Purpose

General Ledger Accounts record the transactions that define value of the business. Every transaction in the business is recorded against an Account, either as a Debit or Credit. In double entry book keeping a particular operation within a business will generate transactions that add up to zero, i.e. Sum Debits - Sum Credits = 0. For example is you buy an asset for $10,000 you will have a debit of $10,000 on your bank account and a credit of $10,000 on your asset account.

In FrontAccounting the Account ID can be numeric, alphanumeric or capitalised alphanumeric. This is controlled by the setting of the flag $account_alpha in config_default.php (see Configuration).

Each Account is assigned to an Account Group (see Account Groups). This is used in reporting, for example the Trial Balance will list Accounts by Group. Also when you select an Account anywhere in FrontAccounting the list will be in Group/Account sequence.

You do not have to set up your Chart of Accounts from scratch, there are several different Charts of Account built in, all you have to do is install the one most relevant to your business (see Setup).

Procedure

Enter an Account Code in the chosen format. This needs to be unique.

If you want a secondary ID enter it in Account Code 2. This is not part of the key.

Enter a meaningful name

Select the Group you want your account to be part of.

Enter tags for help in finding your account.

Click on Add New

Tips and Tricks

Put a structure into your account codes so it is easy to identify where in your Charts it belongs, for example 0xxx for all Capital Assets.

There seems to be a bug in this form. If you try and enter a code that exists you do not get an error message.

Bank accounts are not shown in Journal Entry if Bank Related Accounts are enabled for the User Role. Use the bank deposit or bank payments.

If you need to operate on account with negative balance it cannot have type Cash account selected when acount is created. Choose another account type e.g. Credit Account.