Documentation/ Accounting/ Nominal accounts
Nominal accounts: adding, searching and deleting
The chart of accounts screen is the application's list of accounts: what every account that appears on a record or a document is chosen against. If it is empty, all of those searches come up empty.
Accounting › Chart of Accounts
On this page
The five actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| New | Creates an account by hand. |
| Delete | Removes the ticked accounts. |
| Import | Loads accounts from an Excel file, by company. |
| Export | Downloads the list to Excel. |
| General chart | Loads a country's whole chart of accounts in one go. |
Starting from nothing, the quick route is the general chart. Importing makes sense where you already have a chart of your own in a spreadsheet; creating by hand, for the odd account and the sub-accounts you find you need.
The columns
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Code | The account's number. Can be sorted. |
| Name | The account's title. Can be sorted. |
| Description | Code and name together, which is how the account shows in the searches. |
| Client | The company the account belongs to. Only appears where you keep the books for several companies. |
The list says at the bottom which stretch of the total it is showing, which gives you a quick sense of how big the loaded chart is.
Creating an account
- Press New.
- Type the code. It is required.
- Type the name. Also required.
- If you keep several companies, say which one the account belongs to.
- Save.
The joined-up description is not typed: the application builds it by putting code and name together, and it is the text you see when choosing the account in any search.
It confirms that the account was created. If either required field is missing, the dialogue flags it and does not save.
The code and its limit
The code takes a maximum of 20 characters. It is a real limit: on an import, rows that go over it are rejected and the message gives the row number.
Twenty characters is plenty for a Spanish chart, where eight or ten digits is usual, but it is worth bearing in mind if your chart uses codes made up with company or centre prefixes.
The code is not checked against any standard: the application does not verify that a 400 is a supplier account or that a 600 is a purchases account. It stores what you give it.
Searching for an account
The search box at the top finds accounts by code or by name, on partial matches. Typing 600 returns everything starting with that number; typing purchases, everything with that word in its title.
Where you keep the books for several companies there is also a filter by company, which cuts the list down to one company's accounts.
The same criteria work in the account searches on records and documents, which show code and name together.
Deleting accounts
You can delete an account from its own row, or several by ticking them and using the delete button. Both ask you to confirm first: the single one shows the code and name of the account about to go.
Before deleting an account already in use, check that no supplier or client record has it assigned. Otherwise those records are left with no account and their documents stop being coded on their own.
Creating an account without leaving the document
Coding a document, it is common to find an account missing. There is no need to come to this screen: the accounting section on the header offers a link to create a new nominal account in a dialogue, with the same three fields, code, name and company.
An account created that way sits in the chart like any other, and appears in every search from that moment on.
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The account searches come up empty | No chart of accounts is loaded. | Load the country's general chart, or import your own. |
| An account that exists does not appear | There is a company filter on, and the account belongs to another one. | Clear the filter or switch company. |
| It will not save the account | The code or the name is missing. | Fill in both: they are required. |
| The code is not saved in full | It is over 20 characters. | Shorten it. That is the field's limit. |
| After deleting an account, some documents stop being coded | The records that used it were left with no account. | Give them the right account on the relevant master. |