Account Set-up (Accounting)

A step-by-step guide on configuring your chart of accounts in FMX for accurate transaction categorization and reporting.

What are Accounts?

In FMX, it is important to distinguish between an Account and a Budget, as they serve different functions in your financial workflow.

• An Account represents a line item in your chart of accounts or a specific fund in your general ledger. Accounts are the financial repositories used to properly classify all debits and credits.
• A Budget is a spending limit or target you can set for a specific cost center, department, or project, which is then tracked against the transactions coded to an Account.

This guide focuses on the proper setup of your Accounts.

The Accounts Tab

To begin, select Accounting from the left-side menu and navigate to the Accounts tab.

This screen provides a high-level overview of your chart of accounts within FMX. From this grid, you can:

• Review Account Balances: See a summary of each account, including its Code, Current FY Debits, and Current FY Credits. Note: These columns are calculated based on your site's fiscal year. To change this, navigate to Admin Settings > General and edit the Fiscal year start date field.
• Filter and Sort: Use the Filter button to locate specific accounts or sort the grid by any column header for quick analysis.
• Export Data: Click the Export button to download your account list, which can be useful for reconciliation.
• Create New Accounts: Click the New account button to add a new account to your chart of accounts.

Creating a New Account

1. From the Accounts tab, click the New account button.
2. Enter the required information:
   • Name: The descriptive name of the account (e.g., "Maintenance Labor Expense").
   • Code: The corresponding account code or number from your general ledger.

To change these details later, click the edit icon on the right side of an existing account's row.

Note: If your FMX site is integrated with your organization's ERP or financial system, accounts can be created and updated automatically to ensure both systems remain in sync.

Limiting Account Usage

To ensure accurate transaction coding and prevent errors, you can limit how each account is used.

1. While creating or editing an account, toggle Can be debited and/or Can be credited to define its role.
2. Apply more specific limits by Building, Module, Request Type, and Transaction Type to ensure transactions are always coded to the correct account.

Only transactions that meet these criteria will be available for assignment. Note: These limits are NOT applied during bulk transaction assignments.

The following Transaction Types can be used to limit account usage:

• General costs: Costs associated with work requests, work tasks, and equipment logs.
• Inventory added: Cost of adding new inventory.
• Inventory costs: Costs related to inventory usage in work requests, work tasks, and equipment logs.
• Inventory edited: Changes in inventory quantity or unit price.
• Inventory removed: Reduction of inventory quantities.
• Inventory transferred: Movement of inventory between locations.
• Invoice payment: Payments applied to invoices.
• Labor costs: Costs of worker hours in work requests or work tasks.
• Purchase: Costs of purchased purchase orders.
• Other: This type is only used for manually created transactions.

Configuring Auto-Assignment

To improve efficiency, FMX can automatically code transactions to the correct account.

• How it works: If a transaction is created that meets the usage criteria for only one possible debit or credit account, FMX will automatically assign it, reducing manual data entry.

Example of a transaction that WOULD be auto-assigned:

You have an account called "HVAC Labor Expense". You limit its usage so it can only be used for the Labor Costs transaction type. Crucially, no other accounts on your site are available for Labor Costs. When a technician logs their labor, FMX sees that "HVAC Labor Expense" is the single, unambiguous option and automatically assigns the transaction.

Example of a transaction that WOULD NOT be auto-assigned:

You have two accounts: "General Maintenance Supplies" and "Custodial Supplies". Both are available to be used for the General Costs transaction type. When a user creates a transaction for a general cost, FMX sees two possible accounts. It will not make an assumption, and the transaction will need to be assigned manually.

Creating Sub-Accounts

For more granular financial tracking, you can create sub-accounts that roll up into a primary parent account, mirroring the structure of your chart of accounts.

• To create a sub-account, follow the steps for creating a new account, but also select a Parent account from the dropdown menu.

Viewing and Filtering Account Transactions

Each account includes a dedicated Transactions tab that functions like a T-account view, providing a complete ledger of all associated debits and credits.

1. From the Accounts grid, click on the name of the account you wish to audit.
2. Select the Transactions tab.

From this ledger view, you can:

• Analyze Transactions: Review a detailed list of every transaction, including its date, source, type, and debit or credit amount.
• Filter Your View: Click the Filter button to narrow down the transaction list by criteria such as Date Range, Module, or Transaction Type.
• Include Sub-Account Data: To see a consolidated view, select the Include transactions from sub accounts option within the filter menu.
• Save Filters: After setting up a filter for a common reconciliation or reporting task, click the Save filter button to name it for future use.

Retiring and Deleting Accounts

From the three-dot menu on the right side of each account row, you can update its status.

• Retire: This status should be used for accounts that are no longer in use but have a transaction history you wish to preserve.
• Delete: This status should be used for accounts that were created by mistake and have no transaction history.

By default, the Accounts grid only shows active accounts. To view retired or deleted accounts, click the Filter button and select the desired status from the Status checkboxes.

Once you have filtered for a retired or deleted account, you can click the three-dot menu and select Reinstate or Undelete to make it active again.

Next Steps

Once your chart of accounts is configured in FMX, you can:

• Begin assigning transactions to the appropriate accounts.
• Establish spending controls by following our Budget Setup guide.