Finance and Accounting · Setup & configuration · 10 min read

Set up accounts, journals, taxes and dimensions

Create accounts, map posting roles, adjust journal types, install tax codes and fiscal positions, and define analysis dimensions and their rules.

Before you begin

You need to be a company administrator. Reading these screens needs company.view; the server asks for reference.manage to change them.

Chart of accounts and posting accounts

1. Open Finance > Configuration > Chart of accounts and press New account.
2. Enter the Code (2 to 30 letters, digits, underscores or hyphens; unique; it cannot change later) and the Name (and optionally the Arabic name).
3. Choose the Class (asset, expense, liability, equity or income) and the Posting type: header, posting, control, total, statistical or system. Header and total accounts never take postings.
4. Optional: set Maintained by (customer, vendor, inventory, asset, payroll, tax or bank), Under (a header or total account), Posting from and Posting to, and whether manual journals, debits and credits are allowed.
5. Set Status (active, blocked, inactive or deprecated). Only active accounts take postings.
6. Press Save.

Once an account has posted lines, its class, posting type and subledger link are frozen. The system tells you how many posted lines it has and suggests opening a new account and moving the balance with a journal.

To use the 6-digit GCC reference chart, press Use the GCC reference chart and confirm Renumber and install. It runs once. If custom accounts have no place in the reference chart the system lists them; move or archive them first.

Then open Finance > Configuration > Posting accounts. Each role (bank charges, retained earnings, output tax, unrealised exchange difference and others) needs an active account that takes postings. A header account cannot fill a role. If a role is empty, any posting needing it is refused with "No account is set for ...".

Journal types

Open Finance > Configuration > Journals. The 21 types (GJ, SJ, PJ, CR, CP, BR, BP and so on) each have a name, posting layer, next number and two controls:

• Needs approval before posting: off as shipped. When on, a typed entry is saved as Draft and goes through submit, approve and post by different people.
• Allow control accounts: whether a manual entry of this type may touch control accounts (refused on GJ, allowed on the AR and AP adjustment journals).

Archive a type to refuse new entries of that type.

Taxes

1. Open Finance > Configuration > Taxes and press Install a country's taxes. Choose AE for the UAE (standard rated 5%, zero rated, exempt, out of scope, reverse charge and import codes with rates from 2018-01-01). Installing again does not duplicate codes.
2. To add a code, press New tax: Code, Tax name, Tax type, Applies to (sale, purchase or both), Treatment and Recoverable percent (0 to 100).
3. Open the tax and add a rate with New rate: the Rate and the From date. Rate windows of one code may not overlap. A document dated outside every window is refused with a message that no rate exists for that date.
4. Archive a code to stop it being used on new documents.

Fiscal positions

Open Finance > Configuration > Fiscal positions and press New position. Enter a Code, Position name, how it is applied (Automatically by country and registration, or Only where assigned to a customer) and whether it is for Registered only customers. Add tax mappings (Instead of / Charge) and account mappings. Choosing Nothing at all as the target removes the tax from the return entirely, which is different from zero rated.

Example. Position EXPORT maps SR to ZR. A sales invoice of AED 2,000.00 with SR for an export customer shows tax 0.00 on the zero-rated line of the return. Without the position the invoice is AED 2,100.00 with AED 100.00 VAT.

Dimensions and rules

1. Under Finance > Configuration, open a dimension list (Branch, Cost centre, Department, Project or Profit centre) and press New record. Enter code and name; set Rolls up to for a hierarchy and Open from / Closed after to limit when the value can be used.
2. Account structure rules make a dimension required or prohibited on accounts of a class or code range. Nothing is seeded: a new rule starts refusing postings that used to pass.
3. Valid combinations limit which values of two dimensions may appear on one line. Use Try a combination to test without posting.
4. Distribution models save splits such as office rent over departments 60/40. Shares must total exactly 100%.

What happens next

New accounts and codes are available at once on manual journals and documents. Rules apply to every later posting.

Good to know

• Dimension and structure rules change who can post. Test with Try a combination before saving.
• Currency decimal places can be changed only by the deployment administrator, and not once the currency is in use.
• See Finance troubleshooting for the exact refusal messages.