Masterpiece is considered a Management Accounting package based on a cash basis, not a Financial Accounting package such as QuickBooks which is based on an accrual basis. The difference is that Masterpiece is used for your day-to-day accounting (sales, receipts, costs, artist consignments, etc.). We do not track general areas such as rent or utilities.
For Financial Accounting (balance sheet, P/L statements, etc) you may want to use an off-the-shelf product such as QuickBooks.
Masterpiece is able to export many accounting details to QuickBooks. It may be possible to export to other programs as well if they utilize the QuickBooks standardized importing capability. If you do not use an external accounting package, skip this section. Masterpiece will still give you all of the management accounting information you need.
Ideally you should setup QuickBooks first with a dummy company for 30 days or so and test the way Masterpiece exports the information to be sure you understand how it will all work together. Then pick a date to go live after your testing and set it up for real.
The general process for using the accounting interface is this:
Determine which accounts, in your accounting package (i.e. QuickBooks) you will use.
Enable the accounting interface in Masterpiece.
Assign account numbers from number 1 above into the appropriate fields for Masterpiece.
Go about your day to day business.
Periodically check the accounting batches that Masterpiece creates and export them to your accounting package.
Import this data into the accounting package.
To use an external accounting package, you will need to tell Masterpiece what accounts should be used for different pieces of information.
Begin by opening your accounting package and looking at your chart of accounts.
Write down each account number and account name you will be using with Masterpiece.
As a minimum, you will need to specify Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Cash (checking), and Cost of Goods Sold accounts.
Masterpiece, like most accounting packages, uses account
numbers. QuickBooks primarily uses account names, but is able to display
account numbers. See the QuickBooks help if your copy of QuickBooks is
not displaying account numbers.
ALSO: Be sure to write down the EXACT account name for QuickBooks. If you
export to an account name that is even slightly different, QuickBooks
will create a new account with the new name.
You may want to talk with your accountant about how you want to track information. For example, you can have all consignment information from Masterpiece post to one Cost Of Goods account, or use separate accounts for each vendor.
Begin by enabling the Masterpiece Accounting Interface by going to Tools, Change Company Settings, click on the Accounting tab.
Click the Edit button on the Toolbar, check the box for Enable Accounting Interface, click the Save button.
DO NOT specify which accounts to post at this time!
This will be done AFTER you have set up accounts in Masterpiece.
AFTER ENABLING ACCOUNTING, CLOSE MASTERPIECE AND RESTART THE PROGRAM.
Masterpiece will build different menus depending on whether accounting
is enabled or not.
Open the Chart Of Accounts in Masterpiece by going to File, Accounting, Chart of Accounts.
You must specify the account type for each account. Note that, as in most chart of accounts, there may be sub accounts. For example, there is a general Cost Of Goods Sold account type. There is also a Consignment/COGS account type and a Framing/COGS account type if you want to keep these two values separate.
You can return to this form at any time to add new accounts.
After entering account information, return to the Company Settings screen and enable the particular interfaces you wish to use.
If you do not plan to export certain information from Masterpiece into your Accounting package, do not enable that feature. For example, if you do not use Masterpiece to pay your staff commissions, it is important that you do not check the Post Commissions box. Doing so would cause the commissions figures to be posted to the export file even though you do not want them.
Select the Accounts page from the Company Settings screen.
Enter the general accounts you will be posting to. You may not need
to enter a value in every field. Or, you may use the same value in several
fields. In the example above, we have used the same tax payable account
for each tax type.
NOTE: The pink account fields are Text Lookup fields. As with most text lookup fields, you can select from the chart of accounts by double-clicking on the pink lookup field. You can also add a new account by pressing CTRL-ENTER on your keyboard while the cursor is in a particular account field.
If you want an artist's consignment to
go into a sub-account for that artist, you specify the account from the
Contact form. (Go to the File/Contacts to view this option)
Here, if Masterpiece generates the check to Steve Horn, the cost will go
into the account 2110. If QuickBooks is used to generate the check, the
cost goes into the account 6100.
An accounting batch is a group of similar figures that need to be posted to your accounting package. In some areas, Masterpiece creates batches immediately (i.e. transactions.) In other areas, Masterpiece creates batches when you tell it to (i.e. artist/vendor consignments)
The accounting batch is the breakdown of which accounts are changed by an event in Masterpiece. In effect, these are the general journal entries that will be made to your accounting package.
For example, when you enter a transaction (sale), a batch will be created to enter the account numbers and values. On a sale, there may be several account numbers that are affected. You may have both taxable and non-taxable items. You may have receipts (cash), credit card receivables (visa) and receivables (layaway) all on the same transaction. No Consignment batch is created at this time.
At the end of the month, you may wish to pay your vendors. When you generate and RECORD the consignments from the Vendor Consignments form, a batch is created with all of the consignments for that period.
You can review, modify, or delete a batch from the Account Batch form (on the File, Accounting menu)
When you are ready to export information to your accounting program, select the File, Accounting, Post Accounting Batches option from the menus.
This form is used to both Print Reports and Generate Export Files.
By default, the system will select all outstanding un-posted batches. To limit the postings, use the controls in Step 1 to select which batches should be posted.
Preview or Print any necessary reports from Step 2. If you select FILE, the system will create an export file in the format you specify. In this case, you will be prompted for the name of the file to save.
After you have printed or exported the information successfully, use the POST BATCH button to record (and close) the batches.
After masterpiece has created the export file, you are ready to import into your accounting package.
We STRONGLY recommend that you create a dummy company in your accounting software while you test the import process.