Set up accounting

Why it matters

Until setup is finished, no entry is recorded and every statement stays empty. The wizard installs the framework, the first fiscal year, the chart of accounts, the journals and your starting balances in one go, so the rest runs by itself.

Summary

A single wizard, to go through once, that lays the foundations: the start mode, the accounting framework and first fiscal year, the chart of accounts, the journals, the accounting policy, the import of your history and the opening balances. Until it is finished, no entry can be recorded and all statements stay empty.

Prerequisites

• The wizard screen requires full accounting rights (accounting.*); without them it shows "Access Denied". The accounting.setup right is enough on the server side, but not to open the screen. An administrator grants these rights from Settings › Company › Roles & Permissions.
• Know the start date of your fiscal year (often 1 January, but not always).
• If you are coming from other software: have its closing trial balance at hand.

Steps

Open Menu › Finances › Accounting: as long as accounting is not turned on, the entry opens the wizard (/accounting/setup). It has seven steps.

1. Start Mode. Four choices: Start fresh; Import opening balances from a previous system; Reconstruct from Genuka history (draft entries are generated from your past operations); or Import balances + reconstruct after, from a given date. Enter the official accounting start date and, if you reconstruct, the date from which to reconstruct.
2. Framework. Country of operation, framework (SYSCOHADA, PCG 2024 (France), PCGE (Morocco) or custom (a chart imported from CSV), suggested based on the country), base currency, and the start and end of the fiscal year. The framework determines the structure of the chart of accounts: changing it later is heavy, so take a minute to confirm it.
3. Chart of Accounts. The framework template is loaded: turn on the accounts you need, rename them (double-click), add sub-accounts, import or export the chart as CSV. Genuka checks the required mappings (customer receivables, supplier payables, revenue, discounts granted, returns and credit notes, VAT collected and deductible, cash, bank, inventory, cost of sales, expenses, suspense account) from the active accounts.
4. Journals. The required journals (sales, purchases, bank, cash, miscellaneous operations, opening) can be renamed but not deleted; treasury journals are generated from your treasury accounts (cash registers, banks, mobile money).
5. Accounting Policy. When entries are created: the default trigger for revenue recognition, stock recognition (on delivery, on order or manual), payment accounting (on receipt or on reconciliation), mandatory review of drafts, and whether posting is allowed before the mappings are complete.
6. Reconstruction. If you chose it, the wizard analyzes the orders, invoices, payments and purchases of the period, estimates the number of entries and flags problems, some of them blocking, to be fixed before generating. It then generates draft entries that your accountant reviews. You can also skip this step and run it later.
7. Opening & Locking. Enter the opening balances (debits must equal credits) and, if needed, a lock date: earlier entries can no longer be modified. Review the summary and confirm: activation runs in the background, then accounting becomes active.

Your progress is saved at each step: you can leave and resume later.

After the wizard: accounting settings

Accounting Settings (/accounting/settings, Menu › Finances › Accounting › Configuration › Settings) has eight tabs: Fiscal Years, Accounting Policy, Automatic Entries, Services & Revenue, Default Accounts, VAT, Numbering, General Settings. A tab opens directly with ?tab= (for example /accounting/settings?tab=revenue_types).

Fields & options

Default accounts can still be changed afterwards. Note: changing them does not rewrite entries already generated, only the following ones.

Split revenue by service

By default, all sales credit the same revenue account. To tell your activities apart (goods, services, training…), create one service per activity in the Services & Revenue tab and give it its revenue account: 701 for sales of goods, 706 for services, 708 for commissions, and so on. Each order is then sold under one of these services, and the sales entry credits the matching account.

Five levels of precision, from the finest to the most general; the first one filled in wins:

1. The account set on an order line (the ⋯ menu of the line, or the API).
2. The product's account (the Accounting tab of its page).
3. The account of its collection (same tab on the collection page), the right level for an accountant, who thinks in families.
4. The account of the product type (goods, service, digital…), to be linked once in Services & Revenue. Your catalog already carries this type on each item: this is the split that costs zero data entry.
5. The account of the order's service, then the company's default sales account.

The account is frozen on the line when the order is created: reconfiguring a product later never rewrites past entries.

Same logic for taxes: those set on a product take priority over those of its collection, and failing that the company's default taxes apply. They are applied whatever the channel (register, online store, dashboard, agent), so the same item is never taxed differently depending on where the sale is entered. And each tax can carry its own accounts (collected, deductible, settlement) in its page: without that, VAT, TSPP and withholding taxes all land on the same account.

For a result by shop, you do not need a different account but analytical accounting: the Shop axis automatically assigns each sale to its shop and gives you a trial balance and income statement per shop, without multiplying the chart of accounts.

Edge cases & common errors

• Reconstruction flags payments with no linked document. These are receipts not tied to an invoice. This is not blocking, but they will land on a suspense account: better to link them before reconstructing.
• Orders with no assigned account. They will not know which sales account to post to. Complete the mappings and the default accounts before running the reconstruction.
• Reconstruction takes a while. It runs in the background over your whole history; expect several entries per order. You can keep working in the meantime.
• Wrong framework chosen. Fixable, but it means regenerating the chart of accounts: do it before you have accumulated entries, never after.

FAQ

Can I use Genuka without turning on accounting? Yes. Sales, stock, customers and expenses work independently. Accounting is a module you turn on when you need it.

What happens if I do not reconstruct the history? Your statements will only start from the activation date. That is a valid choice if your accountant already keeps earlier periods elsewhere; in that case, import their trial balance as opening balances instead.

Can I change the default accounts later? Yes, in Accounting Settings, tab Default Accounts. Only future entries take them into account.

My services and my goods land in the same account. How do I separate them? Create one service per activity in the Services & Revenue tab and give each its revenue account. Later orders are split automatically. To realign history that is already posted, ask support to regenerate the entries.

See also

• Understanding Genuka accounting
• The chart of accounts
• Accounting journals
• Import a trial balance (opening balances)