Welcome to the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Today we’re looking at Accounting Management.

So, what is Accounting Management in the context of NZRT’s systems? At its core, it’s built around double-entry bookkeeping. That’s the foundational accounting principle where every financial transaction affects at least two accounts simultaneously — one gets debited and one gets credited. The system also covers your chart of accounts, journal entries, cost centres, and the management of accounting periods. Let’s walk through each of those in turn.

First up is the chart of accounts. Think of this as the master list of every financial category your organisation uses to record money moving in and out. It’s broken into five main groupings. You have assets, which are things the business owns or is owed. Then liabilities, which are what the business owes to others. Equity covers the ownership interest in the business — essentially what’s left over after liabilities are subtracted from assets. Revenue tracks the income coming in, and expenses track the money going out to run the business. Those five categories — assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses — form the backbone of everything else in the accounting system.

Next, let’s talk about journal entries. One of the most useful things about the system is that it generates many of these automatically for you. You don’t have to sit down and manually record every transaction. When you raise a customer invoice, for example, the system automatically debits accounts receivable — meaning it records that a customer owes you money — and at the same time credits your revenue account, recognising that income has been earned. When that customer pays you, the system then debits your bank account, showing cash has arrived, and credits accounts receivable to clear the debt. The same logic works on the supplier side. When you receive a supplier invoice, the system debits the relevant expense account and credits accounts payable, recording that you now owe money to that supplier. Then when you actually make that payment, it debits accounts payable to clear the obligation and credits your bank account to show the cash has gone out. So those four scenarios — customer invoice, payment received, supplier invoice, and payment made — are all handled automatically. That’s a significant time saver and it also reduces the risk of human error.

Now, cost centres. These are a really powerful feature if your organisation needs to understand financial performance at a more granular level than the whole business. A cost centre lets you segment your profit and loss reporting by department or by project. So if you’re running multiple business units, or if you want to see how a particular client project is tracking financially, cost centres give you that visibility. Instead of one big blurry picture of income and expenditure, you get a clear view of each segment on its own.

Fiscal year management is another important piece. The system tracks accounting periods as either open or closed. An open period is one you can still post transactions into. A closed period is locked — the books for that time are done and dusted. This matters a lot for compliance and reporting accuracy. You wouldn’t want someone accidentally posting a transaction into last financial year after you’ve already filed your returns, so the ability to close periods gives you that control and auditability.

And speaking of compliance, the system also handles VAT returns — or GST as it’s known in New Zealand. You can generate GST and VAT reports filtered by period, which makes preparing those returns straightforward. Rather than manually tallying up your taxable sales and purchases, the system pulls that together from the transactions already recorded in the journals.

It’s worth knowing that Accounting Management doesn’t sit in isolation. It connects directly with Bank Accounts Management, where your actual bank balances and transactions feed into the picture, and with Financial Reports, where all of this data gets surfaced in formats like profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow reports. So the work you do setting up your chart of accounts and managing your periods has a direct flow-on effect to the quality of your financial reporting.

To summarise, Accounting Management gives you a structured, automated double-entry system. Your chart of accounts defines the categories. Journal entries are generated automatically from invoices and payments. Cost centres let you slice your financials by department or project. Fiscal year management keeps your periods controlled and your records clean. And VAT reporting means your compliance obligations are built right into the workflow rather than being a separate manual exercise.

That’s it for this episode of the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Thanks for listening.

Welcome to the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Today we’re looking at Finance & Accounting.

This is one of the most central areas of the NZRT system. It covers everything from sending out invoices to reconciling your bank accounts, running double-entry accounting, and pulling together financial reports. If money moves through the business, it flows through this module.

Let’s start by walking you through the eight sub-modules that make up Finance & Accounting.

First up is Invoices and Payments. This is where you manage your billing — creating invoices for customers, recording incoming payments, and keeping track of what’s owed to you.

Next is Bank Accounts Management. This module lets you connect and manage your business bank accounts within the system, so you can track balances and transactions all in one place.

Third is Direct Debit and Credit Transfer. If your business collects payments directly from customer accounts, or pushes payments out to suppliers automatically, this is the module that handles those electronic transfer workflows.

Fourth is Accounting Management. This is the core accounting engine — think double-entry bookkeeping, chart of accounts, journal entries, and everything that underpins the financial records of the business.

Fifth is Donations Management. This one is particularly relevant if you’re working with the charitable services side of the organisation. It helps track and record donations separately from standard commercial transactions.

Sixth is Loan Management. If the business has taken on loans or is managing debt obligations, this module keeps track of loan balances, repayment schedules, and interest calculations.

Seventh is Margins. This is where you get visibility into profitability — how much margin you’re making on your products, services, or projects. It’s useful for understanding not just revenue, but what you’re actually keeping after costs.

And eighth is Financial Reports. This brings everything together. Once your transactions are recorded and reconciled, you use this module to generate the reports you need — profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow summaries, and more.

Now let’s talk about how money actually flows through the system, because understanding this flow is key to getting value from all those sub-modules.

There are two main flows — one for sales, and one for purchases.

On the sales side, it starts when you raise a sales invoice. That invoice goes into accounts receivable, which is the record of money owed to you. When the customer pays, that payment comes in as a bank receipt. You then reconcile that receipt against your bank account, and it rolls up into your trial balance — which is the foundation of your financial statements.

On the purchase side, it works in reverse. You receive a purchase invoice from a supplier. That goes into accounts payable — the record of money you owe to others. When you pay the supplier, that goes out as a bank payment. Again, you reconcile that against your bank account, and it feeds into the same trial balance.

So both flows — whether money is coming in or going out — follow the same pattern. Invoice, then accounts receivable or payable, then a bank transaction, then reconciliation, then the trial balance. Once you have that cycle in your head, the whole Finance and Accounting module starts to make a lot more sense.

The two related areas you will hear referred to most often are Customer Invoices on the accounts receivable side, and Supplier Invoices on the accounts payable side. These link directly into the financial flow just described — they are your entry points into the system on either side of the ledger.

To bring it all together: Finance and Accounting in the NZRT system is a full-cycle financial management toolkit. You have eight sub-modules covering invoicing and payments, bank account management, direct debits and credit transfers, core accounting, donations, loans, margins, and financial reporting. And the whole thing is held together by two mirrored financial flows — one for sales coming in, one for purchases going out — both of which end up reconciled and feeding into your trial balance.

Whether you are a consultant tracking billable time, someone in the accounts team processing supplier invoices, or a manager who needs a clear picture of margins and financial health, this is the area of the system that keeps everything grounded in the numbers.

That’s it for this episode of the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Thanks for listening.