Chapter 3

Planning and Setting Up Accounts

Your Chart of Accounts is the foundation of all financial reporting in Quasar. This chapter explains how to get a working chart of accounts in place quickly by using the default ledger that ships with Quasar, then customizing it to match your business.

The Recommended Approach: Start with the Default Ledger

Quasar ships with a default basic ledger that includes a complete set of account types and accounts suitable for the vast majority of businesses. After creating a new company, you import this ledger through Quasar Admin.

Open Quasar Admin.
Select the company you just created.
Click the Import button.
Select the default basic ledger file to import.
The account types and accounts are loaded into your company.

Important We strongly recommend importing the default basic ledger rather than building a chart of accounts from scratch. In 95% of cases, the default account type structure will work perfectly for your business. Starting from the default saves significant setup time and ensures your financial statements are correctly structured from day one.

After importing the default ledger, the setup work is straightforward:

Rename accounts to match your existing account names
Renumber accounts to match your existing numbering scheme
Add any accounts specific to your business that are not in the default

Tip Keep all the accounts from the basic ledger, even if you feel you will not use them right away. Quasar has included them for a reason — they support default postings, transfers, and other automated functions. An unused account costs nothing, but a missing one can block transactions later.

That’s it. There is no need to rebuild account types or restructure the chart — the defaults handle the Balance Sheet and Income Statement layout correctly.

Understanding Account Types

Account Types are the organizational backbone of your chart of accounts. Every account must belong to a type, and the type controls:

Where the account appears on the Balance Sheet or Income Statement
The normal debit/credit behaviour
The valid account number range
The hierarchical grouping on financial reports

Keep the Default Account Types Unless your business has a truly unusual structure, keep the default account types as they are. Modifying account types affects how the Balance Sheet and Income Statement are printed. If you change them incorrectly, your financial statements may not balance or may have missing sections.

Default Account Type Structure

The default ledger provides this type hierarchy:

Category	Parent Type	Child Types	Number Range
Asset	Current Assets	Bank, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, Prepaid Expenses	1000–1499
Fixed Assets	Equipment, Accum. Depreciation	1500–1999


Liability	Current Liabilities	Accounts Payable, Taxes Payable	2000–2499
	Long-Term Liabilities	—	2500–2999
Equity	Equity	—	3000–3999
Income Stmt	Revenue	—	4000–4999
Cost of Goods Sold	—	5000–5999
Operating Expenses	—	6000–6999
Other Income / Other Expenses	—	7000–8999

For field-by-field details, see Account Type Master.

Customizing Accounts

Once the default ledger is loaded, open the Chart of Accounts from the Ledger panel and begin customizing.

Renaming Accounts

Double-click any account to open the Account Master. Change the Name field to match your existing account names. For example, you might rename “Bank — Chequing” to “RBC Business Account”.

Renumbering Accounts

Change the Number field to match your existing numbering scheme. As long as the number falls within the account type’s valid range, it will be accepted. Also update the Print Sequence if you want a specific order on financial statements.

Adding Accounts

Click New in the Chart of Accounts to create additional accounts. Assign each new account to the appropriate type. Common additions include:

Additional bank accounts
Specific expense categories for your industry
Multiple revenue accounts (e.g., Sales — Products vs. Sales — Services)
Loan accounts under Long-Term Liabilities

A Note About Removing Accounts

While you can delete or deactivate accounts, we recommend keeping all the accounts that ship with the basic ledger. They are there to support Quasar’s automated posting functions (transfers, opening balances, service charges, etc.). If you are sure an account is not needed, you can mark it as Inactive rather than deleting it — inactive accounts are hidden from lookups but preserved if needed later.

Allow Manual Journal Entry

Each account has an Allow Manual Journal? checkbox (on the Account Master). This controls whether the account can be used directly in a manual journal entry. For most accounts, this should be checked. However, there are three types of accounts where manual journal entries should never be allowed:

Account	Why Manual Entries Are Dangerous
Accounts Receivable	The AR account is a control account — its balance must always equal the sum of all individual customer balances. Quasar automatically posts to AR when you create invoices, apply payments, and process returns. A manual journal entry would change the GL balance without updating any customer’s record, causing the AR sub-ledger to go out of balance with the General Ledger. You would not be able to find where the discrepancy came from.
Accounts Payable	The AP account is also a control account. Its balance must equal the sum of all individual vendor balances. Quasar posts to AP through vendor invoices, payments, and claims. A manual journal entry would change the GL balance without updating the vendor’s record, causing the AP sub-ledger to disagree with the General Ledger.
Inventory	The Inventory account is tied to item-level cost tracking. Quasar posts to Inventory through receiving, invoicing, adjustments, and transfers — each of which updates both the GL and the per-item cost records. A manual journal entry would change the GL balance without adjusting any item’s on-hand cost, making your inventory valuation reports inaccurate and your cost of goods sold unreliable.

Never enable manual journal entries on control accounts The default basic ledger ships with Allow Manual Journal unchecked on AR, AP, and Inventory accounts. Do not change this setting. If you need to correct a balance in one of these accounts, use the proper transaction type (customer payment, vendor invoice, inventory adjustment, etc.) so that both the GL and the sub-ledger stay in sync.

Setting Up Store Default Accounts

After your chart of accounts is in place, the next critical step is configuring the Store Master default accounts. These tell Quasar which accounts to use automatically when posting transactions.

Go to Setup → System → Stores, open your store, and switch to the Accounts tab.

See the full reference at Store Master.

Default Account	Purpose
Retained Earnings	Equity account for year-end profit/loss transfer
Historical Balance	Offset account for opening balance entries
Default Bank	Bank account used for cheques and payments
Default Receivables	AR account auto-assigned to new customers
Default Payables	AP account auto-assigned to new vendors
Customer Terms Discount	Expense account for early-pay discounts to customers
Vendor Terms Discount	Income account for early-pay discounts from vendors
Physical Inventory	Expense account for count adjustments
Service Charges	Income account for late-payment charges
Transfer Acct	Accrual account for inter-store stock transfers
Charge Account	Default account for purchasing charges/freight

Important If these default accounts are not set, Quasar cannot automatically post transactions. You must configure at minimum: Retained Earnings, Historical Balance, Default Bank, Default Receivables, Default Payables, Transfer Acct, and Ledger Transfers before entering transactions. Historical Balance is required for posting opening balances when migrating from another system.

Why Transfer Accrual Accounts Are Essential

All transfer operations in Quasar — tender transfers, stock transfers, and ledger transfers — work through accrual accounts. The accrual account acts as a clearing house between the source and destination:

Cash (or stock) moves out of Station 1 and into the Transfer Acct (accrual)
Cash (or stock) moves out of the Transfer Acct and into Station 6 (which may be on a different store)

Without these accrual accounts configured, tender transfers, stock transfers, and inter-store ledger transfers cannot be posted.

Opening Balances

If you are migrating from another accounting system, you will need to enter opening balances for your accounts. Go to Setup → System → Open Balances to enter asset, liability, and equity balances as of your start date.

The Historical Balance account (set in the Store Master) acts as the offsetting account for all opening balance entries. When all balances have been entered correctly, the Historical Balance account should be zero.

Account Setup Checklist

Create a new company and import the default basic ledger
Review the Chart of Accounts — rename and renumber to match your existing accounts
Add any additional accounts your business requires
Delete or deactivate accounts you will not use
Open the Store Master and set all default accounts on the Accounts tab
Enter opening balances if migrating from another system
Run a Trial Balance report to verify everything balances

What’s Next? With your accounts in place, you can begin entering data:

Chapter 3b — Set up Account Classes for profitability tracking by category
Chapter 4 — Plan and create your inventory items
Chapter 5 — Configure additional stores if needed
Chapter 6 — Set up customers, vendors, employees, and security