Chart of Accounts #

The Chart of Accounts (COA) is the structural skeleton everything else hangs on.
Every journal posting lands in a GL account; every report sums them. Get the COA
right at install and the rest of Bizuno falls into place — get it wrong and you’re
fighting it for the life of the company file.

This page covers the account-type system, how the chart is stored, the
default-account mechanism that makes day-to-day posting “just work,” and what’s
safe to change after transactions have posted.

Set it up once, carefully. Bizuno can’t stop you from building a messy
chart, and rebuilding mid-life means re-mapping defaults, item GL accounts, and
contact defaults. Start from a template close to your business and prune.

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Account types #

Every account has a type — an integer that tells Bizuno where the account
belongs on the financial statements and how it behaves at year-end. The full set
(defined as PHREEBOOKS_CHART_TYPES in bizunoCFG.php):

Type	Name	Statement	Closes at FY end?
0	Cash	Balance Sheet	no
2	Accounts Receivable	Balance Sheet	no
4	Inventory	Balance Sheet	no
6	Other Current Assets	Balance Sheet	no
8	Fixed Assets	Balance Sheet	no
10	Accumulated Depreciation	Balance Sheet	no
12	Other Assets	Balance Sheet	no
20	Accounts Payable	Balance Sheet	no
22	Other Current Liabilities	Balance Sheet	no
24	Long Term Liabilities	Balance Sheet	no
30	Income / Sales	Income Stmt	yes
32	Cost of Sales (COGS)	Income Stmt	yes
34	Expenses	Income Stmt	yes
40	Equity — does not close	Balance Sheet	no
42	Equity — gets closed	Balance Sheet	yes
44	Equity — Retained Earnings	Balance Sheet	no (it’s the sink)

The type drives behavior across the system: which side of the statement the
account reports on, whether the account’s balance is rolled into Retained Earnings
(type 44) at fiscal-year close, and which
accounts are offered in type-filtered dropdowns (e.g. only Cash accounts in the
register’s account picker).

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How the chart is stored #

The chart definition lives in Bizuno’s module config (cached as
getModuleCache('phreebooks', 'chart')), persisted in the common_meta table
under the chart_of_accounts key. The chart is company-wide — there is no
per-store chart (see Multi-store).

Each account row carries:

Field	Meaning
id	The GL account number (text — 1200, 40000-01, etc.)
title	The account name shown in reports and dropdowns
type	One of the types above
heading	1 = heading row, 0 = a real posting account
default	1 = the default account for its type (see below)
inactive	1 = hidden from new transactions, kept for history
cur	Currency ISO code (defaults to the company locale)
parent	The heading this account rolls up under

Account balances are not stored on the chart — they live per-period
per-account in journal_history, which is where reports read beginning balances
and period activity.

Heading rows vs. account rows #

A heading (heading=1) is a label that groups accounts on reports — “Current
Assets”, “Operating Expenses”. It never receives postings and is skipped when
Bizuno builds account history. Everything with heading=0 is a real account you
can post to.

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Default accounts — why posting “just works” #

When you enter an invoice line and don’t pick a GL account, Bizuno has to know
which revenue account to credit. It resolves this through a layered default
system, most specific wins:

1. Per-SKU override — an inventory item can carry its own gl_sales,
   gl_inv, and gl_cogs accounts. If set, these win.

2. Per-inventory-type default — each inventory type (stock, non-stock,
   service, assembly, …) has configured sales/inventory/COGS accounts under
   Settings → Inventory.

3. Module defaults — Settings → PhreeBooks holds the customer-side and
   vendor-side fallbacks:

   Setting key	Used for
   gl_receivables	Accounts Receivable (customers)
   gl_sales	Default revenue
   gl_payables	Accounts Payable (vendors)
   gl_purchases	Default inventory/expense on bills
   gl_cash	Default cash account
   gl_discount	Discounts given/taken
   gl_deposit	Customer/vendor deposits
   gl_liability	Sales-tax and other liabilities
   gl_expense	Default expense

4. Type default — as a last resort, the account flagged default=1 for the
   relevant type is used (getChartDefault($type)).

One default per type. Exactly one account per type should carry the
default flag. The type defaults are the safety net behind the named settings
above — keep them pointing at sensible accounts even if you rely mostly on the
module settings.

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Building the chart #

Start from a template #

Bizuno ships four starter charts (under
locale/<lang>/modules/phreebooks/charts/):

Template	For
retail-single	Single-location retail / wholesale
retail-multi	Multi-location retail
mfg-single	Single-location manufacturing
mfg-multi	Multi-location manufacturing

Pick the closest at install. Each is a CSV of account id, default flag, parent,
inactive flag, description, and type code — so you can also open one in a
spreadsheet, tailor it, and import your own.

Build from scratch #

You can start empty and add accounts by hand, but you must cover the essentials
the default system expects — at minimum AR, AP, a cash account, sales, COGS,
inventory, a sales-tax liability, and Retained Earnings — and wire them into the
module settings above.

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Editing the chart after go-live #

Editing account properties is allowed at any time — you can rename an account,
mark it inactive, or change its type. Be deliberate: changing an account’s type
reclassifies its balance on the statements and changes its year-end close
behavior, retroactively.

Deleting an account is blocked when it would orphan data. Bizuno refuses to
delete an account that is:

• referenced by any posted transaction (journal_main.gl_acct_id or
  journal_item.gl_account),
• set as a default on any contact (customer/vendor AR/AP accounts),
• set as a GL account on any inventory item (gl_sales / gl_inv / gl_cogs),
• the Retained Earnings account (type 44), or
• carrying a non-zero ending balance in the last period.

When you can’t delete an account you no longer use, mark it inactive instead —
it disappears from new-transaction dropdowns but stays available for historical
reports.

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Multi-store #

The chart of accounts is shared across all stores — there is no per-store
chart. The only store-related wrinkle is the isolate_stores setting (Settings →
PhreeBooks → General), which, when enabled, isolates COGS posting by store. It
does not create separate charts; account structure is global to the company file.

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Related #

• Journals (the journal_id reference) — what posts to these accounts
• Inventory types and COGS
• Fiscal-year management — how income accounts close into Retained Earnings
• Register & Reconcile