Control Accounts

Understanding Control Accounts

Businesses routinely monitor balances across numerous accounts, including:

• Bank accounts
• Customers (Accounts receivable)
• Suppliers (Accounts payable)
• Employees
• Capital accounts
• Fixed assets
• Intangible assets
• Investments

Each account carries a balance indicating how much you own, owe, or are owed. These balances are typically combined into groups in financial reports to simplify presentation—particularly on your Balance Sheet report. For instance:

• Balances for all customers are combined under the Accounts receivable account.
• Balances of all your bank and cash accounts appear collectively under the Cash & cash equivalents account.

This approach helps keep financial statements concise and easy to understand, especially since many businesses may have hundreds or even thousands of accounts.

Customizing Control Accounts

Accounter allows you to create custom control accounts, providing more personalized organization of your accounts on financial statements. Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Control Accounts section under the Settings tab.
2. • "Machinery, at cost"
   • "Vehicles, at cost"
   • "Furniture, at cost"
   • "Buildings, at cost"
   • "Land, at cost"
3. After creating your control accounts, go to the relevant tab (e.g., the Fixed Assets tab).
4. Edit individual entries (such as individual fixed assets), and select the appropriate custom control account from the newly available Control account field.

Similarly, if you prefer showing your bank accounts separately in the Balance Sheet, you can create dedicated control accounts for each bank account and assign those bank accounts accordingly.

In this way, Accounter provides customized, detailed organization of your financial records, enabling greater control and a clearer, more informative presentation of financial data.