Karbon Billing tracks all billing transactions, including invoices, credit notes, payments, and payouts, in an Accounts Receivable (AR) ledger. It's crucial to synchronize this with your firm's General Ledger (GL) through account mapping and journal exports.
Account Mapping in Karbon AR Ledger
The AR ledger records transactions against a set of different accounts - this includes accounts for recording Expenses, Payments and Sales Tax.
Account | Purpose |
Accounts Receivable | A client account owes the firm |
Cash Clearing | When you receive a check and “record manual payment” |
Expenses | Expenses that have been invoiced to your clients |
Payments Fees | Payment processing fees |
Payments Fees Taxes | If Karbon has to collect tax on our payment processing fees |
Payments Clearing | A payment has been processed (but not yet cleared and paid out to your bank account) |
Payments Received | A payment has cleared and been received in your bank account |
Payment Surcharges | Surcharges clients have paid when using payment methods that include surcharge fees |
Prepayment | unused |
Revenue | Work that has been invoices |
Sales Tax Payable | Any tax you have to collect when invoicing |
Set up Account Mapping
To align accounts in the Karbon AR ledger with your firm's GL:
Navigate to Account Mapping:
Open Settings off of the Main Menu.
Select Billing.
Edit the Mapping for Charts of Accounts.
Align the accounts used in the Karbon AR ledger with the accounts in the firm's GL.
Ensure Complete Mapping:
Before exporting a journal from the AR ledger, ensure all accounts are mapped correctly.
Please keep in mind that the journal cannot be exported from the AR ledger until all of the accounts have been mapped.
Configure Accounting Periods and Journals
To manage journal exports and accounting periods effectively:
Setting up Accounting Periods
Configure your Accounting Period to manage what gets included in your Journal exports.
Open Settings off of the Main Menu.
Click 'Set Accounting Period'.
Choose your preferred frequency.
Select the start date for the accounting period.
Exporting a Journal
Journal exports are Excel files that contain a summary of the billing transaction activity within the accounting period. There are two types:
A trial Journal - this includes all transactions for the period and can be created anytime (even if the period is still open) and doesn't show in the list of created Journal Runs.
A (regular) Journal - these can only be created when the period is closed and appear in the list of Journal Runs.
A journal export will include all the data up to the last completed day of the accounting period.
Accounting periods can be closed as well, this stops any further transactions from being added to that period. You can further update your accounting periods by going into the Finance section under Billing on the Main Menu.
Accounting periods can only be closed:
If all preceding accounting periods are closed.
After the end date of the accounting period has passed.
Tax Reports Management
Within each Accounting Period, a summary table displays the total taxes calculated from invoices and credit notes. Tax types, configured in Billing settings and assigned to each invoice, are detailed in the table. For invoices with multiple taxes, the report breaks down each applicable tax type and their respective amounts.
