Patent Application
20060195372
The present invention relates to software systems for financial management of businesses. In particular, the present invention relates to associating and transferring balances among balance sheet accounts.
Businesses have typically used a variety of mechanisms to control and analyze business operations such as accounting, payroll, human resources, sales orders, employee tracking, customer relations tracking, etc. Tools which provide these functions are often implemented using computer software. A software package may provide a user interface in order for a user to easily enter and view data corresponding to the various business operations. The software packages are also configured to access and update the data, which is stored in a database.
A general ledger is a store house for financial activity and history (accounting information) of a company. Currently, a number of different ledger software systems are available for storing accounting information. Financial reporting tools, which access and report information from general ledger databases, are widely known in the art and are widely available in the consumer market. These reporting tools are valuable in the preparation of periodic financial statements.
Often, these reporting tools are used to adhere to particular accounting standards. Two of these standards are the Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP) and the International Account Standards (IAS). According to GAAP and IAS, only profit and loss account types should close out their balance to calculate earnings at the end of a fiscal year for reporting purposes. In other words, all profit and loss accounts start with a balance of zero at the beginning of a new year. Businesses typically create so-called balance sheet accounts to track financial activity directed to a particular asset, liability, project or task. These balance sheet accounts provide valuable data concerning the net worth of a business on a detailed level. Similar to the situation with profit and loss accounts, it is desirable that these detailed balance sheet accounts have their balance transferred to summary balance sheet accounts at periodic times, including period-end closing. Transferring the balance for these balance sheet accounts to the appropriate balance sheet account at periodic times in current financial management systems can be cumbersome and time consuming.
A method of recording financial data is provided. The method includes establishing a first balance sheet account having a balance. The first balance sheet account is associated with a second balance sheet account. The method further includes automatically transferring the balance on the first balance sheet account to the second balance sheet account at a specified time.
The present invention relates to managing financial data in a computing environment. Before describing the invention in more detail, one exemplary environment in which the present invention can be used will be discussed.
The invention is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the invention include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.
The invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
With reference to
Computer 110 typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computer 110 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computer 100. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier WAV or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, FR, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media.
The system memory 130 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 131 and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic input/output system 133 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer 110, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit 120. By way of example, and not limitation,
The computer 110 may also include other removable/non-removable volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,
The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in
A user may enter commands and information into the computer 110 through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a microphone 163, and a pointing device 161, such as a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 120 through a user input interface 160 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such as a video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and printer 196, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 190.
The computer 110 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 180. The remote computer 180 may be a personal computer, a hand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 110. The logical connections depicted in
When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 110 is connected to the LAN 171 through a network interface or adapter 170. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 110 typically includes a modem 172 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 173, such as the Internet. The modem 172, which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus 121 via the user-input interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 110, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation,
It should be noted that the present invention can be carried out on a computer system such as that described with respect to
Within a financial management system, Accounts 2-5 are associated with Account 1. This association is represented by arrows pointing from each of Accounts 2-5 to Account 1. As a result of this association, balances for Accounts 2-5 will be transferred to Account 1 upon initiation of a transfer process. The transfer process can be performed manually by a user or automatically at a specified time, for example at the end of a fiscal year. It will be appreciated that the association can be maintained such that the transfer process can be performed multiple times so a user does not have to continue specifying an association between balance sheet accounts multiple times. Furthermore, a user may choose to sever the association.
The transfer process includes closing a balance sheet account for year-end reporting. For example, a cash balance sheet account can be denoted with account number 1100. A dimension can be set up for the cash account to track transactions in various categories. The dimension adds a further level of detail to the cash account and a number of detail balance sheet accounts can be set up according to dimension codes. Exemplary codes, descriptions and balances for these balance sheet accounts are as follows:
In another example, a building balance sheet account denoted as account 1501 is a general account. Detail accounts associated with building account 1501 with descriptions and balances are shown below:
Upon initiation of a transfer process, the closing entry generated for each cash account (for example at year end) above would be as follows:
Similarly, the closing entry generated for each of the building accounts after the transfer process would be as follows:
The association of balance sheet accounts can also be used to calculate a balance when querying an account balance or printing a financial report, even if the transfer process has not been performed. For example, a query of balance sheet Account 1 would reflect a balance of its associated balance sheet accounts, namely Accounts 2-5, even if the transfer process has not been completed. Likewise, cash account 1100 and building account 1501 would reflect a balance calculated with their respective associated balance sheet accounts.
Using the invention described above, a financial management system provides a convenient approach to associating balance sheet accounts with more general balance sheet accounts. As a result of the association, detailed accounts can have their respective balance automatically transferred to an associated account upon the initiation of a transfer process. This situation allows balance sheet accounts to easily be reset at year-end or at other times as desired.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to particular embodiments, workers skilled in the art will recognize that changes may be made in form and detail without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
