General Ledger Walkthrough
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Introduction
This page explains the General Ledger features of WebSBA. It assumes the reader is familiar with the basic features of WebSBA. For a lengthy review of accounting, see Accounting 101.

Creating a General Ledger Account
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1. From the Main Menu, click Chart of Accounts under the Company heading.
2. Look for a "click here" link near the upper-right corner of the page. Click it.
3. Enter an Account ID and Account Name for the new account.
4. Select the Type/Function of the account. This defines what the account will be used for.
5. Using the Normal Account Balances chart as a guide, select DR or CR as the normal balance for the account.
6. Click Create Account.

If no errors were encountered, you will receive a confirmation message. If the Account ID you entered is already in use by another account, you will need to choose a different one.

Editing or Deleting an Account
Note: You cannot edit or delete accounts with balances other than zero.

1. From the Main Menu, click Chart of Accounts under the Company heading.
2. Click on the name of the account to edit or delete.
3. To edit the account, make any desired changes. To delete the account, check the Delete Account checkbox.
4. Click Save Changes.

Viewing the General Ledger
A ledger is the history of an account. It starts with a beginning balance, shows all entries, and finishes with an ending balance.

1. From the Main Menu, click General Ledger under the Company heading.
2. Click Search.
   
   Note: To view the ledger for a specific account or group of accounts, you can enter search criteria before step 2. For example, to return only account 10000's ledger, enter 10000 in the first field before clicking Search.

Posting General Journal Entries
While WebSBA will post the results of many transactions for you automatically, you will certainly want to enter your own from time to time. The General Journal tool is provided for this purpose.

1. From the Main Menu, click General Journal under the Company heading.
2. Enter a Trans ID (for grouping the posted entries together).
3. Add entries by:
1. Select the account to debit or credit from the drop-down lists under Add Entry.
2. Select DR or CR to specify whether to debit or credit the account.
3. Enter the amount of the entry.
4. Optionally you may enter a short description or comment about the entry.
5. Click Add and repeat as necessary.
4. Remove entries by:
1. Check the Remove checkboxes of the entries you want to remove.
2. Click Refresh Changes.
5. Click Post Entries. Remember that the sum of all debits must equal the sum of all credits.

Viewing General Journal Transactions
To view journal entries as they were posted, WebSBA provides the Transactions tool.

1. From the Main Menu, click Transactions under the Company heading.
2. Click Search.
   
   Note: You can enter search criteria in the Step 2 form to specify which transactions to return.

Viewing a Financial Statement
Financial statements are prepared from account balances in the General Ledger.

1. From the Main Menu, click Financial Statements under the Company heading.
2. Click Income Statement or Balance Sheet.
3. To view the statement in a print-friendly format, click Print Mode in the upper-right corner of the page.

Closing a Fiscal Period

1. From the Main Menu, click Period Closing under the Company heading.
2. Select Fiscal Month or Fiscal Year, which ever you want to close.
3. Click Close Period.
4. Confirm that you want to close the period by clicking Yes, continue.

Summary
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