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This kind of accounting system will usually come with a complete chart of accounts, and may also include--besides a general ledger--an accounts payable system, an accounts receivable system (both often come with automatic aging), a cash-management system for both disbursements and receipts, and a payroll system (which may or may not calculate withholdings).
More elaborate accounting systems for your spreadsheet can give you even more capability. For example, one popular system for construction contractors includes worksheets to do job costing and labor summaries.
Each of these accounting system is different, and usually unique. But you can select and use the combination of pre-programmed templates and worksheet macros that's right for you. With a little experimentation or advice, you can quickly give your personal computer exactly the capabilities you require to help you manage your business, right down to your bank accounts, cash-flow projections, and income statements.
For financial management decisions, templates exist to let your spreadsheet calculate loan amortization schedules, figure internal rates of return, produce ACRS depreciation schedules, and help you analyze price/volume parameters and break-even points for each element in your product line.
Other sets of templates are designed to track the performance of your stock portfolio, and to generate reports on profits, losses, and net worth. Many stock tracking worksheets will do these calculations both as percentages and as actual dollar gains and losses. Once you enter your trades, most of these worksheets can produce a summary listing of your holdings, with paper profits and losses duly noted. If you wish, you can load other worksheets that perform trend-analysis, project market action, and even recommend buy and sell decisions. Some packages will calculate moving averages based on historical data you can purchase on disk or punch in from printed listings.
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