The General Ledger, or Chart of Accounts, is the name given to the collection of budget codes defined in Pinnacle. The general ledger records all the transactions that relate to commitment and expenditure of funds in Pinnacle. The commitment and expenditure transactions are posted against the individual budget codes in the ledger, which allows you to group transactions together so that you can get a picture of how your funds have been spent in the past, and how you expect to spend funds in the future.
In order to set up your chart of account, you must define the structure that your ledger will take. You set up the structure of your chart of accounts in the Ledger Structure window.
Before setting up your Chart of Accounts you should spend a little time planning how you wish the structure to appear. You can have a Chart of Accounts that is made up of only one component. Or you could have three components, all four levels deep.
The Budget Module allows you to have a flexible Chart of Accounts structure. You can define up to three components. Each component can have up to four levels, in a hierarchy. This diagram shows how these components and levels make up the Chart of Accounts.
Once you have decided on your Chart of Accounts structure, and you have defined the structure in the Budget module, you can then enter the actual components in the Ledger Components window.
When you have added the components, or account codes, you can then combine the individual components into budget codes, which you then post commitment and expenditure to.
You should carry out the following steps when defining your Chart of Accounts:
Decide on the number of components in your Chart of Accounts. Decide on the number of levels that each component will have.
Create the Structure in the Pinnacle Budget Module.
Create the actual Components in the Pinnacle Budget Module.
Define selected combinations of component records as budget codes.
Allocate bid amounts to the budget codes.
Approve the proposed bid amounts.
Budget codes can then be monitored for commitment and expenditure against the forecast bid amounts. Forecasts can be revised if necessary.