Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts is the master list of every account your business keeps its money in: cash, bank, receivables, payables, revenue, expenses, and so on. Every transaction you post in ZyncLedger lands in one or more of these accounts, so the chart is the backbone of your ledger and of every financial report. The owner or accountant usually owns it; a cashier rarely touches it.

You do not start from an empty screen. When your business is created, ZyncLedger seeds a working chart of accounts for you, including the special system accounts the app posts to automatically. For many businesses the seeded chart is enough to start trading. You come to this screen to add accounts of your own, rename or group the seeded ones, or retire accounts you do not use.

Find it under Finance → Chart of Accounts.

Before you start

Access is controlled by the Accounts permissions in your user's permission profile, under Administration → Permissions (see Users, seats & permissions). There are separate switches to list, create, edit, delete, and approve accounts. Without the list permission the Chart of Accounts screen does not open, and Batch Edit needs the edit permission.

The account types

Every account belongs to one account type. ZyncLedger ships with 15 fixed types, seeded for every business. You choose from this list. You cannot add, rename, or remove account types.

The type is the most important choice you make about an account, because it decides two things:

• Where the account appears in reports. Balance-sheet types show on the Balance Sheet; profit-and-loss types show on the Profit & Loss.
• The account's normal balance, which is the side (debit or credit) that increases it.

Account type	Class	Appears on	Normal balance
Cash	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Bank	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Accounts Receivable	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Other Current Assets	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Other Assets	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Fixed Assets	Asset	Balance Sheet	Debit
Equity	Equity	Balance Sheet	Credit
Accounts Payable	Liability	Balance Sheet	Credit
Other Current Liabilities	Liability	Balance Sheet	Credit
Other Liabilities	Liability	Balance Sheet	Credit
Revenue	Income	Profit & Loss	Credit
Other Revenue	Income	Profit & Loss	Credit
Cost of Goods Sold	Expense	Profit & Loss	Debit
Expense	Expense	Profit & Loss	Debit
Other Expense	Expense	Profit & Loss	Debit

Account hierarchy

Accounts can be nested. Any account can have a parent account, and the list shows children indented under their parent. Use this to group related accounts, for example several expense accounts under one heading, so reports can subtotal them together.

Two rules govern the hierarchy:

• A parent must be the same account type as its child. The parent picker only offers accounts of the type you selected. If you change the type, a parent that no longer matches is cleared.
• Nesting can go up to five levels deep. ZyncLedger rejects a parent that would make the chain longer than five.

Reserved system accounts

Among the seeded accounts are system accounts: accounts the app posts to on its own during normal work. For example, when you save an invoice ZyncLedger posts to Accounts Receivable, Sales Revenue, and Tax Payable without you choosing them. These accounts carry a reserved role behind the scenes.

The system accounts seeded for every business are:

Account	Account type	Used automatically for
Accounts Receivable	Accounts Receivable	Money owed by customers (AR)
Accounts Payable	Accounts Payable	Money owed to suppliers (AP)
Inventory	Other Current Assets	The value of stock on hand
Cost of Goods Sold	Cost of Goods Sold	The cost of stock sold
Sales Revenue	Revenue	Revenue from product sales
Tax Payable	Other Current Liabilities	Tax collected and owed to the government
SSCL Payable	Other Current Liabilities	Social Security Contribution Levy (SSCL) owed
Retained Earnings	Equity	Accumulated profit carried forward
Opening Balance	Equity	The other side of starting balances you enter
Cash (POS)	Cash	Cash held in a POS register
Cheque in Hand	Bank	Cheques received but not yet deposited
Returned Cheques	Expense	Bounced cheques that cannot be redeposited
Work in Progress	Other Current Assets	Production costs held in a BOM job until finished goods are produced
Production Wastage	Expense	Production inputs and costs lost to wastage

When you turn on Charge SSCL under Settings → Tax, the SSCL Payable Account field is pre-selected with SSCL Payable. You can choose another Other Current Liabilities account there, but not the VAT payable account.

Work in Progress and Production Wastage are used by the Bill of Materials app: a new BOM job pre-fills its work-in-progress and wastage accounts from them. They exist in every business, but ZyncLedger only posts to them on its own when you use that app. To install it, open Apps → Apps, select the Bill of Materials card, leave Enabled on and select Save.

The rest of the seeded chart (for example Cash, Bank, Rent Expense, and Utilities) are ordinary starter accounts. You are free to rename, edit, or delete these to match your business.

Create an account

1. Open the Chart of Accounts

   Go to Finance → Chart of Accounts. See Find your way around the list below for what it shows.

2. Start a new account

   Select Add Account. The Create New Account panel opens from the right.

3. Choose the account type

   Select the Account Type (required). A new account starts with Cash selected; change it if you need another type. The type sets where the account appears in reports and its normal balance, and it cannot be changed after you save. See The account types above.

4. Enter the account name

   Type the Account Name (required). Each name must be unique within its account type, so you can have a Cash account and a Cash type without a clash, but not two Cash accounts of the same type. The name cannot contain a colon (:), which ZyncLedger reserves for hierarchy paths.

5. Set the account code

   The Account Code is a short reference for the account. How you fill it depends on the code mode set under Settings → Code / Number Preference → Code Generation:

   • Automatic (the default): the field reads Auto-generated and is filled for you from a single running series when you save. Leave it alone.
   • Manual: you type the code yourself. It is required, must be unique, and can be up to 50 characters.

   See Document numbering to change this mode.

6. Choose a parent account (optional)

   To nest this account under another, select a Parent Account. The picker only lists accounts of the same type that are both Active and Approved. Leave it blank for a top-level account.

7. Add a description (optional)

   Use Description for a note about what the account is for. It appears under the account name in the list.

8. Set the status flags

   Two checkboxes control whether the account can be used:

   Field	What it does
   Active	On by default. An inactive account stays for history but is not offered on new transactions.
   Approved	Off by default. An account is not offered in the account pickers on transactions, or as a parent account, until it is both Active and Approved. Ticking this needs the approve permission. Once an account is saved as approved, the box is locked and cannot be cleared.

9. Save

   Select Create and Close to save and close the panel, or Create and New to save and immediately start another account. Create and New keeps the account type you chose, so you can enter a run of accounts of one type without picking it each time. The new account appears in the list.

Find your way around the list

The list shows each account with its Code, Type, Balance, and Status (Active or Inactive, and Approved or Pending), with child accounts indented under their parents. Balance is shown for balance-sheet accounts; profit-and-loss accounts show a dash.

• Search by account name, description, or code.
• Filter by Account Type, Status (Active or Inactive), and Approval (Approved or Unapproved). You can pick more than one value in each filter.
• Switch views between card, list, and table with the buttons at the top right. In the table view, the settings button chooses which columns show, including Created By. ZyncLedger remembers your view and columns on this device.
• View General Ledger Report (the chart icon on a row) opens the General Ledger report for that account in a new tab.

Edit several accounts at once

Select Batch Edit to open Batch Edit Accounts, a full-screen grid of the accounts currently shown in the list. Narrow the list with search and filters first if you only want to work on some of them.

In the grid you can change each account's name, description, parent account, and Active flag, and its code when codes are entered manually. The account type stays locked. Changed rows are marked Modified. Select Save Changes to save them all; the grid stays open so you can carry on. If you close it with unsaved changes, ZyncLedger asks you to confirm.

Edit, deactivate, or delete

Select the edit icon on any row to rename an account, change its parent, or update its flags, then select Update Account. The account type stays locked.

To stop an account being used without losing the transactions posted to it, clear its Active flag rather than deleting it.

Related

• Opening balances set the starting balance of your accounts before you begin trading.
• Customers and Suppliers each point at a receivable or payable account from this chart.
• Settings → Tax names the tax payable account used on invoices, bills, and POS, and the SSCL payable account.
• A journal entry posts directly to the accounts you define here.
• Document numbering controls how account codes are generated.