<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version
2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by
applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the
License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR
CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for
the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the
License.
 -->
<section xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 version="5.0" xmlns:xl="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook ../../../content/dtd/docbook.xsd"
 xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook">
 <title>The Chart of Accounts help screen</title>
 <para>OFBiz comes with a master template for a very comprehensive chart
  of accounts. This can be found in 'Global GL Defaults' under the
  'Accounting' tab.</para>
 <para>A couple of points to note</para>
 <itemizedlist>
  <listitem>
   <para>you do not need to use all the accounts defined in this master
    template (but it may be simpler to look for the accounts that you
    can use or rename)</para>
  </listitem>
  <listitem>
   <para>you can create your own additional accounts if you dont want to
    use the ones in the master template</para>
  </listitem>
 </itemizedlist>
 <para>The chart of accounts for the default organisation (Company) is
  built up by selecting the accounts that you want to use from the
  global chart of accounts master template. This means that if you want
  to create a new account then you need to create it first in the Global
  Chart of Accounts and then link (or assign) it to the chart of
  accounts for Company.</para>
 <para>Details of the Chart of Accounts can be exported as a CSV file or
  PDF using the buttons displayed.</para>
 <para>IMPORTANT NOTE: You need to be careful if you do decide to create
  your own accounts that they contain all the details required and that
  they are linked into the relevant configuation for the setup of the GL
  defaults. This means that if you change an account (eg Inventory) to
  one of your own - you need to check the GL defaults setup and replace
  any reference to the Inventory account to the one you have created.
 </para>
 <para>This Chart of Accounts screen is used to define the list of
  accounts (or chart) that will be actively used by the company.For
  example the Global chart of accounts may contain 100 different
  accounts but only 20 need to be used for your specific business. This
  means the you need only to create assignments to the accounts that you
  actively want to use.</para>
 <para>The Chart of Accounts is a mixture of business needs (ie being
  able to track the information you need for your business) and tax
  requirements (i.e. legal or government requirements necessary for
  operating a business). The type of Chart that you setup will be
  dependent of your business type.</para>
 <section>
  <title>How do I create a Chart of Accounts?</title>
  <para>As mentioned above the chart of accounts for the default
   organisation (Company) is built up by selecting the accounts that you
   want to use from the global chart of accounts master template. This
   means that if you want to create a new account then you need to
   create it first in the Global Chart of Accounts and then link (or
   assign) it to the chart of accounts for Company. By creating an
   assignment to an account it is then added to the Chart of Accounts.
  </para>
  <orderedlist>
   <listitem>
    <para>Select the account Gl Account Id that you need from the drop
     down box</para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>Press the 'Create Assignment' button</para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>The account is added to the Chart of Account</para>
   </listitem>
  </orderedlist>
 </section>
 <section>
  <title>How do I update a Chart of Accounts?</title>
  <para>Updating the Chart of Accounts will involve either creating a
   new assignment or removing an existing one. A new assignment is
   created using the instructions above. The added complication may be
   that the account that you need does not exist in the Global Chart of
   Accounts. As mentioned above it will need to be created and then
   linked.</para>
  <para>See the instructions below to remove an existing account
   assignment. </para>
  <para>NOTE: If a completely new account is required that does not
   already exist as part of the Global Chart of Accounts template then
   it will need to be created as part of the Global template first
   before it can be used as an assignment in the Organisation Chart of
   Accounts.</para>
 </section>
 <section>
  <title>How do I delete a Chart of Accounts?</title>
  <para>Accounts are not deleted from the Chart of Accounts - they are
   simply no longer selected to be used.</para>
  <para>It is important that you do not remove accounts that are active
   and have already been used for transactions. Even if the net balance
   of the account is zero then from an audit perspective then you should
   not be removing accounts.</para>
  <para>You should only be looking to remove accounts that have not been
   used. To un-link or un-assign accounts from the default company then
   use the Entity Data Maintenance from the Webtools menu. Look for the
   entity 'GlAccountOrganization' and delete the record to remove the
   link.</para>
 </section>
 <section>
  <title>How do I update the details for an account in the Chart of
   Accounts?</title>
  <para>Details of the accounts that make up the Chart of Accounts can
   be accessed from this screen. </para>
  <orderedlist>
   <listitem>
    <para>Click on the 'GL Account Id' of the account required</para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>The 'Edit GL Account' screen is displayed showing the details
     of the account selected (NOTE:This screen is also accessible via
     'Global GL Settings / Chart of Account / Navigate Accounts '</para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>Amend the fields required (NOTE: The GL Account Id and Posted
     Balance fields cannot be amended)</para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>Press the 'Update' button </para>
   </listitem>
  </orderedlist>
 </section>
</section>