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Manage Chart of Accounts

Zuora

Manage Chart of Accounts

Overview

Before you can assign accounting codes to the various financial transactions in Zuora, you'll first want to review your chart of accounts and tailor it to your business. This article describes how to manage accounting codes for tenants using Finance.

If your tenant is not permissioned for Finance, see chart of accounts setup instructions in the Billing and Payments Settings documentation.

Accounting Codes

Zuora's chart of accounts contains the accounting codes used to categorize your Zuora transactions for accounting purposes. In accounting terms, these codes identify the account affected by a transaction, such as Accounts Receivable or Cash. In fact, many of our customers simply use their GL account names for Zuora accounting codes.

Using accounting codes to group transactions within reports makes it easy to generate reports on the various categories of financial activity. One typical purpose of such reports is to produce totals to use for summary journal entries in an accounting system.

Not everyone uses accounting codes in exactly the same way. For instance, some use the same accounting code for payments and refunds, so that when you aggregate both, you get a single net payment amount. Others prefer to use separate accounting codes so that they can keep separate totals for payments and refunds.

Once the accounting codes are in use, there are strict limitations on the changes you can make. We strongly recommend that the company CFO or Controller participate in the planning of your Finance configuration.

Supported Fields

The Zuora chart of accounts includes the following fields: 

Field Description Finance note

Name

Required. Name of the accounting code. Once this code is used in a transaction, the name cannot be changed.

Note that duplicate accounting code names are not allowed.

All tenants

Notes

Optional text field for notes about the account.

All tenants

Type

The account type, such as Assets, Accounts Receivable, Cash, and so on. The Type can be changed at a later time unless it is Accounts Receivable.

Note: It is suggested to use the On-Account Receivable accounting code type as a credit memo On-Account accounting code if you enable the Advanced AR Settlement feature. 

The Invoice Settlement feature is generally available as of Zuora Billing Release 296 (March 2021). This feature includes Unapplied Payments, Credit and Debit Memos, and Invoice Item Settlement. If you want to have access to the feature, see Invoice Settlement Enablement and Checklist Guide for more information. After Invoice Settlement is enabled, the Invoice Item Adjustment feature will be deprecated for your tenant.

All tenants

GL Account Name

Optional. The name of the corresponding account in your general ledger accounting system.

Finance only

GL Account Number

Optional. The number of the corresponding account in your general ledger accounting system.

Finance only

Pre-populated Accounting Code Values

Your chart of accounts is pre-loaded by default with typical accounting codes that work well for many companies.

We recommend that you review your chart of accounts, add any new accounts you know you will need, and consider deactivating any accounts that you will not be using in the future.

List View

You can view a list of your accounting codes on the Chart of Accounts List View page. If your tenant is permissioned for Finance, you can access this page at SettingsFinance > Manage Chart of Accounts.

The list view displays the accounting codes in table format, showing their NameType, and Active status. Page features include:

  • Sort the list by clicking the headings for Accounting Code Name or Active. Default sort is by Name, within Type, within Active.
  • Navigate through multiple pages (if they exist) by selecting a page number or clicking the left and right arrows at the bottom right.
  • Filter the accounting codes by selecting a Category from the View box at the top right.
  • Create a new accounting code by clicking the green new accounting code button. Details are shown in a separate section below.
  • Edit an accounting code by clicking Edit. Details are shown in a separate section below.
  • Change an accounting code status by clicking Activate or Deactivate. Details are shown in a separate section below.

Create an Accounting Code

From the chart of accounts list view, click new accounting code. The Create Accounting Code page appears.

From this page, you can create a new accounting code. You cannot delete an accounting code once it has been created.

The following describes the fields:

  • Required fields (Name and Type) are highlighted with a green bar.
  • Name must be unique within the selected Type. Once the accounting code is used in a transaction, the name cannot be changed.
  • Type is a drop-down list populated with a standard set of high-level accounting codes.
  • GL Account Name and GL Account Number are optional, informational fields that you can use to map your Zuora accounting codes to the general ledger chart of accounts used in your primary accounting software.
  • Note is an optional free-form text field.

Click the create accounting code to save.

By default, the system only allows one accounting code for the type of Accounts Receivable (AR).

Setting up multiple accounting codes of Type as Accounts Receivable (AR) is allowed in tenants with Invoice Item Settlement permission enabled.

Edit an Accounting Code

From the chart of accounts list view, clicking on the Edit button takes you to the Edit Accounting Code page.

This page allows you to edit an accounting code.

You cannot edit the Accounting Code if any of the following conditions are met:

  • If the accounting code is used in transactions such as Payments, Refunds, Invoices, Credit Memo, Credit Balance Adjustment, Tax (active tax code), Debit Memo, Invoice Adjustment, and Invoice Item Adjustment, see Configure Accounting Codes for more information.
  • If the accounting code is used in the product rate plan charge, see Create product rate plan charges for more information.
  • If the accounting code is used in the active Payment Method, see Payment methods for customer accounts for more information.

The following describes the fields:

  • Required fields (Name and Type) are highlighted with a green bar if they can be edited.
  • Name must be unique within the selected Type. Once the accounting code is used in a transaction, the name cannot be changed.
  • Type is a drop-down list populated with a standard set of high-level accounting codes.
  • GL Account Name and GL Account Number are optional, informational fields that you can use to map your Zuora accounting codes to the general ledger chart of accounts in your primary accounting software.
  • Notes is an optional free-form text field.

Click update accounting code to save changes.

Activate or Deactivate an Accounting Code

To activate or deactivate an accounting code, click Activate or Deactivate in the Actions column to the right of the accounting code. Active accounting codes show a check mark in the Active column.

You cannot deactivate an accounting code when:

  • It is used in product rate plan charges, or
  • It is used in settings pages where you configure accounting codes for transactions, payments, refunds, and taxes. 

To deactivate an accounting code, change the corresponding configurations to use a different accounting code.

Delete an Accounting Code

To delete an accounting code, click Delete in the Actions column.

You must have the Delete Unused Accounting Code Finance permission in order to delete an accounting code. You can only delete accounting codes that have never been associated with any transactions. An accounting code must be deactivated before you can delete it.

You can also delete an accounting code using the SOAP API. See AccountingCode for more information.