Accounting Setup tells SeroBooks which account in your chart of accounts each kind of money belongs in: what customers owe, sales, sales tax, cash and bank, cost of goods sold, inventory, discounts, freight, deposits, payroll and more. Every invoice, payment, bill, expense and adjustment you save posts its debits and credits to the accounts chosen here, as long as automatic posting is switched on.
Set it up once, before you start entering transactions, and come back to it when you add a tax rate, a payment method or an expense category. The rest of the Accounting menu reads the books; this is the screen that decides how they are written.
Opening the screen
- Company ▸ Accounting Setup
- Edit ▸ Preferences…, then Accounting, Checking or Payments, and the Accounting Setup link under SET UP IN.
The toolbar
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Set up everything | Does every safe thing at once and then tells you what it did and what still needs your decision (see below). |
| Create missing accounts | Adds the tax and other accounts a standard chart lacks for your country, and maps them. It skips anything already present and never overwrites a mapping. The message says Missing accounts created and mapped — review below, then Save. |
| Use suggestions | Fills every empty row with the account SeroBooks suggests from your chart. It never replaces a choice already made. The message says how many rows it filled, or Nothing left to suggest. |
| Save map | Saves every mapping on the screen and the posting switch. The message is Posting map saved. |
Nothing you change on the screen takes effect until you choose Save map, except the Payments tick box, which saves as soon as you click it.
Confirm the country for these books
Until somebody confirms it, a card at the top says which country the books are set up for (for example Canadian) and what that decides: which provinces exist, whether tax paid on purchases is recoverable, and which forms you file. Choose Yes, Canadian books (the button names your country) to confirm. Confirming changes no figure anywhere; it makes SeroBooks refuse a QuickBooks company file from the other country instead of only noting it. Once a business has traded, the country can be confirmed but not changed. After it is confirmed, the card no longer appears.
Posting ON or OFF
The next card shows the state the server holds:
- Posting is ON — documents are reaching the ledger.
- Posting is OFF — the ledger stays empty.
The switch beside it turns automatic posting on or off; the line Not saved yet — press Save map to apply this. appears until you save. The switch cannot be turned on while a required account is missing; an amber line lists what is Still needed before posting can start.
Re-post history
Re-post history writes documents you already have into the ledger through the current map, for a date range you choose. It is safe to run again: each document's entries are replaced, never doubled.
- Choose Re-post history.
- If a required account is missing, a message says Map … first — nothing can post without it. Map it and try again.
- If the map on screen is not saved, or posting is off, a Save first? window offers Save and continue, which switches posting on and saves.
- In Re-post documents from…, pick the dates.
- When it finishes, the message says Documents re-posted — check the Trial Balance., or Backfill failed: with the reason.
Documents dated in a period closed by the closing date are not re-posted; the closed period's entries stay as they were.
Payments: Undeposited Funds
The Payments card holds one preference, Use Undeposited Funds as a default deposit to account:
- Ticked: payments you receive wait in Undeposited Funds until you record them on a deposit.
- Not ticked: Receive Payments and sales paid on the spot show a Deposit To account, and the money goes straight there.
It changes new payments only. To move one already entered, open it and change its Deposit To. See Undeposited Funds and the Deposit To account.
Where each kind of money goes
This card lists every posting role. Required rows have a red asterisk and a red border while empty. Each row shows the role's name in bold with a short description beneath, and an account box on the right: click it to open the account picker, search, and choose an account (or clear it). An empty row shows Suggested: account when SeroBooks has a suggestion, or Not mapped.
| Row | What posts there |
|---|---|
| Accounts Receivable * | What customers owe: every invoice, and every customer payment that reduces it. |
| Accounts Payable | What you owe vendors: every bill, and every bill payment. |
| Sales revenue * | Income from invoice and sales receipt lines (an item's own income account takes precedence where it has one). |
| Sales returns | Credit memos and returns. Empty, they reduce sales revenue. |
| Delivery/shipping charged to customers | Shipping charges on invoices. |
| Discounts given | Discounts on sales. |
| Rounding adjustments | Cash rounding on sales. |
| GST/HST payable * | Federal sales tax collected on sales. |
| PST/QST payable | Provincial tax collected. Empty, it joins GST/HST payable. |
| GST/HST input tax credits on purchases | Recoverable tax paid on bills and expenses. |
| QST payable and QST input tax refunds (ITRs) on purchases | Quebec sales tax collected and recovered, kept apart so it is filed to Revenu Québec. |
| Sales tax filed and owing | The net owing of a filed return, written when you file in Manage Sales Tax. |
| Inventory on hand | The value of stock bought and sold. |
| Cost of goods sold | The cost of items sold. |
| Damage / shrinkage write-offs | Stock written off. |
| Expenses (default, for categories with no account of their own) | Expenses whose category has no account of its own (see below). |
| Cash in drawer | Cash payments. |
| Bank / card deposits | Other payments, unless a payment method has its own account. |
| Undeposited Funds | Payments received and not yet deposited. It must not be a bank or credit card account. |
| Customer deposits / Supplier advances | Money taken before an invoice exists (a liability), and money paid before a bill exists (an asset). |
| Depreciation charged for the year / Accumulated depreciation / Fixed assets, at cost / Gain or loss on disposal | The fixed asset register's postings. See Fixed Asset Manager. |
| Finance charges billed on overdue accounts | Income from assessed finance charges, kept apart from sales. |
| Freight and delivery paid on purchases / Discounts received from suppliers | Freight and vendor discounts on bills. Empty, both go to cost of goods sold. |
| Foreign exchange gain/loss on currency conversion | Realised gains and losses when a foreign-currency invoice or bill is paid at another rate. See Home Currency Adjustment. |
| Amazon rows (Amazon Clearing, Reserve, commission, FBA fees, storage, advertising, service fees, promotions, unmapped fees) | Amazon settlement journals. See Amazon settings. |
| Payroll rows (wages, employer contributions, net pay owed, federal and provincial remittances) | Pay runs. See Payroll Setup. |
A few rows serve point-of-sale features and can be left empty if you do not use them.
The three required rows are Accounts Receivable, Sales revenue and GST/HST payable: nothing can post until all three are mapped.
Which tax each rate is
Each tax rate you charge is listed with its percentage, whether it sits inside a combined rate (inside group name), and what its mapping means:
| Label under the rate | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Federal — GST/HST | Mapped to the GST/HST payable account: it counts on the GST/HST return. |
| Provincial — PST/RST/QST | Mapped to the PST/QST payable account: it counts as provincial tax. |
| Guessed from name (amber) | Not mapped; the return guesses from the rate's name. |
| Zero-rated | A 0% rate; nothing to map. |
| Own account | Mapped to some other account. |
Map combined rates by their parts: a 12% rate made of GST 5% and PST 7% needs each part mapped. An amber line counts the rates still being guessed from their name. Left unmapped, a rate called something like "G" or "S" counts towards nothing and the return comes out short while looking normal. See How sales tax works.
Where each way of paying lands
Each payment method is listed, marked in use if you have used it, with the account it lands in. Left empty, cash goes to the Cash in drawer account and every other method to Bank / card deposits, and the box shows that account in grey. Give cheques, gift cards and any method that does not go straight to the bank an account of its own, so they are not reported as money already in the bank. See Payment methods.
Which account each expense category books to
Each expense category is listed, marked in use if it has been used, with its verdict:
- Its own account (green) — mapped.
- Falls back to the default expense account — not mapped; it reports under the default expense account.
- Nowhere to post — expenses will refuse (red) — not mapped and no default expense account is set.
If no default expense account is set, an amber warning says expenses refuse to post and never reach the profit and loss until one is set or every category is mapped. If categories in use fall back to the default, a note counts them. Map your main categories (rent, wages, fuel, utilities) so the Profit & Loss shows them as separate lines. See Enter Expenses.
Set up everything
Set up everything does, in one press, what a bookkeeper would do by hand:
- creates the accounts your country needs and maps them;
- classifies each tax rate as federal or provincial from what it charges (your delivery rules, a rate that can only be one tax such as 9.975% QST, or your own province), never from its name;
- routes payment methods to accounts and gives expense categories accounts of their own;
- corrects a rate that was posting to another province's account;
- switches automatic posting on when everything required is in place.
A window titled Setup complete lists each thing done, then Still needs your decision for anything it would not guess, such as a rate that could belong to two provinces. If nothing needed changing, it says Everything was already set up. Choose Done, review the screen, and save.
What happens in the books
- Changing a mapping affects what posts from then on. Entries already written keep the account they were written with. To move history to the new account, use Re-post history for the dates concerned.
- With posting OFF, transactions are still saved, but nothing reaches the general ledger, so the Trial Balance, Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet stay empty.
- The Foreign exchange gain/loss on currency conversion row is filled for you the first time a foreign currency is used: SeroBooks adopts an account named like "Exchange Gain or Loss" or "Foreign Exchange…", or creates Exchange Gain or Loss.
Permissions
| Action | Right needed |
|---|---|
| Save map, the posting switch, confirming the country | Edit Posting Map (Accounting ▸ Setup) |
| Re-post history | Re-post History (Accounting ▸ Setup) |
| Set up everything, Create missing accounts | Add account on the Chart of Accounts |
Without the right, an Approval Required window lets someone who holds it approve the one action.
Common problems
- "Posting is OFF" and the switch will not move. A required row is empty. The amber line names it; map it, then switch on and Save map.
- The Trial Balance is empty. Posting is off, or it was switched on after your transactions were entered. Switch it on, save, and Re-post history for those dates.
- "… is a bank or credit card account. Undeposited Funds holds money received but not yet banked…" You chose a bank account for Undeposited Funds. Choose your Undeposited Funds account; nothing was saved.
- Expenses are missing from the Profit & Loss. No default expense account is set and the category has no account. Map one or the other.
- The GST/HST return is short. Rates are still Guessed from name. Map each rate (or each part of a combined rate) to the federal or provincial account.
- Cheques received show as money in the bank. Give the Cheque payment method its own account.