Expense Dictionary Designer

 

 

 

The Expense Dictionary Designer is used to design expense dictionaries that may be used by accounting professionals and accounting systems end users to quickly construct journal transaction entries that contain valid transactional analysis.

 

Clicking on the name of an expense dictionary in the module will open the item for edit in a new browser tab in the Expense Dictionary Designer.

 

The expense dictionary designer is divided into three functional areas in the following order:  header, toolbar and notifications, and the expense dictionary designer.

 

The Header along the top will display general information about the selected expense dictionary, such as the name and dictionary type.

 

The Toolbar displays buttons for navigating different sections of the expense dictionary, and any error messages that may be encountered while designing the expense dictionary.

 

The Expense Dictionary Designer contains the editors used for designing the Chart of Accounts, Custom Categories, and Terms that make up the expense dictionary.

 

Expense Dictionary Toolbar

 

The expense dictionary toolbar and notifications area contains buttons for navigating between editors.

 

Accounts: Design the chart of accounts.  This should contain all of your revenue and expense accounts that you will be loading terms and keywords against. 

Categories: Design custom analysis fields that pertain to your particular accounting product and would be necessary for journal line construction or filtering.  Common examples would be business units, departments,  or even market segments.

Terms: Design search keywords and phrases for search on the Expense Dictionary Module.  This should contain a complete list of the expenses your business deals with and the associated account, category, and notes to users who will reference it when creating journal transactions.

 

Working With The Editor

 

Each editor updates the expense dictionary in real time as soon as a change is made and validation succeeds.  It is recommended that you create a backup prior to using the designer.

 

Navigating The Editor: Once you have clicked the editor and begun editing cells, you can navigate the editor with Excel-like functionality.  The Tab button navigates to the right cell.  If no cell is to the right, it proceeds to the first cell of the next row. Shift-Tab navigates to the left cell.  If no cell exists, it navigates to the last cell of the previous row. The Up Arrow navigates to the cell directly above in the previous row, and the Down Arrow navigates to the cell directly below in the next row.

 

Changing Pages: Rending large amounts of data in HTML requires vast amounts of computer memory.  To make the workload easier on your browser, we have introduced paging. 100 rows of data will be displayed per page.  The page controls appear at the bottom of the editor.  Changing the sort order of a column will return you back to page 1.

 

Sort and Filter: Columns can be sorted by clicking on the sort arrow next to the column name.  Below the column name, text can be entered to filter the results that are displayed.  Filtering occurs as you type, so it is not required to press enter to perform a filter.  Emptying the text in the filter will stop that column from being filtered.

 

Add Row: A Blue + appears in the top left column of each table that supports adding new rows.  Clicking the button will add a new row to the top row of the editor.  Additionally, each designer supports adding new rows by navigating to the last row on a page and pressing the Down Arrow.  This will create a new row at the bottom of the page.  Once an empty row is created, you must specify a unique required name.  Upon providing a valid name, the new item will be created in the database.  Pressing Escape will cancel adding the new row.

 

Delete Row: A Red X appears next to every single row in the editor.  Clicking the X will prompt you to confirm removing the row from the editor.  Upon confirmation the respective item will be removed from the database.

 

Edit Row: Click on the cell you want to edit and the appropriate cell editor will appear.  After a cell has been edited, validation is performed.  If the cell contains any errors, an error message will be rendered in the toolbar and you must provide a valid value or cancel before proceeding.  If validation succeeds and the value has changed, the respective item will be updated in the database.

 

Designing Accounts

 

To edit the chart of accounts select the Accounts button in the toolbar.  The account designer consists of a single editor.

 

Accounts have the following attributes which can be modified through the data entry grid.

 

Account Name: a name that describes the account (must be unique within the dictionary).

Account Code: the actual account code (also called charge code or account number) used in your accounting system.  This is an optional value but is essential to optimal usage of the product.

Description: a description of the account for reference purposes only.

Designing Categories

 

To edit the custom categories select the Categories button in the toolbar.  The category designer is broken into two functional editors - Categories and Category Items.

 

Categories have the following attributes which can be modified through the left-hand data entry grid.

 

Category Name: a unique name for the category.

Category items have the following attributes which can be modified through the right-hand data entry grid.  This grid appears after you click a row in the left-hand grid.

<Custom Category> Name: a unique name (within the category) that describes the custom item.

<Custom Category> Code: a code used in your accounting system.  Optional, but essential for optimum usage of the application.

Designing Terms

 

To edit the search terms select the Terms button in the toolbar.

 

Terms have the following attributes which can be modified through the top data entry grid.

 

Term Name: a keyword, name, or phrase for an expense item.

Expense Account: choose from the drop down list of account codes/names to provide the account the expense item is be charged against.

Notes: any notes to the user of the system as to how to create transactions

After selecting an existing row of data in the grid on the top the custom category editors will appear below where you can easily click check boxes to add or remove the search term to a custom category element.  Alternatively, you can use SQL wildcard syntax to add or remove search terms in mass.

Search Field: The field that will be searched in a category item to determine if it is a candidate for the mass operation.  You may search on the category item Name or Code.

Search Value: The value to search for.  SQL wildcards may be used for finding a match.

Assigned: A checkbox indicating whether the search term will be added or removed from a custom category element.

Go:  Process the mass operation.

 


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