The mapping that decides whether a document posts — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you if GadgetSphere has a company, a chart, a ledger and nothing that can post. This single tab is the difference between a system that keeps its own books and a system that produces final documents with nothing behind them. Thirteen minutes, and the most valuable quarter of an hour in this course.

Step 1 — Find the tab, which is not where you would look

After this step you will stop searching the Organisation applet. The company’s default GL codes are not set on the company record. They live in the Chart of Account applet, under Companies, on a Default GL Codes tab that only renders once the company has a chart assigned — which is why a company whose chart was never set shows no tab and looks as though the feature is missing. The Organisation applet never touches this mapping and says so. It is the clearest example in the product of a company setting that is not on the company screen, so note where it is before somebody else in your team goes looking.

Reference: Organization — Before you can use it

Step 2 — Understand what you are actually mapping

After this step the tab will make sense rather than looking like a wall of drop-downs. When GadgetSphere finalises a sales invoice, nothing asks which account the sale belongs in. BigLedger looks up a table on the company that says: for this kind of movement, use this GL code. That is all a default GL code is — a role, answered once. The tab offers forty-one such roles across seven sub-tabs, each taking exactly one code from that company’s chart. Saving one also creates the sub-ledger it will post into, on the primary ledger you confirmed in the last lesson. So the work here is a one-page list of decisions, not a screen full of guesses.

Reference: Chart of Account — Applet settings

Step 3 — Map the roles a retailer actually uses

After this step GadgetSphere can post. Work the sub-tabs in order and map what a retailer needs, leaving the rest. On the Entity tab, the accounts for customers who owe you and suppliers you owe, plus their non-trade equivalents — GadgetSphere points the trade debtor role at DEBTOR-TRADE-RETAIL and the trade creditor role at LIAB-SUPPLIER-TRADE. On Sales, the sales account, sales returns, sales discount, and the output tax account, which for GadgetSphere is LIAB-SST-OUTPUT, because the six per cent it collects is a liability until it is paid over. On Purchase, purchases, purchase returns and the input tax you can reclaim. On Stock, the stock control account, cost of goods sold, stock adjustment and the goods-received-not-invoiced account. On General, retained earnings, current-year result, rounding and settlement charges. Forex only if you buy in another currency. Then press Save once on the company header, which writes every changed key together.

Reference: Chart of Accounts Setup Guide — Step 7: Map the Default GL Codes

Step 4 — Know when the failure appears, which is not when you make it

After this step you will understand why this mistake survives testing. Nothing here validates that you have mapped enough. Nothing warns when you leave the tab. And nothing stops a document going final either: finalising succeeds, and it is the journal job that runs afterwards that fails. So the invoice is saved, final, printed, and has no journal. The person in sales sees a normal invoice and no message of any kind. Finance finds the hole at month-end, or sooner if somebody happens to run a trace. Plan for that: this is a setting whose consequence is always discovered by a different person, later, on a different screen.

Reference: Organization — Before you can use it

Step 5 — Learn the two different failures, because only one names the gap

After this step you will read a posting error correctly the first time. The entity accounts behave well: if the debtor or creditor mapping is missing the job throws an error that names the missing key, and you know exactly what to map. Everything else behaves badly. For a sales, purchase, tax, rounding, charges or stock-balance line, BigLedger looks for a GL code on the line, then on the document header, then on the item, then on the company default — and when it finds none it drops that journal line without a word. The journal then fails its balance check, so what you actually see is a complaint that debits and credits do not balance, naming nothing.

Reference: Chart of Account — Applet settings

Step 6 — Know that a half-mapped link is worse than no link

After this step you will check one thing that almost nobody checks. A default GL code link carries a sub-ledger as well as a code, and the tax line is only added to a journal when a sub-ledger was resolved. So a tax mapping that exists but whose sub-ledger is empty behaves exactly like a missing one: the tax line disappears silently, the journal falls out of balance and the document fails after final. This is the single hardest posting fault to diagnose in the product, because the screen shows a mapping and the error talks about arithmetic. If you see a balance error on a taxed document with the tax mapping visibly present, this is where to look.

Reference: Tax Configuration — Lifecycle and effects

Step 7 — Map the month-end pairs before your first month-end

After this step your first close will produce the journals you expect. Two pairs on this tab are read by month-end rather than by documents. Cost of goods sold and stock balance together drive the cost journal on every month-end run, and the current-year result and retained earnings together drive the year’s carry-forward. A company with neither pair mapped closes the month perfectly happily and writes neither journal, with no message at all. That is a very quiet way to get a profit and loss with no cost of sales on it, so map them now while the tab is open rather than discovering it in the first week of the following month.

Reference: Financial Report — Before you can use it

Step 8 — Check the side each account sits on before you save

After this step you will have caught the error that never raises one. A wrong mapping is not always an empty one. Map output tax to an expense code instead of a liability — EXPENSE-SST where LIAB-SST-OUTPUT belongs — and nothing fails anywhere: the invoice posts, the journal balances, and your tax return quietly shows negative output tax. Nobody will tell you. Before you save, read the mapping back once and check the obvious pairs — output tax points at a liability, input tax at an asset, the debtor account at an asset, the creditor account at a liability, and stock control at an asset. Two minutes of reading back, against a mistake that survives a whole filing period.

Reference: Chart of Accounts Setup Guide — Step 7: Map the Default GL Codes

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Find the tab, which is not where you would look"]
  s2["Step 2 — Understand what you are actually mapping"]
  s3["Step 3 — Map the roles a retailer actually uses"]
  s4["Step 4 — Know when the failure appears, which is not when you make it"]
  s5["Step 5 — Learn the two different failures, because only one names the gap"]
  s6["Step 6 — Know that a half-mapped link is worse than no link"]
  s7["Step 7 — Map the month-end pairs before your first month-end"]
  s8["Step 8 — Check the side each account sits on before you save"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  s6 --> s7
  s7 --> s8
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

Next: Tax codes, cashbooks and the ways money moves · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation