Introduction to Actionstep Accounting

Modified on Wed, 6 Nov at 4:24 PM

NOTE: The information in this article applies to Actionstep Practice Pro + Accounting plan users, which includes built-in accounting options. If you do not have access to this product and you are interested in learning more, please contact Actionstep.

In this article:

Overview
Types of Accounting Transactions
Accounting Items Related to Transactions
- Deposit Slips
- Printed Checks
Reviewing Your Books
- Bank Reconciliations
- Month-end Process

Overview

With Actionstep Accounting, you have several different functions and tools you can use to keep your business financially viable. This article covers some of the high-level concepts and how Actionstep can help address them.

Types of Accounting Transactions

When managing the finances of your firm, your day-to-day business is making sure you handle the money coming in as well as the money going out. For the most part, this is handled through invoicing—either the invoices you send to clients for them to pay or the invoices that vendors or suppliers send to you for payment.

Bills

In Actionstep, creating, sending, managing, and paying the bills you send to your client is called billing. Its function in a law firm is so essential, it's separated from day-to-day accounting.

To learn more, see Billing Overview.

Supplier/Vendor Invoices

Bills and invoices you receive from third parties for services they rendered to your firm are called vendor or supplier invoices. When you receive such a bill, you should enter it as a supplier invoice in Actionstep. Once entered, you can process a payment against it and have the records of the transaction stored in Actionstep.

To learn more, see Creating a Supplier Invoice/Vendor Invoice.

Withdrawals and Deposits

Sometimes you might have incidental transactions that don't have an invoice associated them. These firm withdrawals and deposits allow you to record money coming into and going out of your account that aren't invoiced.

To learn more, see:

Transfers Between Bank Accounts

Sometimes you need to transfer money from one bank account to another or from a bank account to a credit card. If you have a trust bank account, transfers between your different trust bank accounts and transfers between your trust bank accounts and your business bank accounts are handled in Trust Accounting.

If you are not using trust/client accounting, you can use Actionstep's Transfer Funds function.

To learn more, see:

General Journals

Occasionally, you might need to make corrections to your accounts that do not affect your bank account. These are not everyday transactions, but normally occur after completing a month- or year-end audit.

These are general journal entries and they allow you to move money from one or many non-bank accounts on your general ledger to another non-bank account on your general ledger.

To learn more, see Creating General Journal Entries.

As you create accounting transactions, Actionstep provides tools to help you monitor and control certain types of these transactions.

Deposit Slips

Deposit slips are used to deposit cash or checks with a bank. They help process the transaction faster. In Actionstep, you can create deposit slips that will list the relevant transactions that you want to deposit with a bank.

To learn more, see Working with Deposit Slips.

Printed Checks

In Actionstep, you can make payments using a number of different methods, including cash, check, transfer, etc. To speed up processing, many banks provide options for a firm to print details of a payment on a printed check. As you enter a payment in Actionstep, you can set it up as a printed check, which you can then print using your check paper.

To learn more, see Setting Up Printed Checks (Admin).

Reviewing Your Books

Actionstep provides tools to help you regularly review your accounting.

Bank Reconciliations

To ensure you have accounted for everything, you should run a bank reconciliation at least once a month. A bank reconciliation checks that the transactions in your bank have all been entered into Actionstep.

To learn more, see Completing a Bank Reconciliation.