Accounts Bags, Safes & Partners

Three small master files sit under Accounting → Master Files next to the accounts themselves. None of them records a transaction; each one either decides which accounts a party books to, or is a party that money moves to and from.

Accounts Bag — one set of accounts for many parties

Every party in Nama — a customer, a supplier, an employee, a safe, a bank account — carries an Accounts block: a Main Account, numbered accounts (Account 01, Account 02, …), a currency and an Accounts Bag. Typing the same five accounts on two hundred customers is slow and error-prone. An Accounts Bag (Accounting > Master Files > Accounts Bag) holds that set of accounts once, and every party that names the bag shares it.

The bag's screen has:

• Subsidiary Type — the kind of party this bag is for (customer, supplier, employee…). When it is filled, every account in the bag must be a subsidiary-tracking account that accepts that kind of party (see Accounts); the bag will not save otherwise.
• Ignore Subsidiary Accounts And Use Bag Accounts — when ticked, documents always take the accounts from the bag and ignore whatever is typed on the party itself. Change the bag and every party that uses it follows on its next document.
• Do Not Copy Bag Accounts To Subsidiary — by default, picking a bag that has the option above ticked copies the bag's accounts into the party's own Accounts block, so they are visible on the party's screen. Tick this to leave the party's fields empty.
• The Accounts block — main account and accounts 01 to 05, exactly like a party's.
• Details grid — extra accounts, each with an Account Id (a short code you choose) and remarks. A document term or an Accounting Side Config whose account source is From Bag names that Account Id, and the account on the matching line is used.
• Currency Account Lines grid — one account per subsidiary account type and currency. When the side's Calculate Account Based On Currency From Bag option is ticked, the account is picked from this grid by the document's currency, so a party trading in several currencies books each one to its own account. The same account, type and currency cannot appear twice.

Without the "ignore" option the bag still counts: the accounts in the bag, its Details and its Currency Account Lines are all treated as the party's own accounts when a journal line names that party, so they are accepted wherever "this account is not one of the subsidiary's accounts" would otherwise be refused.

Safe Deposit — a cash safe

A Safe Deposit (Accounting > Master Files > Safe Deposit) is a cash box or treasury. It is a party in its own right with its own Accounts block, so a voucher whose cash side is a safe books to that safe's accounts. Its screen has:

• Custodian — the employee responsible for the safe, and an English Code.
• Treasury Cashier — tick it for a safe used by cashiers. Only safes with this option ticked can be picked on an Open Shift (see Cashier Shifts).
• Main Safe Deposit — available only on a treasury-cashier safe: the safe the shift's cash is handed to. When a Close Shift picks the open shift, the main safe is copied from here.
• The Accounts block, an Additional Information grid (a reference, a description and remarks per line) and the dimensions.

Receipt and payment vouchers whose term sets the account source to Safe Deposit take the safe from the term or from the user; see the voucher terms.

Partner — an owner tracked as a party

A Partner (Accounting > Master Files > Partner) is a business owner or partner kept as a party of its own, apart from customers, suppliers and employees. Because it has an Accounts block, it can be the party on receipt and payment vouchers and aging allocation, and the subsidiary on a journal line, which keeps each partner's capital and current account traceable. It also carries:

• a Percentage field and an English Code,
• Contact Info (address, phones, email),
• up to four Bank Info groups (bank name, branch, account title, country, SWIFT code, IBAN, intermediary bank), with attachments.

The Percentage field is informational: the profit split does not read it. Each partner's share of profit comes from the Partner shares record, where a partner row can name a Partner record, an employee or a third party. See Partner Shares & Profit Distribution.

In practice

• Safes are near-universal: about 6 in 7 companies keep them. A new company starts with one, and about 4 in 5 companies add more; a typical company keeps about six, and the largest tenth more than 25.
• Most safes are ordinary cash boxes. Cashier shifts, and with them the Treasury Cashier and Main Safe Deposit options, are used by only a few companies.
• About 2 in 3 companies keep Partner records, typically four or so. Profit distribution through Partner shares is used by about 1 in 20 companies, so most use the Partner simply to keep each owner's capital and current account.
• Roughly half of companies use Accounts Bags, and they need only a handful: typically about five, rarely more than ten, since one bag serves a whole group of parties.