The Accounting group holds the foundations everything else sits on.
Chart of accounts
Accounting → Chart of accounts. Your list of accounts, each with a code, name and type (asset, liability, equity, revenue, expense). New companies are seeded with a standard South African chart. For revenue accounts you can set a VAT treatment (standard, zero-rated, exempt or out-of-scope) — this drives how supplies are split on your VAT201.
Not a VAT vendor? Set your revenue accounts to out of scope and your default tax rate to 0% under Settings. You still pay VAT on what you buy — you simply can't claim it back, so the full VAT-inclusive amount is your cost. Leaving the default at 15% quietly books an input-VAT claim you aren't entitled to.
Which costs are cost of sales
Every expense account has a Cost of sales tick. Tick the costs that rise and fall with sales — the goods themselves, delivery to the customer, payment-gateway commission, subcontractors on a job. Leave everything that would carry on regardless — rent, accounting fees, advertising, insurance — unticked.
That single tick is what gives you a gross profit line on the Profit & Loss and a real margin percentage at month-end. Without it, every cost sits in one pile and "what is my gross margin?" has no answer.
A worked example for a business reselling goods online:
| Cost | Cost of sales? |
|---|---|
| What you paid for the goods | Yes |
| Courier to the customer | Yes |
| Marketplace or card commission | Yes |
| Hosting that serves customers | Yes |
| Rent, accounting fees, advertising | No |
| Your own travel, phone, insurance | No |
You can change your mind at any time — the tick only moves where a cost sits on the statement. It never changes your net profit, which is the same number either way.
Archiving an account you no longer use
Tick Show archived to see everything; use Archive on any row to retire an account. It disappears from every picker but its history stays exactly where it is — nothing is deleted, and Restore brings it back.
Two accounts can't be archived, and the reason is shown in place of the button:
- Accounts the books drive themselves — Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, the VAT accounts. The row names the job it holds. Point that role at a different account first if you really mean to retire this one.
- Accounts still carrying a balance. The balance doesn't leave with the account; it would just stop being visible anywhere you'd think to look, while still sitting in your financials. Clear it to nil first.
Divisions, projects & classes (dimensions)
Accounting → Divisions & projects. Tag invoices, bills, quotes, credit notes, orders and journal entries to a project, class or location, then see profitability by project in Reports. Great for job costing.
These are tags on one ledger, not separate books. Your normal Profit & Loss keeps covering the whole business exactly as before; the tags let you also see it split. Anything you have not tagged appears as Untagged rather than being dropped, so the divisions plus Untagged always add back to your total P&L.
Trading under more than one name
One registered company running two or three brands is completely normal in South Africa — and it must stay one company in 360books. SARS sees a single taxpayer: one VAT number, one PAYE reference, one ITR14, one set of financials. Splitting the brands into separate companies gives you partial VAT201s and an EMP501 that can never reconcile.
Instead, add each trading name as a Class, and give it a trading name:
1. Accounting → Divisions & projects → Type Class → name it (e.g. Cleaning), set the trading name (ABC Cleaning) and a short code (CLN).
2. Tag invoices, quotes and bills with it. Prefix your invoice numbers with the code if you want a sequence per brand — invoice numbers are yours to set.
3. Optionally give each brand its own bank account and its own revenue accounts.
Documents for that division are then headed "Your Company (Pty) Ltd t/a ABC Cleaning". The registered name never disappears — a tax invoice must carry it (VAT Act s20(4)) — so the trading name is added to it, not swapped in. If your company name already contains a "t/a", the division's trading name replaces that part rather than stacking on top.
Payslips, IRP5s, the AFS pack and customer statements deliberately stay under the registered name: an employee is employed by the company, not by a brand, and a customer who buys from two divisions should get one statement.
Journal entries
Accounting → Journal entries. For the adjustments no document can make for you — depreciation you're posting by hand, a year-end accrual, interest on a loan from the owner, a marketplace settlement. Everything else in 360books posts its own journals; this is the manual door.
1. + New entry — set the date, a description, and a reference if the entry has a source document (a remittance number, a loan agreement). 2. Add the lines. Each line takes an account and either a debit or a credit — typing in one clears the other, so you can't enter both by accident. Add a line note and a division where it matters. 3. Watch the balance. Running totals sit under the columns, and until debits equal credits the entry tells you which side is short: "Out of balance by R1,800 — add a credit." You can't post until it balances. 4. Post entry, or Save as draft if you want to come back to it. A draft has touched nothing.
A posted entry is never edited — that's what makes a ledger trustworthy. If it's wrong, Reverse it: 360books posts the mirror image and leaves both on the record, so the correction is visible rather than the mistake being erased. Drafts, having touched nothing, can simply be deleted.
The screen lists every entry in your ledger, not just the ones you typed — invoices, bills, payments, payslips and stock movements all post their own. Those show "from invoice INV-0012" instead of a Reverse button, because they have to be undone on the document itself: voiding the invoice moves the invoice and the ledger together, while reversing only the journal would leave your debtors balance disagreeing with your unpaid invoices and nothing on screen would look wrong.
Tag the lines that belong to a division, and leave the bank line blank — the bank is a balance-sheet movement belonging to no division, and tagging it would distort the divisional totals.
Example: a marketplace settlement
Selling on a marketplace, you're paid in arrears with the commission and delivery already deducted. Capturing orders one by one is unworkable; the remittance advice is your source document, and it's one entry per settlement:
| Line | Debit | Credit | Division |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank — net actually paid | 8,200.00 | — | |
| Marketplace commission | 1,200.00 | Marketplace | |
| Delivery & courier | 600.00 | Marketplace | |
| Marketplace sales | 10,000.00 | Marketplace |
You get gross revenue, both deductions visible as costs, and a net that ties to your bank to the cent. If the remittance doesn't equal what you expected, it's almost always a return — which needs a credit note, not a quiet adjustment.
Letting an entry post itself
Some entries repeat on a timetable, and Accounting → Journal entries → Scheduled sets them up once:
- An accrual puts the cost in the month it belongs to and reverses on a date you choose — so when the real invoice lands next month it isn't counted twice.
- An amortisation spreads an amount over a number of months. Twelve months of insurance paid up front moves one twelfth out of Prepayments and into expense each month. The same thing run against a liability recognises deferred revenue — money billed up front, earned month by month.
The last slice carries any rounding, so a R1,000 spread over three months posts R333.34, R333.33, R333.33 and amortises to the cent. If the job doesn't run for a while, the months it missed post when it next does, rather than being skipped.
You can attach the supporting document to any journal entry — the loan agreement, the remittance, the calculation behind a provision. Those travel into the audit pack under journal-entry-support/, which matters because an adjusting entry has no invoice behind it and that paper is the only thing substantiating it.
Example: interest on a loan from the owner
If you've lent your company money and charge market-related interest, the interest is incurred even though no cash moves — it capitalises onto the loan. Once a year, at year end:
| Line | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Interest paid | 610.00 | |
| Shareholder loan | 610.00 |
The company's profit drops, its debt to you grows, and that balance comes back to you tax-free later. When you eventually draw the money out, that's a balance-sheet movement only — not a second expense.
Import from Xero / Sage
Accounting → Import from Xero/Sage. Bring your history across in three steps:
1. Chart of accounts — a CSV of code, name, type. 2. Customers & suppliers — CSV of name, email. 3. Opening trial balance — a CSV of code, debit, credit; 360books checks it balances and posts a single, reversible opening journal entry at your conversion date.
Activity log
Accounting → Activity log. A who-did-what audit trail — invoices issued, payments recorded, bills approved, members invited, and more.
Under the hood — the ledger
Every module (invoicing, bills, banking, payroll, depreciation) posts through one double-entry general ledger with a balance-enforcing rule, so your books can never go out of balance. You can view it all in Reports → General Ledger.
Next: The AI CFO →