It is necessary for you understand what LightSpeed is exporting to your accounting package, whether it is MYOB or QuickBooks. LightSpeed exports transactions (Invoices, Payments, Purchases, Multi-Store Transfers, and Inventory Adjustments) to the General Ledger (GL) of MYOB/QuickBooks as general journal entries. There are two methods of executing the export/import, depending on which version of accounting software you're integrated with.
MYOB AccountEdge, QuickBooks 2005-2008 for Mac - individual files that are exported for each item listed above that must be imported individually, then archived on your hard drive for later reference
QuickBooks for Mac 2009-2012 - a simplified process with a click in LightSpeed to export all data, a click in QuickBooks to import all data, and no resulting files to archive
This means that the exports debit and credit the GL accounts that you have linked in LightSpeed to Products/Payment Methods/Taxes/Multi-Store appropriately as per your transactions. It does not export customer data or update customer accounts in these accounting packages, nor should you be maintaining customer accounts in these accounting packages. Your Accounts Receivable should be managed in LightSpeed.
Accounts Payable is handled in your accounting package and so LightSpeed exports more detailed journal entries of your purchases (Supplier Invoices), including your Supplier list. You will be warned of any errors in your export with a dialog box.
Outlined below is the list of what is included in the accounting export files from LightSpeed, and the GL accounts they affect.
General Steps
The general steps in LightSpeed's accounting export procedure are:
Inventoried: Products with physical inventory.
Non-Inventoried Products: Products without physical inventory: Non-inventoried products tend to be services, but can also be small goods for which you don’t count. Although stickers have physical inventory, you may not care to track it, because there are so many and they are very inexpensive per unit.
Income Account: The income account is used to record revenue. When you sell products on invoices, your income account is credited and it’s value increases. Both inventoried and non-inventoried products have income accounts.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): The COGS account records the value of goods that you have sold to customers. The value of these goods is recorded as the cost that you paid - not the price at which you’ve sold them. The COGS and Inventory/Asset Account must balance. Only inventoried products have a COGS account, non-inventoried products do not.
Inventory/Asset Account: The Inventory/Asset account records the value of goods that you have received and paid for, but have not sold. That is, the value of goods in your inventory; items you have not yet sold. Inventory/Asset accounts must balance with a COGS account. Only inventoried products have a Inventory/Asset account, non-inventoried products do not.
Balanced GL Accounts: In LightSpeed, a COGS account must be paired with an Inventory/Asset account. If they are not paired, that is, if a product has one account, but not another, they are said to be unbalanced. Attempting to export documents that have products with unbalanced accounts attached to them will result in an export error.
Expense Account: This account is rarely used by LightSpeed. It records the value of pure expenses, such as shipping and handling, extra fees, some consumables. Products with expense accounts are typically non-inventoried.
Payment Accounts: These are typically bank-type accounts. They record the value of money that is taken in by LightSpeed. Some users will have separate accounts for each payment methods, other users will record all payments into one account. Other users may record cash and checks in one account and electronic payments in another.
Sales Tax Collected Accounts: These accounts record the value of sales tax that you have collected from your customers when they purchases goods or services and owe to your tax vendor (government). Typically, you will have one account per sales tax.
Sales Tax Paid Accounts: These accounts record the value of sales tax that you have paid to your suppliers on goods that you have purchased for resale.
Tax Vendor: Entity to which you pay sales tax. Government, board of revenue, etc...
Accounts Receivable (AR): Account that records the value of all money that you are owed. When you export invoices, AR is credited (increases). When you export payments, AR is debited (decreases).
Accounts Payable (AP): Account that records the value of what you owe all of your suppliers. Although each supplier’s account is kept in your accounting package, AP represents all money that you, including other expenses entered in your accounting package.
Posted: Documents in LightSpeed that are posted are locked and ready to export. Only posted documents are exported; documents must be posted to be exported. Exported documents remain locked, but are marked exported instead of posted.
