VT Accounts
New features in the March 2009 edition
Companies Act 2006
VT Final Accounts now includes both CA 1985 and CA 2006 templates. The CA 2006
templates must be used for accounting periods beginning on or after 6 April 2008
and the CA 1985 templates for periods beginning before that.
Transfer of data between
different generations and types of workbook
Data (including the current and comparative year trial balances) can be easily transferred between workbooks using the commands on
the new Edit sub-menu of the VT Final Accounts menu in Excel. This may be useful
when using a CA 2006 template for a company for the first time or if a business
changes its status (small company to large company, sole trader to partnership
etc). Data can also be transferred from manual entry workbooks to linked entry
workbooks or vice versa. The transfer of data only fully applies to workbooks
created in the July 2008 edition or later. More
info...
Converting
the extended trial balance in a manual entry
workbook to a VT Transaction+ file
The trial balance and adjustments in an extended trial balance in a manual entry
workbook can be converted into a new VT Transaction+ file by choosing the
convert command
from the VT Bookkeeping menu in Excel.
Importing a trial
balance from Sage or other accounts packages into both manual and linked entry
workbooks
A trial balance can be
automatically imported from Sage or other accounting packages via a CSV file
into manual entry workbooks (this feature has been available for workbooks
linked to VT Transaction+ for some time). A new Import Trial Balance
button on the VT toolbar in Excel applies to both manual and linked entry
workbooks.
Operating VT
Transaction+ from within Excel
For linked entry workbooks,
journals can be entered and reports displayed by clicking on the new buttons at
the right-hand end of the VT toolbar in Excel. This removes the need to
frequently open the underlying bookkeeping file in VT Transaction+. In
particular, there is a Display Accounts button on the VT toolbar that
lists all accounts and their balances on the left of a dialog and the entries in the selected
account on the right. As in VT Transaction+, in all the reports any transaction
or entry can be edited by clicking
on it with the right mouse button.
Using VT Transaction+
style journal entry dialogs and reports with manual entry workbooks
The same set of buttons
referred to above can optionally be used to enter journals and display reports
for manual entry workbooks. It is now practical to enter hundreds of journals
into a manual entry workbook and to display or print double entry reports based
on them. The journal dialogs are the same ones used by VT Transaction+ except
that the journals are stored on the extended trial balance sheet in Excel and
not in a separate VT Transaction+ file. Once entered, the journals are
identical to ones you can still create using the old Insert Trial Balance
Adjustment Column method. The reporting features apply retrospectively to
old workbooks.
VT Final Accounts help
topics
The help topics for VT
Final Accounts have been re-written and improved. There is no longer a separate
printed user guide, but a pdf version of the help topics
is available. For linked entry workbooks, the documentation now
assumes you are using VT Transaction+ and not the old VT Transaction.
VT Transaction+
The setup program installs the completed version of VT Transaction+. The program
no longer has a built-in expiry date. There is no printed user guide for VT
Transaction+, but a pdf version of the help
topics is available.
Other matters
Page break buttons on
the VT toolbar
The display page breaks, insert page break and remove page
break buttons have been removed from the VT toolbar to make space for some
of the new features. These buttons were designed for use with Excel 95 (which
has not been supported by VT for some time). In Excel 97 or later, you should
choose the Page Break Preview command from the View menu and then
drag the page break lines upwards. If you still wish to use the old features,
there are still commands for them on the VT Final Accounts>Insert menu.
VT Transaction
The old VT Transaction is still included in the setup program, but its use is no
longer recommended. This is especially true in Windows Vista. VT Transaction is
no longer being updated and may not work in future versions of Windows. A VT
Transaction file can be opened in VT Transaction+ by choosing the Open Company
command in VT Transaction+, or by right clicking on it in a folder and choosing
the Open In VT Transaction+ command from the pop-up menu. VT Final Accounts
workbooks can still be linked to the old VT Transaction as before. However, if
you create a new workbook, you will need to untick the Get balances directly
from VT Transaction+ file box in the Workbook Properties dialog first.
Support for the old VT
Transaction
The old VT Transaction is no longer available for sale and support will not be
provided after 30 June 2010. Any client who has a support subscription is
automatically entitled to a copy of VT Transaction+ at no additional charge.
Based on the support calls received from users of the old VT Transaction, VT
Software strongly believes that it is in the best interests of new customers to
use VT Transaction+. In particular, non-accountants and those who are
inexperienced with computers often have problems in the old VT Transaction with
VAT, changing the amount of a transaction, data file locations and backing up.