(191)-ACCOUNTING FOR MODULES

Accounting for Modules

Accounting for Debtors

A computerized sales ledger will be expected to keep the sales ledger up-to-date, and also it should be able to produce certain output. The output might be produce daily, monthly, quarterly or periodically.

Example- responses to file interrogations, or customer name and address lists printed on adhesive for dispatching circulars or price lists.

What we need to do is to have a closer look at the forms that input, output and processing take within a sales ledger. We will begin by thinking about what data we would expect to see in a sales ledger.

Data held on a sales ledger file

The sales ledger file will consist of individual records for each customer account. Some of the data held on the record will be standing data. Typically items of standing data are:

• Customer account number
• Customer name
• Address
• Credit limit
• Account sales analysis code
• Account type

Each of these items is referred to as a field of information.

Other data held on a customer record will change as the sales ledger is updated. Such data is called variable data, and will include:

• Transaction data
• Transaction depreciation
• Transaction code
• Debts
• Credits
• Balance

The file which contains these customer records – the sales ledger – is sometimes called a master file. If it is updated from another file containing various transactions, then that file is called a transaction file. Developments in the way computers store information mean that you not likely to see these items much any more – people more often talk about “databases” of information.