Overview: Active Workpapers have been designed to allow for multiple approaches to processing adjustments when completing a year end job, including processing journals directly in the clients live accounting file or processing journals into Active Workpapers and exporting it back to the client file, if desired.
Please refer to the Glossary for definitions of key terms used in this article.
Processing a journal in Active Workpapers
Once you are at the point of needing to make an adjustment to the client’s trial balance i.e. for depreciation, trust distribution, accruals etc, you can perform a journal in the Workpapers.
Hint: Where you are also using Active Ledger & Reporting (AU users only), you will now be able to perform journals in Active Workpapers and it will sync across the journals to the associated Active Ledger file as well and vice versa.
From your Workpaper binder index, navigate to the Journals screen.
In the Journals tab, click + New Journal
Fill out the particulars within the journal screen, such as memo, account number/name/class and populate with the figures required.
If you need to post a journal entry to an account that does not yet exist, simply enter the details of the new account while creating the journal. A 'New' tag will appear next to the account. Once the journal is posted, the system will automatically create the account and add it to your binder's Accounts and Trial Balance screens.
Tip: If you want to send the journal back to the client as an adjusting (Balancing Journal) journal, after the journal is saved, make sure 'Flag as Pending Export to Client File' checkbox remains ticked.
Click Add and Close.
Tip: Double clicking on a blank journal line will balance the journal.
Your journal has now been posted to the Active Workpapers trial balance.
Exporting a Balancing Journal back to the live accounting source file
After creating your journals, they will be queued for pending export. You can view them by revisiting the Journals screen.
On this screen, you can also click Prepare a Balancing Journal if you wish to bulk export these journals back to your accounting source file.
In the next screen, you will see a balancing journal that consolidates all individual journal adjustments posted for this binder into a single balancing journal, ready for export.
Click Export Balancing Journal to trigger the export of the balancing journal back to your accounting source file.
WARNING: Please click Reimport in the trial balance screen of your binder after exporting the balancing journal back to your source file. This will update your binder with the latest trial balance values from the source file, which now includes the exported journals.
You can also click Run Report and view the balancing journal on this page.
Alternatively, you can mark the balancing journal as exported by clicking Tag as Exported, which will mark the individual journals as exported and create a balancing journal in the Journals screen, but it will not actually export it back to your accounting file.
Tip: For Xero sources, please check that the journal has posted. If it has not, review the Draft Journals screen in the connected Xero file and post them manually. Additionally, Xero will not let you post journals to bank accounts and other system accounts. Please see Locked and system accounts in your chart of accounts for more information.
For MYOB sources, verify that the journal has posted. If not, in the relevant MYOB file, check the Transaction Journal for the year-end (30th June) date, as sometimes failed journals will post in MYOB as at the year-end date.
If you need to undo a previously committed balancing journal simply navigate to the Journals tab, select the relevant journal and select Undo Balancing Journal. This will remove the balancing journal, remove it from the client file (if it was posted there), and change the tag of the associated journals back to 'Pending Export'.
Processing a journal manually in the live accounting file
If posting a balancing journal back to your accounting file fails, you can also post journals directly in your accounting file.
Navigate to your cloud accounting file, for example, Xero.
Post a journal using the + New Journal function.
Once the journal has been posted, return to your Active Workpapers binder index screen.
Select the Reimport button. Assuming you have made changes to the current year dataset, select Primary Column. This will refresh your current year trial balance information from the cloud accounting file, taking up the changes from any journals posted.
Comparing and reinstating import runs
If you have clicked the Reimport button while completing the job at any stage and wish to compare or reinstate previous data imports, navigate to the Journals screen.
Click on the Import Runs tab to view all import runs.
To compare a previous dataset with the current dataset, click Compare.
This will display the current balances, prior import run balances and the difference between them.
After reviewing this, if you wish to reinstate the prior import run, click Reinstate.
If you wish to reinstate a dataset without comparing, select Reinstate from the Import Runs tab.
Once this is selected, a confirmation message will pop-up. Select Yes to confirm and this will reinstate the previous dataset.
