Overview: Trading accounts allow users to separate profit and loss items into distinct reporting sections, particularly useful for sales trading and livestock trading. Each trading account is configured on a per-entity file basis. This article outlines the steps to create and manage trading accounts and how they can assist with reporting.
Please refer to the Glossary for definitions of key terms used in this article.
Creating a trading account report - overiew
There are three steps in the process of creating a trading account report:
Creating a trading account classification
Allocating an account to a trading account classification
Producing a report with separate trading account report settings.
A sample of a trading account report layout is as follows.
Creating a trading account
To create a new trading account, click File Settings and select Trading Accounts from any screen within the client file.
You will be directed to a screen with a list of all available trading accounts. To create a new one, select + New Trading Account.
The below screen will pop up.
This where you will need to provide the following details including:
FIELD | DESCRIPTION | VALIDATION |
Code | A code to identify the trading account. | Required |
Name | A name to identify the trading account. | Required |
Profit and Loss Location | Choose from 'Income', 'Other Income', or 'None'. This determines where the summary appears on the profit and loss statement. | Required |
Page Title | Specify an alternative title for the trading account page in a report. If left blank, by default, it will use the trading account name. | Optional |
Page Layout | Specify an alternative page layout for the trading account page in a report. If left blank, it will use the default Active page layout. | Optional |
Column Layout | Specify an alternative column layout for the trading account page in a report. If left blank, it will use the default Active column layout. | Optional |
Primary Production (checkbox) | Select if the account pertains to primary production. | Optional |
Livestock (checkbox) | If the Primary Production checkbox is selected, an additional checkbox will appear to indicate whether it is a Livestock account. | Optional |
Once you are happy with all this information, click the Add Trading Account button in order to add the trading account to the client file.
Note: Nominating a trading account as 'Livestock' will allow you to use the primary production calculator for that particular trading account. For more information, see the support article: How to use the primary production tool.
You will now see it appear in the list.
Allocating an account to a trading account
To allocate an account to a trading account, navigate to the Accounts screen and edit an account by selecting the edit icon to the right of the relevant account.
On the accounts edit screen, you are able to select the checkbox to confirm the account is a primary production account. You are also able to select the required trading account from the drop-down list. There are two options, you can either:
Select the default behaviour of the whole Active Ledger account; or
Select the behaviour of a single source account. This is useful for sub-accounts or linked accounts that may have different properties.
Note: An account can be added to both a division and a trading account. For more information on divisions, see the support article: How to set up divisions. This allows you the most flexibility when reporting.
After editing the account, select the Save Account button. The account has now been allocated to that trading account for the purpose of reporting.
Note: Due to there only being one source account linked to this account, the trading account for the source account automatically updates as well.
Divisional and trading account view
To allocate multiple accounts to trading accounts quickly you can use the 'Divisional and Trading Accounts' view in the Accounts screen. For more information, see the support article: How to work with accounts.
Producing a report with trading account report settings
See below for additional resources which will assist when producing a report with trading accounts.
SUPPORT ARTICLE | REPORT |
To produce a report that separates trading accounts page by page.
Refer to the 'Generating a livestock report' section of the article. | |
To produce a summary page for all trading accounts.
Refer to the 'Generating a livestock summary report' section of the article. | |
To produce a report which includes both divisions and trading accounts. | |
For information relating to customising profit and loss pages for trading accounts. | |
For more information relating to general report settings, including customising for trading accounts. |
Divisions vs trading accounts
You can also use divisions in a similar way.
For a comparison between the two, refer to the table below. See the support article: How to set up divisions for more information.
FEATURE | DIVISIONS | TRADING ACCOUNTS |
Tag accounts | ✓ | ✓ |
Tag transactions | ✓ |
|
Filter report columns | ✓ | ✓ |
Separate profit and loss pages | ✓ | ✓ |
Primary production |
| ✓ |