Removing or Archiving Transactions

The length of time transactions are maintained on a ledger depends solely on your own requirements. Transactions can remain on the ledger indefinitely. However, retaining transactions has the disadvantages of a large, often cumbersome, ledger.

Archiving is a method of storing the data you have cleared from the ledger file. It copies the original details of transactions that have been summarized during Ledger Cleardown (LCL) to an archive file.

You may opt to retain transactions on individual accounts for a longer period of time than for other accounts. For example, profit & loss and balance sheet transactions may be retained for a year, whereas debtor/receivables or creditor/payables transactions can be maintained for as long as they remain unmatched.

You should keep a record of the frequency for clearing down each group of accounts. You might sign and date the records each time you perform a cleardown. This ensures you have adequate records of what has been cleared from the ledger.

Archiving is switched on by setting the Ledger Archiving field in Ledger Setup (LES).

Archived transactions can be viewed with current transactions using Ledger Inquiry (LAQ), with the filter type code SALQA (Ledger Inquiry - Archive), and printed using a report based on the FTAL1.srdl example report.