Frequently Asked Questions

The Chart of Accounts (CoA) is a unique list of a business’ accounts, organized by assets (what your business owns), liabilities (what your business owes to others), income (the business’ revenue) and expenses (purchases made for your business).

CoAs are useful for organizing your accounts so you can work smarter with your accountant, making it easy to see the business’ financial situation at the present time.

Note: Approachable Accounting reports like the Chart of Accounts are available on the Plus and Premium plans only. The Chart of Accounts also will only be accurate with data from January 1, 2018 onwards. 

• Access Chart of Accounts
• Parent Accounts
• Accountant Access

 

Access Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts can be accessed using these steps:

1. Click on the Accounting section
2. Then click on the Chart of Accounts sub-tab.

There are a few things you're able to change when viewing the Chart of Accounts. Click on the drop down next to All Accounts, and you'll see some filters:

• Date Range - Within the dropdown, choose one of the preset ranges (This Year, This Quarter or Last Quarter) or choose a Custom date range instead (Jan 1, 2018 is the earliest date we can retrieve data from currently)
• Currency - Choose between individual currencies

Clicking More Actions in the top right will give you easy access to another useful report, the General Ledger.

 

Parent Accounts

FreshBooks uses Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) friendly Parent Accounts right from the start. These are set up as defaults and cannot be edited or deleted. Each Parent Account in the list is assigned a multi-digit number to help identify the account type.

These Parent Accounts are affected by certain events in your FreshBooks account:

• Cash - Other Income, Payments Collected, Bank Accounts
• Accounts Receivable - Your unpaid invoices (except Drafts)
• Revenue - Sales - Paid invoices
• Revenue - Billed Expenses - Expenses that have been rebilled
• Operating Expenses - Categories of Expenses you’ve tracked

Note: Only Accountants invited to your account can create custom accounts under Parent Accounts to help organize your financials.

 

Accountant Access

If you invite an Accountant to your account, they also have extra features to add and edit custom accounts under Parent Accounts, as well as create Journal Entries:

Add or Edit Custom Accounts

1. Click on the Accounting section
2. Then click on the Chart of Accounts sub-tab
3. Click on More Actions
4. Then select Add New Account
5. Enter in a Name for the account
6. Choose the Parent Account to sort this new account under
7. Enter in the Account Number
8. Click on Save to finish.

If you need to edit a custom account: 

1. In the Chart of Accounts, click on the custom account you created
2. Click on More Actions (this only appears on custom accounts)
3. Click on Edit Account
4. Make the changes as needed and click Save to finish.

Note: Once a custom account is created, it can't be deleted.

Create Journal Entries

If there are certain entries that need to be recorded or corrected in your FreshBooks account, the Accountant can create entries manually on your behalf (like Owner's Draw for example). Creating a Journal Entry can be done with the below steps:

1. Click on the Accounting section
2. Then click on the Chart of Accounts sub-tab
3. Click on New Journal Entry
4. Fill out the Entry Name, Date and Currency
5. Enter in a Description for easy reference
6. Choose the Accounts and enter in the amount in either the Debit or Credit field (one Account should be debited and one Account should be credited)
7. Use the Add a line button if you need to add more entries
8. Click Save to finish and the Journal Entry will be recorded.

https://www.freshbooks.com/support/categories/reports