September 18-2012
Introduction
The Account Register is a new mechanism in ShowGrounds that allows us to provide more flexible accounting tools in the software.
There were a couple of specific goals in adding this. First we wanted to make it easier to make payments for outstanding credit balances or prize money to the people that are owed the money. Second, we wanted to make it possible to assign unpaid prize money to the prize money recipient, as distinct from the Responsible Party (person paying the entry fees).
How Does it Work?
The Account Register itself is simply a new transactional log that is tied to each account (RTO). If we think of this as a check register it’s simply a new register that’s attached to each account. There was already a transaction list connected to each account and this register was a list of entries for which the account was “responsible”.
To this point you could think of the Account Balance as being the Sum of all outstanding balances on entries the person was responsible for.
With the new account register added the account balance changes slightly. It is now defined as the sum of outstanding balances on entries they are responsible for PLUS sum of transactions in their account register.
There are many times when “Payment” records linked to an entry will be linked to an account register transaction. It is this combination of transactions that allows us to move credit balances (or theoreitcally other balances) from an entry to an account.
How to use it?
There are several specific tasks that involve the Account Register. The following links will provide greater detail on doing each of these tasks.
- Transfer Prize Money or Credit Balances from Entries to individual Accounts
- Transfer a credit on an account to an entry as a form of payment
- Issue a Prize Money or Refund check for a credit balances on an RTO Account
- Deal with Prize Money/Refund Batches.