What this guide covers: the three setup screens that most other Finance pages depend on — Accounts (your chart of accounts and balance sheet), Contacts (customers and suppliers), and Items (what you actually invoice or bill for). Set these up first; invoices, bills and reports all draw on them.
Part AAccounts
Found at Finance → Accounts. Two tabs: Balance Sheet and Chart of Accounts — related but distinct. A Hide values toggle masks all monetary figures on screen, useful when sharing your screen.
Chart of Accounts — the categories
This is your account structure: the categories transactions get classified into. Click Add Account Type and fill in a Code, Name, a Type (Assets / Liabilities / Equity / Income / Expenses), and optionally a Parent Account to nest it under an existing entry of the same type.
Balance Sheet — the actual accounts
This is where real bank, cash and asset accounts live, each pointing at a Chart of Accounts category. Click Add Account and choose the Account Type (CoA) it belongs to, a Name, Currency (defaults to ZAR), and an Opening Balance. Accounts are grouped and totalled by type — Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, Expenses — with a proportional bar per account against its group total.
Contacts
Found at Finance → Contacts — your directory of customers, suppliers and service providers. Filter by type: Customers, Suppliers, Both, Vets, Transporters, Contractors, Other.
Click Add Contact and fill in a Full Name / Business Name (required), a Contact Type, and optional Email, Phone, VAT Number and Notes. A contact can be marked inactive later via the Active contact switch when editing.
Open a contact to see its detail drawer, with quick actions that jump straight into a new document for them: Create Invoice (for customers) or Log Bill (for suppliers) — both link out to Invoices & Bills with this contact pre-selected.
Part CItems
Found at Finance → Items — your catalogue of sellable/billable products, services, medicine, feed, fuel, consumables and equipment. This is what populates the "Item" picker when you're building an invoice or bill line.
Click Add Item: a required Item Name, a Type (Product / Service / Medicine / Feed / Fuel / Consumable / Equipment / Other — physical types also get a SKU / Item Code field), a Unit (the label adapts — "Billing Unit" for services, "Volume Unit" for fuel, "Unit (e.g. each, kg, box)" otherwise), and Pricing: Unit Cost and Selling Price, with a live-calculated Gross Margin. If you've defined tax rules (see Finance Settings), you can assign one here. A Track stock quantity switch links the item into Stock Control for physical items.
Items can be Archived rather than deleted, keeping historical invoices/bills that reference them intact.
TroubleshootingTroubleshooting & FAQ
I can't add an Account — the button is greyed out.
Set up at least one Chart of Accounts entry first (Part A) — accounts need a category to belong to.
Do I need to set up Items before I can create an invoice?
No — invoice and bill lines can be typed freely without a catalogue Item. Items just save you re-typing the same description and price every time, and are required if you want to track stock quantity for a physical good.
What's the difference between "Inactive" and "Archived"?
They mean the same thing — hidden from active use but kept for historical records — the two pages just use different wording. Accounts and Contacts use "Inactive"; Items uses "Archived."