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The ledger

Money: quotes, invoices, books. Double-entry books: chart of accounts, journals, the trial balance and lock dates.

The ledger keeps double-entry books. Posted journals are permanent; you correct them with reversals.

Getting started

The Ledger page offers "Set up chart from the SA template": a chart for a South African services business with bank, receivables, VAT control, PAYE, director's loan, and separate revenue and cost accounts for human and AI work. You can rename, add and archive accounts afterwards.

After that, the Ledger page shows Cash in bank, Owed to us, We owe, and Net profit this year, with links to drafts that need finishing.

Chart of accounts

Balances come from posted journals, shown positive on each account's normal side. Add an account with a code, name, type and default VAT code. Codes are up to 10 letters, digits, dots or dashes. Keep to the bands: 1 assets, 2 liabilities, 3 equity, 4 revenue, 5 cost of sales, 6 and 7 expenses.

System accounts are kept by the software: they can be renamed but not archived, and keep their type. An account can't move to another class once it has posted entries. Archived accounts are hidden from journal pickers; their history is kept.

Journals

Journals lists every posting, newest first. Drafts have no number until posted.

  1. Press New journal. Enter a date and a narration.
  2. Add lines: account, description, debit or credit, and optionally a client.
  3. Save a draft to finish later, or post. Debits must equal credits to post. Posting gives the journal a number and makes it permanent.
  4. "Reverse on" (optional) posts a mirror journal on that date, for accruals.

To correct a posted journal, open it and use "Reverse…" with a reversal date. Both journals link to each other.

Invoices post to the ledger by themselves: issuing, payments, removing a payment and voiding.

Trial balance

Pick an "As at" date. Balance-sheet accounts carry everything to that date; income and expense accounts show this financial year only, with earlier years' profit in retained earnings. "Download CSV" exports it.

Ledger settings

  • Financial year ends: the last day of the chosen month.
  • Lock date: nothing on or before it posts, except by the accountant.
  • Closing date: nothing on or before it posts, for anyone. Use it for filed periods.

Every change is recorded in an audit log that can't be edited or deleted.