Purpose

The Chart of Accounts within FrontAccounting are defined by Type, Class, Group and Account. All transactions are charged to an Account. Groups, classes and types are used to group transactions together for reporting purposes.

Types are the highest level and are set within the system. The following Types have been defined in includes/types.inc:

None (0) // For backwards compatibility
Assets (1)
Liabilities (2)
Equity (3)
Income (4)
Cost of Goods Sold (5)
Expenses (6)

The Balance Sheet includes accounts that fall into types 1,2 and 3 whilst the Profit and Loss account only includes account in types 4,5 and 6.

Procedure

You will need to do this before you set any Account Groups. Add an ID that does not already exist, enter a name and select a Class Type. Click on Add New

Tips and Tricks

You can create as many classes as you like. When you do a Trial Balance the entries will be totaled by class. If you wish to change the order of the classes you need to change the numbers. For example, if you want Assets last and Costs first make Assets class number 4 and Costs class number 1.

Note: There is a misuse of terminolgy within FrontAccounting. In the Account Class one of the fields is Class Type. This is the Type refered to above. In the Account Group screen there is also a Class Type field. This is the Class refered to above. If you try and delete an Account Class that has Groups defined for it you will get an error message saying it has GL Account Types refering to it. It really means Groups. This is no longer an issue as we now (FA v2.3.12) use class_id field in the chart_types table labelled Class in the Account Group Form.