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Lifetime Accounts Version 3

We are pleased to announce the release of our most up-to-date and most efficient version of Lifetime Accounts. Please take a moment to review the new features and benefits that we have introduced:

Batch Entry

You can now enter your Income and Expenditure in batches rather than creating your entries one by one. Simply key in the information in the batch entry screen, and click ‘Save and Close’ when finished. Or you can click ‘Save’ as you go along. Pressing the ‘TAB’ key will navigate the cursor around the screen. Using the Up/Down keys on the date field will allow you to change the date.

Creating Split Entries

When entering a transaction which needs to be split into two or more parts, you can now click the ‘Split’ button on the Batch Entry screen and this will open a new window to enter details of the split transaction. You can enter the details in the same way as the batch entry screen. The total is displayed at the bottom of the screen to make sure you’ve got it right before you move on.

Note: on the reconciliation screen, the split total is displayed rather than each component of the split, so this should be easy to reconcile against your bank statement.

Bank reconciliations made even easier

We’ve made a few changes to the bank reconciliation screens to allow you to edit your transactions and we’ve improved the layout to make it easier to tick the transactions.

Edit your statement balance.

If you have started a bank reconciliation, and realise that you have put in the incorrect statement balance, there’s no need to start again to rectify it. Simply double click on the statement balance on the top right-hand side and correct it.

Filter reconciliation screen.

You can split the bank reconciliation screen so as the transactions you’ve reconciled will drop down to the bottom of the screen, and the items left to reconcile will stay at the top. Tick the ‘Filter Reconciled Transactions’ tick box on the top right to use this feature.

Edit entry details from the reconciliation screen.

If you are reconciling your account and you find an error, you can open the details of the transactions by clicking on the blue Item text on the left and side of the reconciliation screen. You can edit the amounts and details of the transactions. Note: you cannot change the date or the bank account from this screen.

Journal

The journal entry screen now allows for multiple credit and debit entries to be made in one transaction (previously these could only be posted as doubles). This will make easier to make year-end adjustments.

Change Nominal Code and Cost Centre on Multiple Items

If you’ve realised that you have consistently coded something incorrectly, you can change these all in one click as opposed to opening each item individually. On the income/expenditure screens, use the filter to search for the items coded incorrectly, highlight all the items and right-click. You can then change the category or the cost centre of all selected items.

Archive Old Bank Accounts

If you have bank accounts on your system which are no longer active, you can now archive these so as the list of bank accounts displayed on your Banking screen is only a list of accounts you currently use.

You can find the option to do this within the system administration section, in the bank account setup.

Note: transactions associated with an archived account can still be retained in previous years when the account was active.

New Features to help with cost analysis and budgeting

Cost Centre Analysis

You can now associate each transaction with a ‘Cost Centre’. This can help you analyse how money is spend over different properties or help keep track of how much money is coming in from each property. Set up your cost centres in the System Administration section, then these will appear in the drop down beside each transaction you enter on the system.

Budgeting

Within the System Administration, you can set up a budget for each nominal on the system, for example if you have a budget for maintenance and repairs for the year, you can add this figure into the budget and run the budget reports to see if your spending is in line with your budget.

Note: You can set a new budget for each financial year.

Better all-round reporting.

·Cash Flow Comparison Report – you can use this to compare your income/expenditure to the same period last year, or choose custom dates to view different periods.

·Trial Balance – the system now includes a trial balance report with click-through capabilities.

·Budgeting Reports – if you have budgeting set up, you can view your income/expenditure totals against your budget figures.

·Chart of Accounts – this provides a print out of all the nominal codes and the current balance on each code. You can click into each code to see what you’ve posted there.

·Click-through reports – the reports have been updated to allow you to click on totals and headers to see a more detailed analysis.

·Nominal Activity by bank account – a new filter has been added to the Nominal Activity report so you can view activity on one bank account only.