Accounting, reports, banking, tax, and payments

Chart of Accounts — the foundation

What it is. The Chart of Accounts (CoA) is the master list of ledger accounts — assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses — that every transaction posts to. ColorsX74 ships a default structure you can extend; each account has a type, a code, and a name.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Chart of Accounts. Use the search box to find an account by name or code, and the All Types filter to narrow to a single account class (for example, only expense accounts). Click + New Account to add an account: pick the account type first (it drives where the balance appears on the financial statements), give it a code that fits your numbering scheme, and name it clearly.

Use it wisely. Decide your numbering convention before you create accounts — a consistent code range per type (e.g. 1000s for assets, 4000s for income) keeps reports readable for years. Resist the urge to create a new account for every minor expense; prefer a smaller set of well-named accounts and use other dimensions (departments, projects) for analysis. Once an account has postings against it you cannot simply delete it — you deactivate it — so think about granularity up front.

Journal Entries — manual postings and the audit trail

What it is. A journal entry is a balanced set of debits and credits posted to the ledger. Most entries are created automatically from invoices, bills, and payments; the Journal Entries screen is where you record the things that have no source document — opening balances, accruals, depreciation, corrections, and period-end adjustments.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Journal Entries to review what has posted. To add an adjustment, create a new entry, set the date and a clear description, then add lines until total debits equal total credits — the system will not let you post an unbalanced entry. Each line carries the account, a debit or credit amount, and an optional memo.

Use it wisely. Write descriptions a colleague (or an auditor) can understand months later — "Q2 prepaid insurance amortisation" beats "adjustment". Use dated reversing entries for accruals so they self-cancel next period instead of lingering. Keep manual entries to genuine adjustments; if you find yourself routinely journalling something that has a document behind it, post it through the proper invoice/bill screen so the subledger and reports stay consistent.

Customer Invoices — receivables

What it is. Invoices represent what customers owe you. They post revenue and a receivable, drive the aging report, and are the documents customers pay against.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Invoices for the receivables view, or create invoices from the Sales workspace where they link back to orders. Each invoice carries a customer, dates (issue and due), line items with tax, and a running status (draft, sent, paid, overdue). Record a receipt against an invoice from the Payments screen to clear the balance.

Use it wisely. Set realistic payment terms and let the due date drive your follow-up rather than chasing every invoice manually. Keep draft invoices truly draft — they should not hit the ledger until issued. Reconcile the invoice subledger to the receivables control account regularly; if they drift apart, the cause is almost always a manual journal that bypassed the subledger.

Vendor Bills — payables

What it is. Vendor bills are what you owe suppliers. They post an expense (or an asset) and a payable, and they are the payables side of the aging report.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Vendor Bills, or let bills flow in from the Purchase workspace where they can be three-way matched against a purchase order and a goods receipt. Capture the vendor, bill date and due date, lines and tax, then pay it from the Payments screen when due.

Use it wisely. Enter the bill date as the supplier's date, not the date you keyed it, so your period cut-off is correct. Use the due date to schedule payments and protect cash — paying early gives up float, paying late risks the relationship. For anything sourced through Purchase, match before you approve: the three-way match is your strongest control against duplicate and fraudulent invoices.

Payments — money in and out

What it is. The Payments screen records cash movements: customer receipts that clear invoices, and supplier payments that clear bills. Each payment links to the document it settles and to a bank or cash account.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Payments. Record a receipt or payment, choose the account it moved through, and allocate it to one or more open documents. Partial payments and allocations across several invoices are supported, so a single customer remittance can clear multiple invoices at once.

Use it wisely. Always allocate a payment to the specific document(s) it settles rather than leaving it on account — unallocated cash distorts aging and makes reconciliation harder. Record the payment against the bank account it actually used; that is what makes the later bank reconciliation tie out cleanly.

Management reports — proving the numbers

What it is. The report set turns posted activity into the statements a manager, lender, or auditor expects. ColorsX74 ships the Trial Balance, Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Aging, General Ledger, and Cash Flow as core reports; Budget Variance and Comparative P&L are part of advanced finance.

How to use it. Each report lives under Accounting and takes a date or date-range. Start with the Trial Balance to confirm the books balance, then read the P&L for performance and the Balance Sheet for position. Drill from a summary line into the General Ledger to see the underlying entries.

Use it wisely. Close in order: reconcile bank and subledgers, post adjustments, then run the Trial Balance — only trust the P&L and Balance Sheet once the trial balance is clean. Read the Aging and Cash Flow together with the P&L; a profitable period with deteriorating aging and falling cash is a warning, not a celebration. When a figure surprises you, drill into the General Ledger rather than guessing.

Bank reconciliation

What it is. Reconciliation matches what the ledger says happened in a bank account against what the bank statement says. It is how you catch missing entries, duplicates, and bank charges before they pollute the accounts.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Bank Reconciliation, pick the account and statement period, and match each statement line to its ledger payment or receipt. Unmatched items on either side are exactly the work to investigate. The Banking area gives the bank-account overview that this screen reconciles against.

Use it wisely. Reconcile every account every period, not just when something looks off — small unreconciled differences compound. Investigate unmatched items immediately while the context is fresh; a stale unmatched line is usually a missing payment allocation. Never "force" a reconciliation to balance with a plug entry; find the real cause.

Tax

What it is. The Tax screen defines the tax codes and rates that invoices and bills apply, and gives the view of tax collected and paid that supports a return.

How to use it. Open Accounting → Tax to set up your rates and see the tax position. Once codes exist, they appear as choices on invoice and bill lines so tax is captured at the point of entry rather than reconstructed later.

Use it wisely. Match your tax codes to your jurisdiction's return lines so filing is a read-off rather than a reconstruction. Set rates up before you start invoicing; retro-fitting tax onto historical documents is painful. Review the tax position before each filing period rather than at the deadline.

Multi-currency and exchange rates

What it is. ColorsX74 supports transacting in foreign currencies. Exchange-rate lookup is built into core so documents convert to your base currency; advanced finance adds rate management and the period-end FX revaluation run that restates open foreign-currency balances at current rates.

How to use it. Maintain rates under Settings (see the Admin page) and review them on the Exchange Rates screen. At period end, advanced users run FX Revaluation to recognise unrealised gains or losses on open foreign-currency receivables and payables.

Use it wisely. Keep rates current — stale rates quietly misstate every foreign-currency balance. Run revaluation as part of close, after you have posted the period's transactions but before you finalise the statements, and document the rate source you used.

Advanced finance: budgets, fixed assets, payment gateways

What it is. The accounting-advanced add-on extends the core ledger with budgeting, fixed-asset depreciation, and payment-gateway configuration. These appear under the Advanced Features tab and require the add-on to be enabled for the organization.

Use it wisely. Budget at the level you will actually review — a handful of meaningful lines beats a hundred you ignore. Register fixed assets when you buy them so depreciation never falls behind. For gateways, keep secrets in environment configuration, not screenshots, and demonstrate the workflow with test/sandbox credentials only.