Next Generation - Step by step guide on how to build your Chart of Accounts

To understand the Chart of Accounts screen, please refer to the Chart of Accounts article for more information.
We are going to refer to the Chart of Accounts as CoA.

Please read the full article so you have all the necessary information and links relating to the chart of accounts.

When setting up the chart of accounts for a currency, you can follow through the steps below after you have selected the relevant currency you wish to work with on the Chart of Accounts screen, Build Mode. You can only select one currency at a time.

Example used for reference:

Your company has offices in London and in Oxford, and you have selected the hyphen separator. You have created the records in each category as per the step by step guide on the Categories set up article.

Category 1 identifies the office of your company (London and Oxford).
Category 2 identifies the department of your company (sales and general).
Category 3 records the details of the income or cost (1000, 1500, 200 etc).

Create the structure for your home currency:

The Chart of Accounts screen defaults to GBP as the home currency.

Click Financials then click Chart of Accounts.
Note: The CoA screen opens and the Nominal Categories panel which contains the highest level of the structure, in our example it is the office which includes London and Oxford.
Select the check box in front of London then click on the Add button.
Note: London is moved to be in the Chart of Accounts panel and is automatically ticked, with the Nominal Codes Incomplete icon next to it indicating that the structure is yet to be completed. The next level category is now displayed on the Nominal Categories panel, and in our example, it is department which includes general and sales.
We recommend that whenever you have added your categories for building that you save your work regularly by clicking on the Save for Later button.
Note: The Chart of Accounts panel is updated and showing you zero accounts have been build and how many there are to build.
As you have saved your structure, you need to select the check box in front of your category on the Chart of Account panel which in our example is office, then select the check box in front of General on the Nominal Categories panel to add to the structure and click on the Add button.
Note: General is moved to be in the Chart of Accounts panel under London, with the Nominal Codes Incomplete icon next to it indicating that the structure is yet to be completed. The next level category is now displayed on the Nominal Categories panel, and in our example it is the Detail Category which records your income and costs.
Select the check box in front of 1000 on the Nominal Categories panel and click on the Add button.
Note: 1000 is moved to be in the Chart of Accounts panel under department, with the Awaiting Build next to it indicating that the structure can now be built. Your current structure using our example would be: SSM-GEN-1000.
We recommend that whenever you have added your categories for building that you save your work regularly by clicking on the Save for Later button.
Note: The Chart of Accounts panel is updated and showing you zero accounts have been build and how many there are to build.
Select the check box on the Chart of Accounts panel against the second level Category, then select the check box in front of 2000 to add to the structure and click on the Add button.
Note: Category 2000 is added under your second level under 1000 that you have added earlier. The red indicator is now replaced with Awaiting Build as this is the lowest category in your structure. Using the above example your structure looks like: LOND-GENR-1000 and 2000.

Continue adding to the Chart of Accounts panel and saving your work as you go until you have completed the full structure.

Build your structure for your home currency:

Click Financials then click Chart of Accounts.
Note: The screen will open defaulting to Build Mode at the top of the screen as you have not yet built any nominal accounts yet.
Click on Build at the bottom of the screen.
Note: The Specify Default Accounts screen is displayed with the 12 compulsory default control accounts that you have to manually map.
The Specify Default Accounts screen is made up of the following fields and options:

Field	Description
Currency	Defaults to the currency selected on the Chart of Accounts screen. Disabled and cannot be changed on this screen.
Create Analysis check box	Financials uses analysis records for transactions for all the ledgers except for the nominal transactions where the actual nominal account is used. These analysis records update the selected nominal accounts. We recommend that you select this check box so that the system can automatically create the following: Sales Ledger Analysis code for every nominal account code with a major heading of 1 and 3. Purchase Ledger Analysis code for every nominal account code with a major heading of 2 and 4. If you have nominal account for asset with a major heading of 7 which is part of the balance sheet accounts, you have to create these analysis records manually.
Sales	The default sales account for the currency selected. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Sales Discount	Access Financials requires you to set up this nominal account to be able to build your chart of accounts even if you don't use this nominal in the future. The default sales discount account for the currency selected. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Currency Exchange	Access Financials requires you to set up this nominal account to be able to build your chart of accounts even if you don't use this nominal in the future. The default currency exchange control account for any loss or profit that derive from the difference between exchange rates for the relevant transactions for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Currency Rounding	Access Financials requires you to set up this nominal account to be able to build your chart of accounts even if you don't use this nominal in the future. The default currency rounding control account for any rounding differences that derive from any rounding differences for the relevant transactions for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Sales Control	The default sales control account for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Bank	The default bank account for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Purchase	The default purchase account for the currency selected. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Purchase Discount	Access Financials requires you to set up this nominal account to be able to build your chart of accounts even if you don't use this nominal in the future. The default purchase discount account for the currency selected. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Purchase Control	The default purchase control account for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
VAT Control	The default VAT control account for the database. Access Financials has a single VAT control account rather than an input and output account. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.
Year End	The default year end account for the selected currency. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option. The balance from your profit and loss accounts is posted to this account when you are doing your year-end runs.
Suspense	Access Financials requires you to set up this nominal account to be able to build your chart of accounts even if you don't use this nominal in the future. The default purchase discount account for the currency selected. The default suspense account for the selected currency. You can use this account to post any transactions to that you need to investigate further before posting them to the relevant accounts. You can manually type in the account or select from the list or search using the Show More option.

4. If you leave any of the above account fields blank, and click Save, you will receive a validation error letting you know which accounts needs to be added.

5. Once you have mapped all the accounts, click Save.
Note: A confirmation message lets you know that the chart of accounts has been successfully built and the indicator has changed to indicating that your structure has been built. The Build button is now updated to be Update Defaults to allow you to change any defaults that you have mapped previously.

6. To change any defaults, click on Update Defaults and type or select the records you want to set up as the new defaults, then click Save.
Note: If you change the type of a nominal account, you also have to change the type in the Categories set up screen.

When you have built a structure, on the Build Mode version of the screen, you can also see a Duplicate button.
The Duplicate button allows you to duplicate a whole structure for a different currency or to duplicate parts of a structure between your categories.

Example:

Using our reference example, you have built your full structure for your London office and have built so far only the structure of Department Sales for the Oxford office.

Next Generation - Add a new category to an existing and built Chart of Accounts

Next Generation - The Chart of Accounts screen

Next Generation - Update the default accounts for your existing chart of accounts

Next Generation - View details and access available actions for a nominal account in the your chart of accounts

Next Generation - View Mode on the Chart of Accounts screen