Guided journey
8- Setup Accounting and Invoicing
Close the loop: the ledger everything posts to, progressive billing on long projects, chasing what you are owed, and the statements that tell you whether the year worked.
Accounting is the last journey in the series because it is where every other one lands. A quotation, a purchase order, a receipt, a technician's hour on a site — each becomes a posting here, and if the ledger underneath them is wrong, all of them are wrong quietly and at once.
The first two steps deserve your accountant in the room; the rest can be done and adjusted. Long fenestration projects in particular are billed progressively rather than at the end, so pay attention to the BOQ certificate step even if you have run accounting elsewhere.
By the end you will be able to
- Lay down the chart of accounts, journals, VAT rules, payment terms and currencies
- Set analytic plans so a cost can be traced to the project that caused it
- Bill a long project progressively, with BOQ progress certificates rather than one invoice at the end
- Handle credit notes, receipts in more than one currency, and customer account histories
- Match supplier bills against their orders and receipts before paying them
- Chase overdue money in levels — reminders, disputes, promises to pay, and write-offs
- Read the aging, the customer risk and the cash-flow forecast before a shortfall arrives
- Depreciate the CNC machines and vehicles, lock a closed period, and produce the statements and VAT return
Before you start
- Administrator rights and the Accounting app installed
- Your company, its branches and its currencies set up — "1- First Time Log in System"
- Sales and purchasing already configured, since their documents post here — journeys 3 and 5
- Your accountant available for the first two steps: the chart of accounts and the tax rules are the two decisions on this path that are genuinely hard to reverse
The path
01
Lay the ledger down
- 01 Chart of accounts, journals and tax The two decisions on this path that are genuinely expensive to reverse: the account structure everything posts into, and the VAT rules that decide what you owe. Do these with your accountant, once. 2 min Configure Chart of Accounts, VAT tax rules, journals, payment terms, and currencies
- 02 Analytic plans and how you get paid Analytic accounting is what lets you ask "did that tower make money?" rather than "did the company?". Set the plans up now, alongside the payment gateways customers will actually pay through. 2 min Configure analytic plans, online payment gateways, payment tokens, and accounting settings
02
Bill the customer
- 03 Bill long projects progressively A curtain wall job invoiced once at the end is a cash-flow problem you created yourself. Progress certificates against the BOQ bill what has actually been delivered, month by month. 1 min Issue progressive customer tax invoices, BOQ progress certificates, and batch runs
- 04 Credit notes, receipts and customer accounts The corrections and the money coming in: a credit note that reverses cleanly, a receipt in the currency it was actually paid in, and a customer account you can hand to anyone who asks. 2 min Process customer credit notes, register multi-currency receipts, and manage customer accounts
04
Chase what you are owed
- 06 Follow up overdue money in levels A single reminder email is not a collections process. Levels escalate on their own, disputes are recorded rather than argued twice, and a promise to pay is a date somebody is held to. 2 min Manage multi-level payment follow-ups, customer disputes, promises to pay, and write-offs
- 07 Watch the aging and the forecast Aging tells you what has already gone wrong; the risk score and the cash-flow forecast tell you what is about to. Both are worth a weekly five minutes. 2 min Monitor aging analysis dashboards, customer risk score trends, and automated cash flow forecasts
05
Close the books
- 08 Journal entries, analytics and locking The adjustments an accountant makes by hand, the analytic dimensions they make them against, and the lock that stops last quarter changing after it was reported. 2 min Record manual journal entries, manage multi-dimension analytic accounting, and lock periods
- 09 Depreciate the machines and vehicles The double-head saw, the CNC router and the delivery trucks are assets, not expenses. Register them so depreciation posts itself and the balance sheet stops flattering you. 1 min Manage factory CNC machines, saw equipment, vehicle assets, and automated depreciation
06
Read the numbers
- 10 Produce the statements Balance sheet, profit and loss, cash flow — and the segmented P&L that says which part of the business earned it. If the analytic plans were set up in step two, this is where that pays off. 1 min Generate Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, Cash Flow Statements, and Segmented P&L
- 11 Audit the ledger and file the VAT Trial balance, partner ledgers and the VAT return. This is the step that proves the first step was done right, so run it once before you need it on a deadline. 2 min Audit General Ledger, Trial Balance, Partner Ledgers, and generate VAT Returns
- 12 Let the system flag what you missed Duplicate bills, anomalies against your own history, and what-if models on a price rise you can see coming. The last step of the last journey is the one that keeps watching after you stop. 2 min Leverage AI anomaly detection, duplicate bill alerts, industry benchmarks, and What-If financial models
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