Finance → Accounting → Chart of Accounts → /accounting-ledger/chart-of-accounts
Finance → Accounting → Service Types → /accounting-ledger/service-types
Two records decide where every shilling lands:
- an account is a line in your general ledger;
- a service type is a billable or payable thing, mapped to an account.
Get these right once and the ledger takes care of itself. Get them wrong and every report downstream is wrong in the same way.
Chart of accounts
The chart of accounts is your account tree. Each account carries:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Account name | What it is called on statements. |
| Account code | The stable identifier. Postings resolve accounts by code, so codes must not be recycled. |
| Account type | Income, Expense, Asset, Liability, or Equity. Determines which statement it appears on. |
| Account class | Sub-classification within the type, driving statement grouping. |
| Balance | Current balance, and whether it is a debit or credit balance. |
| Status | Active or inactive. |
Where each type appears
| Type | Statement | Normal balance |
|---|---|---|
| Income | Profit & loss | Credit |
| Expense | Profit & loss | Debit |
| Asset | Balance sheet | Debit |
| Liability | Balance sheet | Credit |
| Equity | Balance sheet | Credit |
Designing the chart
- Keep it as small as it can be. Every extra account is a decision someone has to make correctly, every time.
- Split where you will act on the split. Separate water from electricity if you manage them differently; do not separate "cleaning materials" from "cleaning supplies".
- Use control accounts for receivables and payables, with the detail in the subledger rather than in dozens of accounts.
- Mirror the statements you have to produce. If a landlord report needs gross rent separated from recoveries, the chart should already separate them.
Service types
A service type is the catalogue entry for anything you bill or pay: rent, water, service charge, garbage, parking, deposit, late fee, management commission.
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | What appears on invoice lines and reports. |
| Item code / class | Identifiers used for mapping and integration. |
| Account mapping | The income (or expense) account this service type posts to. |
| Tax treatment | The tax class applied, feeding eTIMS submission. |
| Default amount | Pre-fills recurring charges, so a branch standard does not have to be retyped. |
| Classification flags | Whether the item is rent, a deposit, or another category — used by occupancy, deposit and arrears logic. |
Setting up a service type
Create the service type
Name it the way it should read on a tenant's invoice.
Map the account
Choose the income account for revenue items, the expense account for cost items. This is the step that is most often skipped and most expensive to fix later.
Set the tax class
The platform default is non-VAT; mark VAT-rated items explicitly. See Tax & eTIMS.
Set the default amount
Where a branch-standard price exists. This makes outliers visible in recurring charges.
Set the classification
Rent and deposit flags matter — occupancy reporting and deposit balances read them.
Service types every organisation needs
| Purpose | Why it must exist |
|---|---|
| Rent | The core income line; occupancy and arrears logic classify on it. |
| Security deposit | Deposits must be a liability, separate from income. |
| Utilities (per utility) | IoT billing posts consumption against them. |
| Service charge | Usually recoverable and reported separately to owners. |
| Late fee / penalty | The penalties engine cannot post without one. |
| Management commission | Owner statements charge against it. |
Provider integrations and sync
Service types can be synchronised with external providers, with a last synced indicator and a mappings surface for reviewing and retrying failures. See Tax & eTIMS for the KRA item catalogue side of this.
Checks worth running
Every service type has an account
An unmapped service type produces invoices that never post.
No two service types map to the same account for different purposes
If rent and service charge both post to "Rental income", you cannot report them separately.
Deposits do not post to income
A deposit in an income account overstates revenue and understates liabilities.
Inactive accounts have no active service types pointing at them
Postings will fail silently at the worst possible time — during a billing run.