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Books at a glance

The owner's view of the accounts: five things worth knowing without reading a statement.

What it shows

Cash in bank — what your bank ledgers hold between them.

Owed to suppliers — what you have been billed for and not yet paid. See Purchases and accounts payable.

GST payable — tax collected that is owed onward. This is not your money, and treating it as available cash is one of the more expensive mistakes a restaurant can make.

Net profit, and its trend — what the business made, and whether that is moving.

Close and compliance status — whether periods are open, closing or locked. See Period Close.

How to read it

These are positions, not a report. They tell you where things stand now. What made them that way is in the statements and the registers.

Cash in bank and net profit are different questions. A profitable month can leave you short if the money is owed to you rather than in the account, and a comfortable balance can hide a loss. Reading them together is the point of putting them on one screen.

Look at "owed to suppliers" against "cash in bank". That comparison is the one this screen makes possible at a glance, and it is the question a supplier's call on a Friday afternoon is really about.

"Not available yet"

Where a figure cannot be produced, the screen says so rather than showing a zero. That distinction matters: a zero is a claim about your business, and "not available" is a claim about the product.

Where the figures come from

Everything here is derived from what has been posted. A figure that looks wrong is usually a question about the postings behind it rather than about this screen. See Day Book, Journal and Ledger.

  • Statements — the same money, in full
  • Insights — trading trends, as opposed to accounting positions