VT Books for Microsoft Excel

VT Books is part of the VT Final Accounts add-in. VT Books adds fully integrated double entry bookkeeping with full editing, drill down, audit trails and reports to VT Final Accounts linked entry workbooks. It is operated entirely from within Microsoft Excel. Behind the scenes it is based on components from VT Transaction+ and uses the VT Transaction+ file format.

VT Books can also be used to link a workbook to an existing VT Transaction+ file. It is a far superior method to the clunky DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) method used by the old VT Transaction. VT Books and the old DDE method both use the same standard trial balance formats, so the two methods are both forwards and backwards compatible (VT Transaction+ still supports the old DDE method).

With VT Books, you can double click on a cell in Excel that is linked to the trial balance to display lists of accounts and entries that make up the balance in the cell. This process is known as drill down. In these lists you can also re-assign accounts and edit entries.

To begin using VT Books with a linked entry workbook, you choose the Create New VT File or Associate Workbook With VT File command from the VT Books menu. The file name you choose is permanently stored by the workbook, but can be changed if necessary at any subsequent time.

The accounting period used by VT Books is the one set up in the Workbook Properties dialog in Excel, and not the one specified by the standalone version of VT Transaction+. Hence you can easily work on workbooks for multiple years at the same time if necessary, or you can drill down in a workbook for a previous year without upsetting the period in the current year.

In any report in VT Books, you can right mouse click on an entry or transaction to edit or delete it. In the trial balance and drill down reports, you can also click on an arrow in the last column to assign an account to a different Excel heading.


The VT Books menu in Microsoft Excel

 

VT Books/VT Transaction+ procedures compared with the old VT Transaction

Example 1: Creating a VT Transaction file to match a final accounts workbook

VT Books/VT Transaction+ The old VT Transaction
  • Choose the Create New VT File command from the VT Books menu in Excel and click OK to confirm the file name and folder
  • Start VT Transaction
  • Choose the New Company command from the File menu
  • Enter the company name
  • Select the chart of accounts that matches the final accounts workbook in Excel
  • Choose a suitable folder for the file
  • Click on the period caption to set up a financial year that matches the Excel workbook

 

Example 2: Entering an adjustment journal

VT Books/VT Transaction+ The old VT Transaction
  • Choose the Enter Journals command from the VT Books menu in Excel
  • Start VT Transaction
  • Click the Open button
  • Select the folder/file that is being used with the final accounts workbook and click Open
  • Change the accounting period if necessary to match the Excel workbook
  • Click the JRN button
  • Switch to Excel whilst leaving VT Transaction open in the background
  • Click on the Get Balances From VT Transaction button on the VT toolbar in Excel

 

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