Discover how to configure the Financial Management Module of VIENNA Advantage.

Chart of Accounts Setup

A Chart of Accounts (COA) literally means a list of ledger accounts that are to be maintained in the client’s accounting system. Chart of Accounts is built around a system of double entry accounting, which has become a global standard for calculating how a business is doing financially.

Chart of Accounts is a tree view of the names of the Accounts (Ledgers and Groups) that a Company requires to manage its books of accounts.

Generally, the chart of accounts is configured after creation of Tenant in the system. Once the tenant is created, user needs to define tree for Chart of Accounts and then import chart of Account in the system using Excel templates given by VIENNA Advantage.

Managing chart of accounts through VIENNA Advantage provides single integrated view of all type of accounts which can be viewed through an interactive ‘Chart of Accounts’ screen under

Chart of Accounts is set-up at the client level as well as Organization Level in VIENNA Advantage.

Each account in the chart of accounts is typically assigned a name and a unique number by which it can be identified. Accounts numbers are often five or six digits in length with each digit might be representing the type of accounts.

The accounts are usually listed in the order of appearance in the financial reports. Most of the time, they are listed as follows:

Balance Sheet accounts

• Assets

• Liabilities

• Equity

Profit & Loss

• Income

• Expense

In addition to above accounts, off balance sheet accounts can also be defined i.e., Memo accounts.

Ledger accounts can be created one by one manually or can be imported through Excel template. One can find the excel template to Import chart of Accounts in the document repository.

Before creating any chart of Accounts, Account Element tree needs to be defined in the system. Refer the below section to define Account Element tree.

How to Create Chart of Accounts

Login with the Tenant Admin and open ‘Chart of Account’ screen.

Or search for ‘Chart of Accounts’ in the search utility available in the menu itself.

Following screen appears once the system opens Chart of Accounts screen.

This screen has two tabs named ‘Account Element’ and ‘Element Value’. On ‘Account Element tab, only the name and tree of chart of account is defined. However, on ‘Element Value’ tab, all the ledger accounts or their summary level accounts can be defined.

Click on ‘New Record’ icon to create a new chart of Accounts in the system.

‘Tenant’ and ‘Organization’ are pre-filled as ‘Tenant Name’ and ‘*’ Asterisk respectively.

Enter any name of chart of accounts in ‘Name’ field like ‘XYZ Chart of Account’ which should be unique and mandatory.

Enter the short description in ‘Description’ field which is an optional.

Enter the desired format of account code in ‘Value Format’ field. This could be numeric, alphanumeric or alphabets. User can enter any character from a-z for alphabets or 0-9 for numeric or a-z0-9 for alphanumeric or special characters like _, <space>, &, etc.

Select the ‘Type’ from dropdown. The Element Type could be an element or it could be a user defined.

Select ‘Tree’ to be linked with the Chart of Account from the dropdown. Refer the below section to know how to define a new Tree for chart of accounts.

Select ‘Natural Account’ checkbox if applicable. The natural account is often based on industry specific Chart of Accounts.

‘Update Currency Type’ is a process to update the currency rate type on each ledger account which is used for translation of ledger balances in another reporting currency for financial statements. This process could be run only if chart of accounts is already available in the system.

How to Create/ Edit Accounts

Following options are available in VA system to define ledger accounts for chart of Accounts:

1. Chart of Accounts Screen (Element Value Tab)

2. COA & Financial Group Form

3. Import Chart of Accounts Process

1. Chart of Accounts Screen (Element Value Tab)

Go to ‘Element Value’ tab to create new ledger accounts in the system.

Following details are to be entered or selected on Element Value Tab to create new ledger accounts:

Enter the ledger code in ‘Search Key / Value’ field. This should be unique and is mandatory to enter that. If you leave the search key empty, the system automatically creates a numeric number and assign to the ledger account.

Enter the Name of the ledger account in ‘Name’ field which is mandatory to enter.

Enter the optional short description in ‘Description’ field for this ledger account.

Select the type of ledger account in ‘Account Type’ field from the drop-down list.

A ‘Summary Level’ entity represents a branch in a tree rather than an end-node. Summary entities are used for reporting and not used for posting any transaction.

‘Account Sign’ indicates the natural sign of account as a Debit or Credit. This indicates if the expected balance for this account should be debit or credit. If set to natural, then account sign for asset & expense type accounts would be considered as Debit and account sign for Liability, Revenue & Owner’s Equity would be considered as Credit. Select the appropriate account sign from the drop-down list.

The ‘Post Actual’ indicates if actual values can be posted to this ledger account.

The ‘Post Budget’ indicates if budget values can be posted to this ledger account.

The ‘Document Controlled’ indicates if an account is controlled by a document, you cannot post manually to it.

The ‘Post Statistical’ indicates if statistical values and quantities to be posted to this ledger account.

The ‘Bank Account’ checkbox indicates if the ledger account is the bank account.

Select the ‘Bank Account’ from the drop-down list if applicable.

Balance in ‘Foreign Currency Account’ are held in the nominated currency and translated to functional currency.

‘Currency’ Indicates the Currency to be used when processing or reporting on this record.

Assign the applicable ‘Account Group’, ‘Account Sub-Group’, and ‘Master Account Type’ from the dropdown list. ‘Account Group’ and ‘Account Sub-Group’ are master records in VA System. These groups and sub-groups could be used for financial reporting.

Check on the Intermediate Account checkbox if the ledger code is used as intermediate account.

The ‘Allocation Related’ indicates if the values posted in this ledger account through GL Journal could be allocated to any invoice, Payment or Cash Journal.

The ‘Foreign Currency Revaluation’ indicates if the balance in foreign currency available in this ledger account needs to be considered for foreign currency revaluation at the end of financial period.

2. COA & Financial Group Form

Login with the Tenant Admin and open ‘COA & Financial Group’ screen.

Or search for ‘COA & Financial Group’ in the search utility available in the menu itself.

Following screen will be appeared once the system opens COA & Financial Group form:

Click on ‘Add Node’ button to create ledger account which are summary level ledger accounts.

Click on ‘Add Account’ button to create ledger account and fill in the information for a ledger account like search key, name, account type, etc.

Chart of Accounts can also be imported using excel template by click on

 button. A small parameter pops up as follows when user click on this button:

Select Chart of Account name in ‘Element’ field.

Select the excel sheet from the local system in ‘FileType’ field and press ‘OK’ to import the chart of account.

3. Import COA Process

Login with the Tenant Admin and open ‘Import COA’ screen.

Go to Financial Management > Accounting Structure> Import COA

Or search for ‘Import COA in the search utility available in the menu itself.

Following screen will be appeared once the system opens Import COA process:

Select Chart of Account name in ‘Element’ field.

Select the excel sheet from the local system in ‘FileType’ field and press ‘OK’ to import the chart of account.

To run this process on the server side, select ‘Background Process’ checkbox.

Once the COA is imported, following message appears on the screen.

Use of Excel Template

Following Excel Template can be used to import chart of accounts in VA System.

Enter the values in respective column for each ledger account.

Tree nodes can also be defined in the excel template. If any ledger code is a summary level, then Type ‘Yes’ in Column G [Account_Summary].

To define the parent Child relation between two ledger codes, Define Value of parent ledger code in Column I [Account_Parent] for all subsequent ledger account which are child record.

Let us take an example:

Suppose a user wants to define the chart of accounts in system as following:

These accounts will be defined as per below screen shot:

Ledger account which would be child record, must have a account code of Parent account in Column I [Account_Parent]. If there is no Parent Account entered, then system will create the record at 0 level like ‘Asset’.

When user imports the excel sheet in VA as per above defined ledger codes, then system will create a hierarchy automatically based on parent accounts entered. System imports these records as follows:

How to Create COA Tree

Login with the Tenant Admin and open ‘Tree Configuration’ screen.

Or search for ‘Tree Configuration’ in the search utility available in the menu itself.

Following screen will be appeared once the system opens Tree Configuration screen:

Click on ‘New Record’ icon to create a new tree for Account Elements in the system.

‘Tenant’ and ‘Organization’ are pre-filled as ‘Tenant Name’ and ‘*’ Asterisk respectively.

Enter any name of tree in ‘Name’ field like ‘XYZ COA Tree’ which should be unique and mandatory.

Enter the short description in ‘Description’ field which is an optional.

Select ‘C_ElementValue’ table in the ‘Table’ field.

Select ‘Element Value’ in ‘Type| Area’ field. The Type| Area determines the type of tree is.

‘All Nodes’ checkbox if selected, all nodes must be in the tree. That means any record created in the selected table must be included in the tree.

‘Process Now’ button synchronizes the record on the selected table with tree if ‘All nodes’ is selected.