Create or edit a ledger account

How to create and amend ledger accounts. These are also known as nominal accounts or nominal codes.

Explanation of what each field is for.

If you've come from another system such as Sage 50, you may want to import your ledger accounts. You can only do this when no transactions have been entered in Sage Accounting.

We use ledger accounts to group your transactions so you can see how your business is performing.

Each has Category and Group that determines how transactions are reported on you financial reports; the Profit and Loss and the Balance Sheet.

Some s are used automatically by Sage Accounting when recording transactions to ensure that items such as your tax are recorded correctly. These are known as control accounts and can't be edited. Control accounts are marked with an asterisk.

Create a

  1. Go to Settings, Business settings, Chart of Accounts.
  2. Select New .
  3. Enter the details and Save. The fields marked with asterisk * are mandatory

Edit a

You can change of the details of a ledger account.

Changing the category:

  • Changes how the values are included on your reports
  • Does not update transactions are already entered.

Delete a

Once a is created, it cannot be deleted.

While you can't delete a , excluding it from the chart of accounts removes it from selection lists when creating transactions.

Control accounts (indicated with an asterisk) cannot be edited or excluded from the chart of accounts.

  1. Go to Settings, Business settings, Chart of Accounts.
  2. Open on the relevant .
  3. Clear the Included in Chart check box.
  4. Click Save.

fields

If you're not sure what all the fields are for, here is an explanation

Categories and groups

Each ledger account has a category and group.

This is used to group ledger accounts together and make sure they are report correctly on your profit and loss and balance sheet reports.

Group Category Description  
Income

Revenue

 Income from the things you sell  

Other income

 Other sources of income  
Expenditure Direct expenses Costs directly related to things you sell such as packaging, labour charges, import duty etc.  
Expenses Other costs such as staff wages, utility bills, business expenses etc.  
Group

Category

 Description
Asset Bank Balance of your bank accounts and credit cards
Fixed assets Value of your assets such as your property, any equipment you own, any company cars or other vehicles.
Current assets Value of your stock and the amount owed to you by your customers.
Liability Liabilities Amount you owe to creditors such as the total amount owed to your vendors, amount owed to the tax authority.
Capital Equity Any capital bought into the business such as your profit (or loss)

Account numbers

This is a number you can use to help you find and sort your ledger accounts.

If you've moved from another accounting system such as Sage 50, match with the codes you have used previously.

You can use any number that suits you. By default, we have used the following numbers.

Assets = 0001 – 1999
Liabilities = 2000 – 2999
Capital = 3000 – 3999
Income = 4000 – 4999
Expenditure – Direct expenses = 5000 – 5999
Expenditure – Expenses = 6000 – 9999

Visibility

As choosing the right on a transaction is pretty important, we've made set up lledger accounts so they only be selected on certain types of transaction.

For example, sales ledger accounts can be selected on sales transactions.

There may be times when you can't select the you need, due to how the Visibility is set.

You buy stationery for the office and enter the this against the Office Stationery . You return some items and need to record the refund you receive. As the Office Stationery is set only be visible on Other Payments, you can't select it when entering an Other Receipt. To resolve this, just change the Visibility on the Office Stationery to include Other Receipt.

If you can't see a , check the visibility setting.

Conversely, if you are seeing account you don't want shown in an area,

  1. Go to Settings, Business settings, Chart of Accounts.
  2. Click the you want to check.
  3. Select (or clear) the relevant areas in the Visibility section.
  4. Click Save.

Errors creating ledger accounts

If you see the following error:

Sorry about this – It looks like we’re experiencing a technical problem

Check the following:

  • Make sure you are not trying to use a nominal code that already exists.
  • Make sure that Bank is not selected under Visibility. Only ledger with a category as Bank can also have their Visibility set to Bank.


If you are trying to set a Current Asset with a code greater then 1300, it may give you a technical error, if this occurs, choose a different category (we recommend Bank) and Save, then go back in and edit the ledger to change the category back to Current Asset and Save again.

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