Running your business with
LedgerSMB 1.3
 
DRAFT / WORK IN PROGRESS

Contents:

• I Overview
• II Getting started
• III Configuration
• IV Administration
• V Workflows
• VI Customization
• VII Appendices
• Preface
  • Intended audience
  • Organization of the book
  • Comments and questions
  • Acknowledgements
• 1 What is LedgerSMB
  • 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.2 Application architecture
  • 1.3 Supported functionality
  • 1.4 Feature comparison with alternatives
  • 1.5 Release history
  • 1.6 System requirements
  • 1.7 License
• 2 Reasons to use LedgerSMB
  • 2.1 Internal control
  • 2.2 Accounting principles
  • 2.3 Impact of tight integration
• 3 Introduction to accounting
  • 3.1 Valuation of inventory
• 4 Overview
  • 4.1 Introduction
• 5 Creating a company
  • 5.1 Using setup.pl
    • 5.1.1 Step 1: setup.pl login
    • 5.1.2 Step 2: Company creation
    • 5.1.3 Step 3: Selection of a Chart of Accounts
    • 5.1.4 Step 4: Initial user
  • 5.2 Using prepare-company-database.sh
• 6 The first login
  • 6.1 Introduction
  • 6.2 Steps to the first login
    • 6.2.1 Login screen
    • 6.2.2 Selecting a password
  • 6.3 Setting up a bank account or credit card
  • 6.4 Checking and adjusting the chart of accounts
    • 6.4.1 Accounts list
    • 6.4.2 Technical accounts identified by Links
    • 6.4.3 Technical accounts from System Defaults
  • 6.5 Checking sales tax (VAT) rates
  • 6.6 Setting up the system defaults
• 7 Building up stock
  • 7.1 Overview
  • 7.2 Defining parts
    • 7.2.1 Single items
    • 7.2.2 Combining single-item and “multi-item pre-packaged” sales
  • 7.3 Defining part groups
  • 7.4 Defining vendors
  • 7.5 Requesting quotations
  • 7.6 Following up on a quotation
  • 7.7 Receiving ordered items
  • 7.8 Receiving an invoice
  • 7.9 Paying an invoice
• 8 Ramping up to the first sale
• 9 Shipping sales
• 10 Invoicing
  • 10.1 Handling sales taxes
• 11 Collecting sales invoice payments
  • 11.1 Customer payments
  • 11.2 Customer payment mismatch
• 12 Paying vendor invoices
• 13 Monitoring arrears
• 14 Branching out: services
  • 14.1 Recording service hours
  • 14.2 Customer approval on service hours
  • 14.3 Invoicing services
• 15 Branching out II: service subscriptions
• 16 Overview
  • 16.1 Introduction
• 17 Global configuration
  • 17.1 Apache
    • 17.1.1 Differences between Apache 1.3 and 2+
  • 17.2 PostgreSQL
  • 17.3 LedgerSMB
    • 17.3.1 ledgersmb.conf
    • 17.3.2 pos.conf.pl
    • 17.3.3 templates
    • 17.3.4 ledgersmb.css
• 18 Per company configuration
  • 18.1 Administrative user
  • 18.2 Chart of accounts
    • 18.2.1 Special accounts
  • 18.3 System menu settings
    • 18.3.1 Audit control
    • 18.3.2 Taxes
    • 18.3.3 Defaults
    • 18.3.4 Year end
    • 18.3.5 Admin users
    • 18.3.6 Chart of accounts
    • 18.3.7 Warehouses
    • 18.3.8 Departments
    • 18.3.9 Type of business
    • 18.3.10 Languages
    • 18.3.11 Standard Industry Code (SIC)
    • 18.3.12 HTML templates
    • 18.3.13 LaTeX templates
    • 18.3.14 Text templates
• 19 Overview
  • 19.1 Introduction
• 20 User management
  • 20.1 Introduction
  • 20.2 User creation
  • 20.3 User authorization
  • 20.4 Maintaining users
    • 20.4.1 Editing user information and authorizations
    • 20.4.2 Changing user preferences
    • 20.4.3 Deleting users
  • 20.5 User imports
  • 20.6 setup.pl users
• 21 Definition of goods and services
  • 21.1 Definition of goods
    • 21.1.1 Definition of parts
    • 21.1.2 Definition of part groups
    • 21.1.3 Definition of assemblies
    • 21.1.4 Definition of overhead or labour
    • 21.1.5 The use of parts versus assemblies for multi-item-package sales
  • 21.2 Definition of services
    • 21.2.1 Taxation of services
• 22 Chart of accounts
  • 22.1 Accounts and headers
  • 22.2 Account configuration
    • 22.2.1 Account options
    • 22.2.2 Summary accounts
    • 22.2.3 Account inclusion in drop down lists
  • 22.3 Alternative accounts (GIFI)
    • 22.3.1 Maintaining GIFI
• 23 Taxes
  • 23.1 Overview
  • 23.2 Tax account configuration
  • 23.3 Tax calculation examples
  • 23.4 Tax calculation plug-ins
  • 23.5 Tax forms
    • 23.5.1 Overview
    • 23.5.2 Creating tax forms
• 24 Pricing
  • 24.1 Introduction
  • 24.2 Definition of types of business
  • 24.3 Definition of price groups / price matrix
• 25 Contingency planning
  • 25.1 Backup and restore
    • 25.1.1 Backup using setup.pl
    • 25.1.2 Backup using PostgreSQL administration tools
    • 25.1.3 Restore
  • 25.2 Advanced PostgreSQL: replication
• 26 Software updates
  • 26.1 Introduction
  • 26.2 Backups
  • 26.3 Software upgrade
  • 26.4 Database upgrade
• 27 Optional Features
  • 27.1 PDF and Postscript Documents
  • 27.2 Attaching Uploaded Files to PDF Invoices
  • 27.3 OpenDocument Spreadsheet Output
  • 27.4 Microsoft Excel Output
• 28 Overview
• 29 Customers and vendors
  • 29.1 Introduction
  • 29.2 Creating customers and vendors
    • 29.2.1 Creation of a company
    • 29.2.2 Creating an account
  • 29.3 Multiple customers within one company
  • 29.4 Creating vendors from customers
  • 29.5 Maintaining contact information
• 30 Quotations from Vendors and for Customers
  • 30.1 Creating Quotations and RFQs
  • 30.2 Expediting quotations
    • 30.2.1 Printing
    • 30.2.2 Sending by e-mail
  • 30.3 Attaching files to quotations
• 31 Sales and vendor orders
  • 31.1 Creating new orders
  • 31.2 Creating orders from quotations
  • 31.3 Creating orders from projects
  • 31.4 Creating purchase orders from sales orders
  • 31.5 Combining orders
  • 31.6 Recurring orders
  • 31.7 Incomplete orders
• 32 Inventory management
  • 32.1 Shipping
    • 32.1.1 Pick lists
    • 32.1.2 Packing list
  • 32.2 Receiving
  • 32.3 Partial shipments or receipts
  • 32.4 Handling returns
  • 32.5 Transferring between warehouses
  • 32.6 Inventory reporting
    • 32.6.1 Inventory status report
    • 32.6.2 Inventory activity report
• 33 Sales and vendor invoice handling
  • 33.1 Creating invoices from orders
  • 33.2 Creating new invoices
    • 33.2.1 Invoices
    • 33.2.2 Transactions
  • 33.3 Recurring invoices
  • 33.4 Invalidating invoices
  • 33.5 Correcting and deleting invoices
  • 33.6 Handling invoice disputes
  • 33.7 Remarks
• 34 Shop sales
  • 34.1 Opening and closing the cash register
  • 34.2 Shop sales invoices
• 35 Manufacturing management
  • 35.1 Producing sales orders
    • 35.1.1 Work orders
• 36 Managing accounts receivable and payable
  • 36.1 Creating generic AR/AP items
  • 36.2 Handling refunds, overpayments and advances
  • 36.3 Handling returns
• 37 Credit risk management
  • 37.1 Introduction
  • 37.2 Limit management
  • 37.3 Granting payment terms
  • 37.4 Managing arrears
    • 37.4.1 Monitoring AR aging
    • 37.4.2 Tracking invoice history
    • 37.4.3 Special treatment of invoices
  • 37.5 Interest on arrears
  • 37.6 Allowance for doubtful accounts
  • 37.7 Writing off bad debt
    • 37.7.1 Direct write-off
    • 37.7.2 Allowed-for write-off
• 38 Receipts and payment processing
  • 38.1 Introduction
  • 38.2 Single receipts or payments
  • 38.3 Batch receipts and payments
  • 38.4 Check payments
  • 38.5 Using overpayments
  • 38.6 Receipt and payment reversal
  • 38.7 Overpayment reversal
  • 38.8 Receipts and payments in foreign currencies
• 39 Accounting
  • 39.1 Separation of duties: Transaction approval
  • 39.2 Entering non sales transactions
    • 39.2.1 Corrections
    • 39.2.2 Transfer of money between bank accounts
    • 39.2.3 Wages
    • 39.2.4 Entering other general accounting documents
  • 39.3 Bank reconciliation
  • 39.4 Period closing
  • 39.5 Year-end processing
  • 39.6 Fixed asset accounting
  • 39.7 Reporting
    • 39.7.1 Tax (VAT) reporting
    • 39.7.2 Tax reporting using tax forms
    • 39.7.3 Income statement
    • 39.7.4 Balance sheet
    • 39.7.5 Trial balance
• 40 Batch data import methods
  • 40.1 Custom bank statement import
  • 40.2 Data imports back port from 1.4
    • 40.2.1 Chart of Accounts import
• 41 Add-ons and plug-ins
• A Differences between version 1.2 and 1.3
  • A.1 Users
• B Why deleting invoices is not supported
  • B.1 Invoices are debt claims
  • B.2 Cost Of Goods Sold become ambiguous
• C Migration
  • C.1 Introduction
  • C.2 From older LedgerSMB versions
  • C.3 From SQL-Ledger 2.8
  • C.4 From older SQL-Ledger versions
  • C.5 From other accounting packages
    • C.5.1 Overview
    • C.5.2 Migrating customers
    • C.5.3 Migrating parts, services, …
    • C.5.4 Migrating the balance
  • C.6 Migrating between PostgreSQL versions
• D Listing of application roles
• E Open source explained
  • E.1 An open source application
  • E.2 An open source book
• F Glossaries
• G Copyright and license
  • G.1 License summary
  • G.2 Legal full text

List of Figures:

• 5.1 setup.pl login screen
• 5.2 setup.pl company creation screen
• 5.3 Chart of accounts - Country selection
• 5.4 Chart of accounts - Chart selection
• 5.5 setup.pl initial user creation screen
• 5.6 setup.pl successful completion screen
• 6.1 login.pl opening screen
• 6.2 First login password selection
• 6.3 Bank account setup - menu items
• 6.4 Bank account setup - account setup screen
• 6.5 Tax rate adjustment screen
• 7.1 Company entry screen
• 7.2 Vendor account screen
• 7.3 Vendor account screen - with purchase discount account
• 7.4 RFQ entry screen
• 7.5 RFQ e-mail screen
• 7.6 RFQ entry screen
• 7.7 Order receipt entry screen
• 20.1 Screen for user creation - step 1
• 20.2 Screen for user creation - step 2
• 20.3 User preferences screen
• 23.1 Tax account configuration screen
• 30.1 RFQ entry screen
• 32.1 Saved purchase order
• 32.2 Search screen for purchase order item receipts
• 32.3 Search results screen for purchase order item receipts
• 32.4 Purchase order receipt screen

List of Tables:

• 6.4.2 Technical accounts identified by Links
• 6.4.2 Technical accounts identified by Links
• Item numbering