Overhead Accounts

Use Overhead Accounts to track expenses which can't be assigned to a specific customer or project.

HINT-- Goldenseal accounting software uses Overhead accounts to allocate job costs and track expenses.

WORKING WITH OVERHEAD ACCOUNTS
When to Use Overhead Accounts | Distributing Overhead
Entering Overhead Expenses | Using Overhead Accounts

ENTERING OVERHEAD ACCOUNT DATA
Creating Customer Accounts | Data Fields | Calculated Fields | Status Field

Website Info Links
Accounting Software | Job Costing Software | Expense Tracking Software | Job Costs Software

RELATED TOPICS
Job Costs

When to Use Overhead Accounts

Use Overhead accounts to track "indirect" costs that can't be assigned to a customer or project.

Goldenseal starts out with one required Overhead account. For many businesses, the one basic Overhead account is sufficient. You may want to create additional overhead accounts to track costs in more detail.

Using multiple Overhead accounts is especially useful for the following:

A retail business with more than one store.
A service business with more than one office.
A construction business with more than one crew.
A professional office with more than one branch.
You can also use additional overhead accounts to track costs separately for different "cost centers". Some examples:
A business with both in-store sales and deliveries.
A business doing very different types of work, such as new construction and remodeling.
A professional office that tracks overhead separately for each partner.
A store that sells different items with different overhead costs.

Creating Overhead Accounts

To create a new Overhead account, follow these steps:

Choose Overhead from the Accounts menu.
Choose New Record from the Edit menu, or click the New button.
Fill out information about the account.

QUICK SETUP HINT-- You only need to enter an Account Name. For job costs, fill in a Category System.

Data Fields

Enter the following information for each overhead account:
Account Name-- Type in a brief name for the account. This is what will appear in the Chart of Accounts and clairvoyant fields.
Job Cost Budget-- Choose a budget Estimate to use for this account.
Apply Profit to-- Use the clairvoyant field to select the Equity account where profits or losses from this account will be applied. You can use the Current Earnings account, or any equity account that you created on your own.
Distribute to Other Accounts-- If the overhead costs and income from this account will be sent to other overhead accounts, turn on the checkbox, and enter the distribution method.
Creation Date-- The date that the account was created is entered automatically. Change if it you like.
Category System-- Choose the category system that will be used for classifying costs for this account.
Location Package-- Choose the cost locations that will be used for this account.
Comments-- Type in any comments you have about this account.
Include in Starter File-- Turn on the checkmark if you'd like to include this account when you export a Starter file

Calculated Fields

Goldenseal shows the following calculated values for this account:

Current Balance-- The current job cost total.
Last Changed-- Goldenseal shows the date of the most recent change in this account.

Status Field

Enter the current status of this account:
Active-- You currently use this account.
Inactive-- You don't currently use this account, but you may in the future.
Closed-- You definitely don't use this account any more.

Distributing Overhead

An overhead account can distribute its costs and income to other overhead accounts. This allows you to set up intermediate accounts which will allocate costs among the primary overhead accounts.

To distribute costs and income to other accounts, turn on the Distribute to Other Accounts checkbox, then enter the accounts and distribution percentages.
HINT-- You can only distribute costs to overhead accounts that don't distribute costs themselves.

The total percentage that is distributed must add up to 100%.

Entering Overhead Expenses

To enter overhead expenses, follow these steps:

Choose Equipment Hours, Labor Hours, Material Purchases, Subcontractor Costs or Other Costs from the Costs menu (depending on the type of expense you are entering).
Click the New button.
Enter details for the expense.
Enter Overhead into the Job Class popup menu.
Enter an overhead account into the Job field.

Using Overhead Accounts

Each overhead account receives costs and income. You can see which parts of your business are most profitable by checking the status of each overhead account with the Job Costs command.