Accounting entries

Each accounting transaction on Gestan (incoming or outgoing payment) is linked to an accounting code, which links the nature of the transaction to the accounting codes under which the resulting entries must be classified.

For example, you record a payment of 10 for the purchase of a pen. The outgo will be recorded with the account assignment “Office supplies”. Depending on your settings, this transaction can then be automatically posted to the purchases journal in account 6064 (administrative supplies for France), with a contra entry in account 401 (collective suppliers’ account in France). VAT will be posted via the VAT account settings by rate, and the payment will be posted using the accounting code linked to the bank account from which you paid for the pen.

This means that anyone can record accounting entries correctly, without any accounting qualifications, provided the accounting settings are correct.

Access: Accounting → Accounting settings → Account allocations

The upper section displays the list of account codes, whilst the lower section shows the list of accounting links that may be associated with that account.

Upon installation, Gestan is initialised with standard account codes.

It is strongly recommended that you adapt the default account codes to suit your desired level of accounting detail, in consultation with your accountant (see also our proposal for a support specialist accountant for).

When you create a new account, there are usually two reasons: either a legal requirement or a reporting need. Drilling down into an overly detailed classification is only worthwhile if it serves one of these two purposes.

In the context menu options:

• Show entries displays the journal entries linked to this account code
• It is possible toimport account codes or download them from the internet.
• Create missing accounts is useful if imported account assignments contain account codes that are not yet registered. This option opens a screen listing the accounts to be created, and allows you to enter a description for each one.

The account in the chart of accounts is usually a revenue, expense, fixed asset or equity account.

The offset account is usually a third-party account or a bank account.

Unless there are specific management requirements, the account codes for the customer and supplier summary accounts must be identical to the contra accounts for entries relating to business income and expenses. To put it simply, in France, the customer summary account is most often account 411, and the supplier summary account is most often account 401: when setting up any journal entry falling under the ‘business income’ category, enter the same code 401 as the contra account, and for all journal entries falling under the ‘business expenses’ category, enter the same code 411 as the contra account.

You can specify default values for journal entries : for example, a cash outflow posted to ‘purchases of small equipment’ will be settled via the business account and will have a VAT rate of 20 per cent.

ℹ️ Other ‘Accounting’ articles