relevant for you.

In this chapter we will tell you:

How to navigate through the income side of ezBooks

How to check on the money you are owed

How to raise a customer statement

How to navigate through the income side of ezBooks (5 mins)

ezBooks is arranged so that the most common activities (such as those specified above) are available on the main screen at all times. The most common transactions are those covered in this and the next chapter and the buttons you use for this chapter are:

You use Customers to set up and amend customer details, Sales to records sales and Received to record your payment into your bank accounts. You can make any one of these screen appear by clicking on its button and you can move from one to the screen on its left or right by clicking on the button in the top corner. You can see Customers with an arrow in the left hand upper corner of the screen below. If you click on it the Customers Screen will be revealed.

How to create a new customer (5 mins)

Click on Customers and the customer input screen will be revealed:

The click on New Customer (bottom right hand corner) and the screen will change to allow input of a new customer. Work through the screen entering the customer information, just like we have done below. Try clicking on the No radio nob in the section 'DELIVERY/INVOICE address the same?' and you will see you can enter a post box type address in the first section and a street address in the second section:

Now click on Okay and you will have created a new customer record.

A word of warning - ezBooks uses the name you enter in this customer record as the unique identifier for your customer. You cannot have two customers with the same name (you have to add a different character to one of them - that can be as little a difference as 'Mr' and 'Mr.') and once created you cannot change a customer name. If you require a new customer name just set up a new account in that new name. Before you commit a new customer's details take the trouble to re-read the customer name you have entered and make sure you are quite happy with it.

How to make a sale (10 mins)

Click on Sales and the sales input screen will be revealed:

In the bottom right hand corner you will find New Sale, click on it and the screen will change so that you can enter a sale.

Hit the Tab key to move from the first box.

Now we will demonstrate how flexible ezBooks is. Most accounting packages will only allow you to select from existing customers, that is customers you have already logged into the customer screen. Of course ezBooks will allow you to recall existing customers but it will allow you to enter new customers on the run. To show you how to do this you can click on the drop down triangle at the right hand end of the Customer box. You will see that the list shows you the customer we previously entered 'A New Customer'.

Click on the triangle again to close the drop down list and then type 'a' in the Customer box. Now hit the Tab key and you will see that the highlighted name has been entered into the Customer box. You can recall any old customers using this technique.

Now use Shift Tab to move backwards into the Customer box. Try typing 'Michael Cain'. You will see that the box accepts this new name and in fact a customer record will be created just as soon as you move out of this box. Naturally, if you need them, you can go to the customer input screen once you have finished here and enter any further details.

Hit the Tab key. The cursor now moves into the Date Ordered box. ezBooks envisages that users may wish to record orders in their system prior to them becoming sales. The system will offer you today's date as a default but you can select any date on a little calendar if you click on the pull down triangle at the right hand end of the date ordered box. You can also simply type in the start of the date, eg 6/7 and the system will fill out the rest. Be careful when you do this around the year end. ezBooks selects the current year so you can find that 25/12 entered in the next year becomes the coming December!

If keeping a record of the date an order is placed with you is not of importance to you simple accept the default each time and move on.

Hit Tab and move down into the Date Invoiced box. You do not need to make an entry as this will self fill once you actually raise an invoice.

Hit Tab and you will move into the Notes box. You can make notes of any nature in this box.

Hit Tab and you will move down into the tabular part of the form. You can enter any number of line to an invoice. The first column is entitled 'description' and is for the entry of a description of the goods or services provided. eg Fixing Washing Machine, Washers - 20 gauge, etc Most accounting packages force you to enter stock items and descriptions elsewhere but ezBooks allows you to treat these items just like the names of customers, explained above. We have not entered any items into this list so far, so lets sell some Widgets. Type this in the column.

Hit Tab and the cursor moves into the Account Classification column. ezBooks does not come with a chart of accounts. We have adopted a format which allows you to create and maintain the accounts you want with the names you decide. These accounts are just like the pages in an old fashioned general ledger. If you click on the drop down triangle at the right hand end of the Account Classification box you will see a list of the existing accounts (we ship the system with the minimum necessary accounts for any accounting system). There is a Sales account and you could use this but if you wish to have finer classification (or if it was an expense account like 'phone & fax') you can create the new account simply by typing 'Sales of Goods' (or whatever suits you).

Do this now and then hit the Tab key. ezBooks will warn you that you will have to tell it what type of account this is. Just to show you how flexible ezBooks is we can do this now but you can do it at any time.

You chose an account type through Setup > Account Classification. select Setup and then Account Classification and the following GUI will appear:

You will notice that the new account you just created is there at the top of the list. It has no Account Type selected. Now we will tell ezBooks what type of account this new account is. There are only four types, income, expense, assets and liabilities. Click on Edit. Then click on the the drop down triangle at the right hand end of the Account Type box and then select Income from the list by clicking on it. Your GUI should now look like the one below:

Now click close to return to the sales screen. You will find yourself in the Out of Stock column. This is provided for those who wish to advise customers on the invoice that some item included in an order are out of stock. To select it you can click on it with the mouse or simple hit the space bar.

Hit Tab and you will move into the Quantity column. Normally you will either enter a number of items (and in the next column the amount per item). You can of course enter so many hours (and in the next column the rate per hour). If you do enter time you should decimalise the minutes (ie 1 1/2 hours = 1.5).

Enter '10' and hit Tab. Now enter 100 as a value and hit Tab. You will see that ezBooks has calculated the total value. Now you will have to select the tax status (for GST) of the transaction. Click on the pull down triangle and you will see there are four options. Select Taxable in this case and then hit Tab. You can now add a comment if you wish and this comment will appear on any invoice. Just so you can see the effect type 'Just a comment' and click on Okay to finish the sale.

Now you have entered the sale you may wish to produce an invoice. ezBook's sales screen allows you to enter the details of a transaction for record purposes, or for the purpose of producing a quote, without the transaction becoming part of you accounts. You will be able to return to the screen and find it at any time but until you invoice a sale it is not included in your sales day book or any other part of your account.

Click on Invoice near the right of the screen.

You can use this screen for a number of purposes. First, you will see there are some radio buttons at the top. These allow you to produce the sales information in the form of an invoice, quote or estimate. Next their is a comment box. Any information you enter in this box will be reproduced on the invoice. It is not remembered by the system. You might use it for endorsing a receipt on the invoice.

Type 'paid by cheque' in the box and click Continue. A print manager will be revealed allowing you look at the invoice prior to printing. Click on the zoom button (second from the left on the top menu bar). You can use the printer icon to send the invoice to your printer (click on it, fourth from the right on the top menu bar).

Click on Exit to return to the main screen and then click on Okay.

It may be that the purchaser makes a payment at the same time you issue the invoice. In order to save you the time of re-entering data in the received screen a Received Now button is located next to the Invoice button.

Click on Received Now and the following GUI will appear:

Select a payment type and click on Receive, then on Close. Just so you can see that this payment has been posted to the cash book, click Received (next to Received Now on the main Received screen. It will take you to the Received screen and you will be able to see the detailed entry for SALE:1 which you have just entered.

How to bank money (10 mins)

If you have moved on directly from the last section you will already have the Received screen open, otherwise click on Received and the Received input screen will be revealed:

In the bottom right hand corner you will find New Receipt, click on it and the screen will change so that you can enter a sale.

Hit Tab to move out of the first box. The date defaults to the current system date. Change it if you want to, otherwise hit Tab to move on.

Description is a field in which you can enter anything you want. You might, for example, simply enter 'banking'. This time type 'banking' and hit the Tab.

You will find yourself in the Bank Account box. This box holds the short reference to your bank accounts. ezBooks comes with a pseudo-bank account entitled TILL. This might be your top draw or a tin box or a real till but, conceptually, it is somewhere you put receipts, cheques and cash, until you actually bank them. On the other hand you might want to put money straight into the bank. We already created a bank account at Westpac earlier and most accounting systems will force you to create bank account in a separate screen. Type 'ANZ' in the Bank Account box and hit Tab. You just created a new bank account on the run.

Hit Tab and the cursor will move into Notes. You can keep any form of note in this area.

Hit Tab and the cursor will move into the tabular part of the form. In the cash basis of ezBooks (which we are using for this part of the tutorial) some of the entries you are making might appear repetitive. This is because in the cash basis only entries in your cash book (and the Received screen can be considered to be the credit side of your cash book) are incorporated into your tax records/books. If you use the accruals basis you will notice you are not asked for so much information at this stage.

To demonstrate some of the ease of use of ezBooks, type 'w' and hit Tab. You will see that your previous entry of 'widget' is waiting for you in the drop down list and that it has been selected and entered.

Now type 's' and hit Tab and you will see exactly the same thing has happened in the Account Classification column.

Type 1000 and hit and Tab and you will see that $1000.00 has been entered.

With every receipt you have to tell ezBooks about its GST character. Click on the drop down list triangle at the right hand end of the GST Type box. Pick Taxable (by clicking on it) and hit Tab.

Click on the drop down list triangle at the right hand end of the Payment Type box and chose a type. Select cheque and hit Tab.

It makes sense to keep a record of who you received a payment from. You can enter any name in the Received From column (or if the receipt is from a supplier in the Received From ... Supplier column). However, try typing 'm' and Tab and you will see that the name Michael Cain was waiting for you in the list.

Your screen should now look like the one shown below:

Now you have completed your entry click Okay and the screen will revert to normal. You might like to check you have made an entry. The various bank account function are accessed via BankAcct(s).

You can always check your bank accounts by selecting BankAcct(s) > Bank Account Balances. Try it now:

You can see that the $1000 you just paid into ANZ is reflected in the table.

How to check on the money you are owed (10 mins)

ezBooks allows you to monitor the money people owe you. This facility is only available if you are using the Full Version. The Lite Version only recognises income when you bank it so it is not possible to monitor unpaid invoices using ezBooks. If you are still using a hand held set of invoices we would recommend you use some spent invoice basis. That is keep any unpaid invoices in one place (or with their corners turned down in your invoice book) and periodically look through them and chase up your debtor.

In it's current state, the Test company database has no one owing it money. Lets delete the last payment into the bank account so that someone does owe it money.

If the received screen is not open click Received. You should be able to see the last entry on the screen. Click Delete (bottom right hand corner) and then confirm by clicking OK on the GUI which appears. You will notice that the previous receipt we created by using Paid Now in the Sales screen is still there. Click Delete again and confirm it. Now our records will show Michael Cain as owing us $1000.00.

ezBooks allows you to produce a number of reports from Reports on the top menu:

Now select Money owed to us by Customers:

You can select the date you wish to carry out the review but assuming you accept the default (the current system date), just click OK and ezBooks will open its report viewer showing you a list of who owes you money and the aging of any debts. You can print this off and use it to know who to chase up. You may well issue them with statements. This is covered in the next section.

How to raise a customer statement (5 mins)

Customer statements are raised from the Customer screen. Click Customers and the Customer screen appears:

You can have a 'quick look' at a customers position and go on to produce a printed statement if you are looking at the Customer screen which contains their details. If you cannot see their details on the screen you can look for them by using the navigation buttons in the bottom left of the screen:

If you think of these records as a box of cards sorted alphabetically these buttons allow you to go to the first card, to move back one card at a time, to move forward one card at a time and to go to the last card.

You may find it easier to view all your customer records as a list. Click on the tab List circled in red in the screen fragment below:

The screen changes to a list view (you can do this is many other of the screens try it when you are in them):

As we only have two customers enter this list is very short. However, this list will always be sorted alphabetically by customer name. If you want to 'jump to' a name you can type it (or the first characters of it eg 'st' for 'Stephen') in the Viewing Customers box in the top right hand corner. Alternately you can just scroll down the list until you find the customer you are after. Once you have found the customer you must select them by clicking on their line. You can return to the detail screen by doing a double click at that point or you can click on the tab Detail to switch views.

Try double clicking on Michael Cain now:

We never entered any of his details (address, etc) but as you can see a record exists.

No click Statement:

This GUI gives you a quick view of a customers position. It shows a summary in the top left hand corner and in this case that Cain owes us $1,000.00. Below you can look at the details of any invoices raised, money received from the customer and payments made to the customer.

You will notice that you can also enter comments and chose the date from which a printed statement should run. Most accounting packages force you to allocate receipts from customers against particular invoices. This is wrong in law. The proper position is to apply the Rule in Clayton's Case. When applied to invoices this means that unless the payer specified a particular invoice is being settled by their payment you work on a first issued first paid (or part paid) basis. ezBooks statements are prepared on this basis.

The date in 'Statement Printing' is the date after which the details of any invoices or payments will be show. ezBooks never closes off old parts of your records and if you want to issue a statement going back further than the 30 day default period just change the date which is shown here to an earlier date.

This GUI also has a box called Statement comments. You will notice the cursor is active in it. You can enter any comment you want to make like 'Pay me now or we will not make any further supplies' here and they will appear on the statement. Once printed on the statement ezBooks does not remember these comments.

Just to show you what happens type 'Just a test comment' in the box and then click Print. Once again our print viewer is revealed and you can see that a statement, with gain and a tear off payment slip has been produced. You should also be able to see your comment in a comment box.

Click on Exit and Close and you have finished this section.