Use this screen to manage information about the business. Enter basic facts about the business, and configure accounting options which will control how the system manages the accounts for this business.

Enter the company number supplied by Companies House. The number will be shown on the Certificate of Incorporation This is required.

Enter the full name of the legal entity as registered with Companies House. This is required.

Enter the date manually (e.g 19/12/2002) or click on calendar icon to select date from the calendar. This is the date recorded on Certificate of Incorporation.

Enter the month and day that the company annual return is due each year. This will then be displayed as a reminder on the user home page after logging on.

Enter the month and day that the self assessment return is due each year. This will then be displayed as a reminder on the user home page after logging on.

Enter the month and day that the Trustees Annual Report is due each year. This will then be displayed as a reminder on the user home page after logging on.

Select business status from list box, in most cases select ACTIVE. The other cases are specialised situations, please consult with your accountant before selecting.

Enter a description of the principal activity for year under review used in the year end Directors Report. This is required. Examples would be: 'Manufacture and distribution of computers' 'Provision of Kitchen design and consultancy services' 'Computer programming'

The Registered Office is the address of a company to which Companies House letters and reminders will be sent. The registered office can be anywhere in England and Wales (or Scotland if your company is registered there). The registered office must always be an effective address for delivering documents to the company, and to avoid delays it is important that all correspondence sent to this address is dealt with promptly.

If you purchase the Liberty Accounts service direct rather than through a Liberty Accounts partner the monthly invoice is normally sent to the email address on the user profile of the "Primary User".

If you wish to override the default email address used for the invoice, to send it direct to your bookkeeper for example, you may enter the preferred address in this field.

N.B. we only permit one invoice to be sent to one address.

Enter the trading name of the Business as Used on invoices etc.

The trading address of the business is the address for day to day correspondance.

The primary contact telephone number for your business. This will be printed below the business address on Invoices, Credit Notes and Customer Statements.

The primary contact fax number for your business. This will be printed below the business address on Invoices, Credit Notes and Customer Statements.

The web address for your business. This will be printed below the business address on Invoices, Credit Notes and Customer Statements.

The primary contact e-mail address for your business. This will be printed below the business address on Invoices, Credit Notes and Customer Statements.

For users who use Liberty Accounts through their accountant their accountant is their service provider. Some accountants have multiple offices/billing centres and this option is used to control the association of the business with an office for billing purposes

The current financial year date fields are used to define the start and end of your current financial year, or an earlier year if you are inputing historic data. It is possible to set the dates to be more or less than 12 months. Liberty Accounts will automatically roll these dates forward when you pass your year end. However, the year will remain open for input until the year is closed via the close financial year transaction under the 'Special' menu.

Enter the dates manually (e.g 19/12/2002) or click on the calendar icon to select date from calendar. These are the start and end date of the current financial year. Examples '1/01/2002 to 31/12/2002' '1/04/2003 to 31/03/2004'

After the date held in the Current Year End field has been passed, Liberty Accounts will automatically roll the financial year dates forward during overnight processing. This rollover process also creates a record of the old dates as a pending year end for closure. This record is important as it is used to calculate movements between Retained Profit and Loss and Profit and Loss accounts as part of the year end closure.

If you are entering historic data for a business year that ends in the past you may wish to inhibit this automatic roll forward by checking this field. This will also make it possible to enter a financial year end date prior to the current date, which is not normally permitted. After data input is complete you can use the batch job submission transaction under the 'Special' menu to roll your year forward.

Note that year end closure is a separate manual process that can only be run for a year after the financial year has been rolled forward by the system. You should close your pending year before rolling forward another year.

The opening balance lock state allows a user to enable or disable the Opening Balances menu option under the Special menu group. By default the Lock State is set to 'Open', thus making the Opening Balances menu option available.

A user can set the lock state to either 'Open' or 'User Locked'. The Lock State will be automatically set to 'System Locked' once a Year End Close has been performed. When the Lock State is 'System Locked' the user no longer has the ability to change the lock state and the Opening Balances menu option will be permanently disabled.

The transaction lock date can be used to prevent users adding or editing transactions for any date up to and including the transaction lock date. This can be useful where monthly or quarterly management accounts have been produced and it is desirable to prevent subsequent changes to data in the periods concerned.

If no date is entered users can add or edit transactions for any date after the end date for the last financial year to have been closed.

If the date is before the end date for the last financial year to have been closed it will be ignored and the year end date will be used.

Enter the dates manually (e.g 19/12/2002) or click on the calendar icon to select date from calendar.

Select Month end, Year End or Manual from list box. This indicates when batch programs apply charges for asset depreciation. This is required. If you expect to produce monthly financial reports, select 'Month end'

If you are VAT registered you need to track the VAT element of your transactions. To turn on vat tracking you should check the track VAT checkbox and enter a valid effective date.

Selecting Track VAT will automatically create the appropriate VAT control accounts if they do not already exist for the business. If your business deals with foreign VAT other than standard EU acquisitions you will need to add the foreign VAT tracking accounts using 'Add from Standard Accounts' under the 'Accounts' menu.

This field is only available when creating a new business and is used to create a bank account for the business. If no details are provided a default bank account is created which can be updated at a later date if required via menu option Accounts--Bank/Credit Accounts.

This account is initially defined as the primary bank account so its details will appear on the invoice remittance slip. A different bank account can be selected as the primary bank account via menu option Business--Document Settings

Sort code of primary bank account - this will appear on invoice remittance slip.

Account number of primary bank account - this will appear on invoice remittance slip.

International account number of primary bank account - this will appear on invoice remittance slip if present.

Enter an opening balance amount for the primary bank account. This amount can be updated at a later date if required via menu option Accounts--Bank/Credit Accounts.

Enter an opening balance date for the primary bank account. This date can be updated at a later date if required via menu option Accounts--Bank/Credit Accounts.

Click on the box to activate the asset ledger add-in with automated depreciation under the Add-Ins menu option.

Click on the box to activate the operating lease add-in with automated periodic charging to profit and loss.

Click on the box to activate the vehicle register and employee allocation add-in.

Click on the box to activate integrated stock management and recording.

This will allow access to the following functions:

• Stock Item Maintenance
• Stock Valuation methods - Standard, FIFO or Average
• Bills of Material and Works Orders
• Purchase Orders and Receipts
• Sales Order Processing
• Stock count and Other adjustments

Check this box in order to activate the payroll facilities.

If this option is checked users are automatically directed to the Analysis tab when creating transactions.

If you use the analysis features such as Branches, IR35 tracking or P11D tracking this option helps to avoid the common mistake of forgetting to record your analysis.

Click on the checkbox if you wish to use branches within this company. Certain documents such as bills, cheques, invoices will have a dropdown list displaying the available branches that the document can be associated with.

When the Use Branches option is enabled the Detail Profit & Loss Report allows you to print a P & L for a given branch.

Click on the checkbox if you wish to track expenses for P11D purposes within this company. Certain documents such as bills and cheques will have a dropdown list displaying the employees that the document can be associated with.

Click on box if the business is affected by IR35 rules relating to service companies. Certain documents such as bills, cheques, invoices will have a dropdown list displaying where the document can be associated with a contract for IR35 deemed payment at personal Income Tax ( 5th April) year end calculations.