Chart of accounts: Groups
The reporting groups of the chosen set of books as a tree under the five classes (asset, liability, equity, income, expense); add your own groups and delete empty ones.
Chart of accounts: Groups
The chart of accounts arranges the ledgers of one set of books into reporting groups under five classes: assets, liabilities, equity, income and expenses. The groups decide where each ledger appears in the trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet. This tab shows the groups as a tree and lets you add your own.
Where to find it
In the sidebar, open the Accounting group and choose Chart of Accounts. The chart opens on the Groups tab. The Groups count and the Chart of accounts shortcut on the Books overview also bring you here.
The sidebar item and the page show to anyone with any permission on Chart of Accounts. Without one, the page shows "No access" and "You do not have permission to view the chart of accounts. Ask your administrator." You also need the View permission on Books to choose a set of books; without it the page shows "Choosing a set of books needs the Books read permission. Ask your administrator."
Before you start
The chart belongs to a set of books. If your organization has no books yet, the page shows "No books yet" and "Set up books for a promoter company first: that copies the chart of accounts, opens the fiscal year and seeds the voucher types." With the Create permission on Books a Set up books button takes you to Books.
What you see
The header reads "Chart of accounts", with "The ledgers of one set of books, arranged in reporting groups. Party ledgers (customers, members, channel partners, vendors) are added here or on first use."
At the top right, Books shows which set of books you are looking at. With several sets of books it is a drop-down (inactive books are marked "(inactive)"); with one it is a link to that Books overview. An Inactive badge appears when the chosen books are inactive.
The tabs are Groups, Ledgers, Component mappings and Organization templates. Your choice of books follows you from tab to tab.
The Groups tab opens with: "Five classes (asset, liability, equity, income, expense) hold the reporting groups. Seeded groups keep their name and place; add your own under any of them."
The tree shows every class and group. Each row has:
- the code and name;
- on the five class rows, a badge with the nature;
- Direct on groups that affect gross profit;
- a lock icon on seeded groups (the ones that came with the books);
- "N ledgers" when the group holds ledgers, a link to the Ledgers tab.
Every set of books starts with the same 5 classes and 23 groups, copied from your organization's templates. The direct groups are Revenue, Rehab Cost, Construction Cost and Cost of Sales.
What you can do
New group
Opens the New group panel:
- Parent group (required): hint "The nature (asset, liability, equity, income, expense) comes from the parent." Empty shows "Choose the parent group".
- Code (required, up to 20 characters, turned to capitals): placeholder "AS_ADV", hint "Letters, digits, underscores." Anything else shows "Letters, digits and underscores only".
- Name (required, up to 100 characters).
- Sort order: a whole number that places the group among its siblings.
- Direct (affects gross profit): "Revenue and cost of construction; the rest is indirect."
Click Add group, or Cancel.
- Who: anyone with the Create permission on Chart of Accounts. In the default roles that is the Administrator, the Finance Lead and the Accountant. Without it the button isn't shown.
- What happens next: "Group added." The group takes the nature of its parent's class.
- If it's refused: "A group with this code already exists." on Code.
Add sub-group
The plus icon on a row (tooltip "Add sub-group") opens "New group under <name>" with the parent filled in. The Parent group list then offers only groups of the same nature. Otherwise it works like New group.
- Who: shown to anyone with the Create or Edit permission on Chart of Accounts; saving needs Create.
Edit
The pencil icon (tooltip "Edit <name>") opens "<name> (<code>)". Code is fixed ("Fixed once created."). You can change the parent (within the same nature), the name, the sort order and Direct. Class rows have no pencil.
On a seeded group the panel says "A seeded group keeps its name and place; sort order and the direct flag can change." and the parent and name are greyed out.
Click Save changes, or Cancel.
- Who: saving needs the Edit permission on Chart of Accounts (the Administrator, the Finance Lead and the Accountant in the default roles). Without it the panel opens read-only with a Close button. With neither Create nor Edit, the icon is an eye (tooltip "View <name>").
- Greyed out: Save changes stays greyed out until you change something. No reason is shown on hover.
- What happens next: "Group updated."
- If it's refused:
- "A group can only move within its own nature (asset, liability, equity, income or expense)."
- "A group cannot be placed under its own descendant."
- "Seeded groups keep their name and place; only sort_order may change" (see Things to know).
Delete
The bin icon (tooltip "Delete <name>") asks "Delete group?": "<name> (<code>) will be removed. Only an empty group (no ledgers, no sub-groups) can be deleted." Click Delete, or Cancel.
- Who: anyone with the Delete permission on Chart of Accounts. In the default roles that is the Administrator and the Finance Lead. The icon isn't shown on class rows, on seeded groups, or without the permission.
- What happens next: "Group "<name>" deleted."
- If it's refused: "The group still holds ledgers or sub-groups; move them first."
Things to know
- The nature comes from the class. Every group inherits asset, liability, equity, income or expense from the class at the top of its branch, and can only move within that class. This keeps a ledger from silently jumping from the balance sheet to the profit and loss.
- Direct and indirect. Direct groups (revenue and the costs of building and selling the units) make up gross profit in the profit and loss; the rest are indirect.
- Seeded groups can't be changed from this screen at present. Although the panel says sort order and the direct flag can change, saving any change to a seeded group is refused with "Seeded groups keep their name and place; only sort_order may change". Your own groups can be edited freely.
- Seeded groups can't be deleted. Party ledgers and bank ledgers are created in seeded groups (Receivable, Compensation, Payable, Bank), so the seeded structure has to stay in place.
- The "N ledgers" link opens the Ledgers tab. The group filter it carries applies in the Ledgers tab's List view; the Grouped view shows every group.
- Each set of books has its own copy of the groups. Changing a group here doesn't change your organization's templates or any other books. To add a group to every future set of books, add it on Organization templates.
- Which books you see. A link that names the books wins; otherwise the page opens on the books you last chose in this browser, or the first active set of books.
- Your organization can rename the tab labels, so your screen may use different words.
Related
Related
- LedgersScreen
Every ledger of the chosen set of books, as a grouped tree or a flat list, with the actions to add ledgers and party ledgers, edit or retire them, and open a ledger's report.
- Component mappingsScreen
Which ledger each charge component posts to in the chosen set of books (a main ledger, an optional second tax ledger, an optional cost centre and, for sale and tenant charges, the revenue treatment and contract liability ledger), and the action to copy template additions into the books.
- Organization templates (Chart templates)Screen
Your organization's master chart of accounts, from which every new set of books is copied: group templates, ledger templates and the default ledger per charge component.
- BooksScreen
The list of every set of books in your organization, one per promoter company, with the actions to set up books for a company, open a set or delete one.
- Books overviewScreen
The home page of one set of books: its company and settings, counts, fiscal years, and shortcuts to the chart of accounts, vouchers, reports and opening balances, with the actions to rename, deactivate or delete the books.
- Profit & lossScreen
Income against expense for a range inside one fiscal year, with gross profit, net profit or loss, and CSV export.
- Balance sheetScreen
Assets against liabilities and equity as of a date, with the year's profit to date carried into equity and a check that the two sides agree.
- Trial balanceScreen
Opening, period debit and credit and closing per ledger or per group for a fiscal-year range, on a grid you can sort, resize and filter by column, with the report's totals in the footer and CSV export.
- The chart of accounts: templates, books copies, nature and system rowsConcept
The organization keeps one master chart (group templates, ledger templates and default mappings) and every set of books holds its own copy of it; each group carries a nature (asset, liability, equity, income, expense) and a Direct flag that feeds gross profit, a few system rows are locked, codes are never reused, and the Consolidated report adds the books up by the template each ledger came from.
- Books, the active books switcher and cost centresConcept
A set of books is the ledger of one promoter company: every posting for a project lands in its promoter's books, every accounting screen works on the one set chosen in the Books switcher, and cost centres inside the books (usually one per project with a child per tower) let the ledger and reports be cut by project.