Traditionally reports are presented to the accounting personnel or CPA on a monthly basis. Almost all reports available in the APS software are designed so that the operator may choose a required date range. Typically a report will request a beginning and ending date range. The General Ledger transfer report (selected in the G. Reports, Accounting, Layaways sub menu of Store management) is designed to give the accountant, pawnshop transaction totals in a Debit and Credit format using the accountant's chart of accounts and descriptions. See selection "I. Accounting Parameters", in the STORE NAME, RATE, SALES, PRINTERS menu.
In addition there are certain situations that affect the accounting in a store, they are:
| • | Police holds or confiscation |
| • | Thfts of items from the store by shoplifters |
| • | Expenses due to an item being "written off" when found to be broken or inoperable. Loan and purchase pulls that do NOT equal the amount updated to inventory. |
| • | Over and under amounts from cash drawer closings |
All of the above transactions are in the reporting of the store's income statement. A method to easily keep track of the transactions is to create a memo file with "G. Memo and Notes" in the Daily Business menu. A suggested naming convention is:
| • | HOLDyy For police holds |
| • | THEFyy For shoplifted items or thefts |
| • | BROKyy For broken or written off items |
The "yy" is the current year. In the text memo record relevant information of the item that was stolen or broke and thrown out. For police holds that are seized, record the loan or inventory number, police officer, case number, description of the item, date and any comments that may be required. At the end of the year print off the text memo and give it to the accountant to make a part of the annual tax return. Always record the cost of the item; that is what the accountant needs to expense the item. At the top of each document enter the name of the memo, the year the data is for, and a description of data field to always enter. That way a new employee will know what information to enter. Here is an example of a police confiscation file:
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| HOLD98 | Police Holds for the year 1998 |
| June 15, 1998 | Case No. 123456, Sgt. R. Jones, phone 123-4567 |
Item: Black and Decker power saw. SN. 246890756
Loan 12345 (or stock no. 123456)
$20.00
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In some stores the cash over and under report may not balance and is not expected to balance. That is because minor expenses are not entered into the computer and when the drawer is "short" by some amount, it really isn't. It is just that the receipts have not been entered as misc. transactions. Therefore an expense should be entered for the short amount instead of reporting it as a cash drawer "loss".
The memo file method described above can be used or just keep all the cash drawer balance sheets and turn them over to the CPA at the end of the month. However, review the slips and make any necessary notes to manually adjust the over/under amount before giving the slips to the accountant.
