Chart Of Accounts Setup

Principles

A chart of accounts is a collection of general ledger accounts to which your financial movements are posted. BC includes a standard chart of accounts that is ready to support your business. However, you can change the default accounts and add new ones.

From the chart of accounts, you can open each G/L account and add or change its settings.

You can delete a ledger account. However, before you delete it, the following must apply:

• The account balance must be zero.

• Field Allow G/L Acc. Deletion Before) must be set on the page General Ledger Setup and the account must not have items of the same or later date.

• If the field is selected Check G/L Account Usage On the page General Ledger Setup, then the account must not be used in any of the posting groups or posting settings.

Warning: in higher versions of BC (BC20 and higher) there is a change in the settings and related controls when deleting general ledger accounts

Business Central will prevent you from deleting the general ledger account that stores the necessary data in the chart of accounts.

The chart of accounts shows all general ledger accounts. From the chart of accounts, you can do things like:

• View reports that show general ledger entries and balances.

• Close your income statement.

• To add or change settings, open the G/L account card.

• See the list of posting groups that post to this account.

• View a summary of debit and credit amounts for a single account.

You can customize the structure of your financial statements by mapping G/L accounts to account categories.

On the page G/L Account Categories Your categories and subcategories and the ledger accounts assigned to them are listed. You can create new subcategories and assign these categories to existing accounts.

You create a category group by indenting additional subcategories below the row on the G/L Account Categories page. This will make it easier for you to get an overview because each grouping reports a total balance. For example, you can create subcategories for different types of assets, and then create category groups for fixed assets versus common assets.

You can specify whether accounts in each subcategory must be included in specific types of reports. Account categories help define the layout of your financial statements.

For example, the default balance has a subcategory for cash under Current Assets. If you want the balance statement to take into account cash and checks, you can:

• Add two new subcategories. One for cash and one for your checking account.

• For these subcategories, specify an additional report definition for Cash Accounts.

• Indent them in the Cash subcategory.

The next time you generate account plans, your balance statement will show the total cash balance and two balance lines for cash and checking account.

This documented area describes the basic setup of the Chart of Accounts / G/L Account Card. Settings for G/L Account Categories are not described here.

The Chart of Accounts page is available in most finance role centers, it is also available in the Manual Setup list, and it can also be found through the magnifying glass.

MS regularly updates the documentation for this setting area. Documentation valid for BC22 is available at the following link:

Set Up or Change the Chart of Accounts (contains video) - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

Dependencies and assumptions

Additional dial settings may be required to complete.

Chart of Accounts Setup

Adding new accounts to the Chart of Accounts is done using the New button. When it is launched, the G/L Account Card opens and the fields in the General and Posting tabs are set.

Editing the general account of the chart of accounts is done by clicking on the Edit button. When it is launched, the G/L Account Card opens and you can correct or edit existing data.

The chart of accounts can be visually set up so that the financial accounts are added together (Account Type = Total, From-Total, End-Total) or so that the chart of accounts is sorted by account classes (Account Type = Heading) (Account Type = Heading). Using the Indent Chart of Account button in the main menu under Process, accounts can then be automatically indented according to the entered Account Type values.

G/L Account Card – General Tab

For each G/L account, you can preset the Dimensions usage rules using the Dimensions table available in the G/L Account Card under the Account option. Setting up dimension rules is recommended primarily for profit and loss accounts.

Description of field settings:

• No. and Name fields

  • Set up business units as needed

• Income/Balance field

  • Specifies whether the general ledger account is an income statement account or a balance sheet account. This setting then affects the Close Income Statement, Close Balance Sheet, and Open Balance Sheet tasks. Balance sheet – the balance of the account is carried over to the next period at closing)

• Account Type field

  • Specifies the purpose of the account.

    • Account (Posting) – set up the general ledger account to which the posting will be made.

    • Total – used to sum up a series of account balances from many different account groups. The summation formula is user-defined

    • Begin-Total - a mark for the beginning of the series of accounts to be summed and ends with the End-Total account.

    • End-Total - mark for the end of the series of accounts to be summed and start on the previous account Begin-Total.

• Automatic Ext. Texts field

  • Specifies that extended text is automatically added to the account. In order to actually add them, they must first be set. The settings are made:

    • Extended Texts

      • can be defined for a multi-line name or language mutations can be set. The table is available in the main menu of the card under the Account option.

      • To define extended text:

        • On the card of the account to which you want to add extended text, choose the Extended Texts action

        • Select New.

        • Fill in the Description field

        • If necessary, fill in the Language Code or tick All Language Codes

        • Fill in the Starting Date and Ending Date fields if you want to limit the dates when extended text is used.

        • In the Text box, type the extended text.

        • Select the appropriate check boxes for the document types in which you want to insert extended text.

      • Use of extended text in documents (e.g. on a purchase/sales line)

        • If Automatic Ext. Texts = Yes is set on the general ledger account, then after inserting the general ledger account into a row, the system will automatically copy the set extended text into the new lines

        • If Automatic Ext. Texts = No is set on the general ledger account, then it is necessary to use the Insert Ext.Texts function on the document line to insert the set extended text

• Direct Posting

  • Specifies whether you will be able to post directly or only indirectly (through posting groups) to this G/L account. If = Yes, they can be posted directly in the purchase/sales document or in the journal. Setting =No is entered for accounts where primary records exist (assets, banks, cash registers, warehouse, customer, supplier...).

• Closed (Blocked)

  • If it is set to Yes, then the account is closed for posting and does not even appear in the accounts menu when used in a journal or purchase/sales document.

• G/L Account Group

  • Specifies the type of G/L account group to use to define accounting headings.

    • Financial Accounting - default option

    • Internal Accounting

    • Off-Balance Sheet Account

  • When you create an accounting document, for example in a general journal, the system does not allow you to use different groups of the general ledger account for the same document.

• Omit the eastern description in the journal (Omit Default Descr. in Jnl.)

  • Specifies whether a default description is automatically inserted in the Description field on the journal lines created for this G/L account. If = Yes, then the system will not populate the Description field in the journal, but it will remain blank.

G/L Account Card – Posting Tab

Field settings in the Posting tab are performed only for accounts that include VAT calculation, typically profit and loss accounts. For example, this tab is not set for customer, supplier, bank or asset accounts.

Description of field settings:

• Gen. Posting Type

  • In this field, you can select the Gen. Posting Type that you want the program to use when posting to this account. The code defines whether the account will be used only in connection with sales or purchase transactions, or both. The Gen. Posting Type field must be filled in only for income and expense accounts that include VAT. For other accounts, choose Empty. The following options are available:

    • <prázdný> (<blank>) – Select this option for accounts used for transactions that do not involve VAT calculation.

    • Purchase - Select this option if the account will be used for purchase transactions. The program uses the information to calculate the correct amount of purchase VAT and then posts it to the purchase VAT account.

    • Sale – Select this option if the account should be used for sales transactions. The program uses the information to calculate the correct amount of sales VAT and then posts it to the sales VAT account.

  • If you post entries to this account, if the Gen. Posting Type field does not contain a value of Blank, the program will automatically generate entries in the VAT Entry table.

• Gen. Bus. Posting Group (Gen. Bus. Posting Group)

  • Specifies the type of vendor or customer deal to link transactions made for this business partner to the corresponding general ledger account according to the general posting setup.

• Gen. Prod. Posting Group

  • Specifies the type of product entry to link transactions for this entry to the corresponding general ledger account, according to the general setup for posting transactions.

• VAT Bus. Posting Group)

  • Specifies the VAT specification of the relevant customer or vendor to link transactions made for this record to the appropriate general ledger account according to the VAT posting setup.

• VAT Prod. Posting Group

  • Specifies the VAT specification of the related item or source to link transactions made for this record to the appropriate general ledger account according to the VAT posting setup.

• Account to Apply (Apply Entries)

  • Specifies one or more entries that you want to apply this record to so that the related posted documents are closed, paid, or refunded.

• Default Deferral Template

  • Specifies the default accrual template, which controls how to differentiate between income and expense based on the period in which they occurred. To set it, a Accrual Code is selected from the Deferral Templates list.

Delete a ledger account

You can delete a ledger account. However, before you delete it, the following must apply:

• The account balance must be zero!

• The Allow G/L Account Removal Before field (Check G/L Acc. Deletion After)

  • it must be set up on the General Ledger Setup page and the account must not have entries of the same or later date.

• Block Deletion of G/L Accounts field

  • must be set to No on the General Ledger Setup page

• If the Check G/L Account Usage field is selected

  • on the General Ledger Setup page, then the account must not be used in any of the posting groups or posting settings. You can check where the account is used on the account tab under Account ->> Where-Used List.

Accrual Template Setup

To report income or expense in a period other than the period in which the transaction was posted, set up a Deferral Template for the resource, item, or general ledger account that revenue or expense will be posted for. When you post a related sales or purchase document, the revenue or costs are deferred to the appropriate accounting periods, according to the accrual schedule that follows the settings in the Deferral Template and the posting date. Attention! It is necessary to have as many accounting periods as the posting will be performed.

The settings are made in the Deferral Template Card, which is available from the Deferral Templates overview.

Description of field settings:

• The Calculation Method field (Calc. Method)

  • Specify how the Amount field is calculated for each period. You can choose between the following options:

    • Straight-Line: Regular deferred amounts are calculated by the number of periods, divided by the length of the period.

    • Equal per Period: Recurring deferred amounts are calculated by the number of periods evenly distributed by period.

    • Days per Period: Periodic grace amounts are calculated by the number of days in the period.

    • User-Defined: Periodic deferral amounts are not calculated. On the Deferral Schedule page, you must manually fill in the Amount field for each period.

• Start Date field

  • Specifies when to start calculating accrual amounts. With this setting in mind, the system calculates an accrual schedule. Options are available:

    • Posting Date

    • Beginning of Period

    • End of Period

    • Beginning of Next Period

    • Beginning of Next Calendar Year

• Period Description Field

  • Specifies the text that will be displayed for accrual posting entries. You can use parameters in the description:

    • %1 = Day number of the posting date of the period

    • %2 = Week number of the posting date of the period

    • %3 = Month number of the posting date of the period

    • %4 = Month name of the posting date of the period

    • %5 = Name of posting date of the period

    • %6 = Fiscal year of the posting date of the period

Example: The posting date is 02/06/2016. If you enter "Deferred costs for %4 %6", the description "Deferred costs for February 2016" will be displayed.

For more information, see:

Defer Revenues and Expenses - Business Central | Microsoft Docs