The chart of accounts

The chart of accounts is the list of accounts every financial movement posts to. Your business starts with a ready-made tree built on the five standard classes, so you never start from scratch — your job is to review it and add only what your own activity needs.

Where to find it

From the Accounting panel open the Chart of Accounts card. The top-level accounts appear as in image 1: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses. Each row shows total debits, total credits, and the balance with its nature (debit or credit).

Moving around the tree

• The arrow next to an account opens its children; Expand all opens the whole tree as in image 2, and Collapse all closes it again.
• Search accounts filters the tree by name or code as you type.
• The coloured buttons above the table show one class at a time: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue or expenses.

How to read the numbers

The code tells you where the account sits: 1 for assets, 1.1 for cash under it, 1.1.2 for the cash box under cash. Movements never post to a parent account directly — only to leaf accounts with no children — and a parent's balance is the sum of its children.

Adding an account

Press Add Account to open the dialog in image 3:

• Parent account — the account it belongs under. This single choice decides its place in the tree.
• Code — calculated automatically from the parent; it is not typed by hand. That is deliberate: manual numbering produces clashing codes that break the tree's order.
• Arabic name and English name — the account name in each language.
• Category — the accounting class the account belongs to.
• Type — the account's nature: debit or credit. Assets and expenses are debit by nature; liabilities, equity and revenue are credit.

Tips that save rework

• Create the account at the right level from the start; moving an account that already carries movements is far harder than creating it correctly.
• Do not multiply leaf accounts. One "operating expenses" account detailed through expense categories is clearer than twenty near-identical accounts.
• Review the tree before entering opening balances: balances are recorded against accounts, and a missing account means a missing opening balance.
• Accounts used by payment methods (cash box and banks) must exist before you define those methods.