Plan de Cuentas

You view active charts of accounts using the menu Accounting ‣ Charts ‣ Chart of Accounts, and Open Charts for the selected year and account moves.

Note

Hierarchical Charts

Most accounting software packages represent their charts of accounts in the form of a list. You can do this in OpenERP as well if you want to, but its tree view offers several advantages:

• it lets you show and calculate only the accounts that interest you,
• it enables you to get a global view of accounts (when you show only summary accounts),
• it simplifies searches semantically,
• it is more intuitive, because you can search for accounts on the basis of their classification,
• it is flexible because you can easily restructure them.

La estructura del plan de cuentas es jerárquico, con subtotales en las cuentas denominadas tipo vista. Puede desarrollar un conjunto de cuentas tipo vista para contener sólo aquellos elementos que le interesan.

Para obtener el detalle de los asientos contables que son importantes para usted, todo lo que tiene que hacer es clic en el código de la cuenta (si no tiene códigos, puede seleccionar la línea, a continuación, haga clic en Cambiar para obtener la definición de la cuenta, luego, haga clic en Asientos en la sección de Enlaces de la barra de herramientas).

Displaying the chart of accounts can take several seconds, because OpenERP calculates the debits, credits and balance for each account in real time.

Using a Preconfigured Chart of Accounts

On installation, the software is given a default chart of accounts that is the same regardless of your country. To install the chart of accounts and tax definitions for your own country, install the module l10n_XX where XX represents your country code in two letters. For example, to get the chart of accounts for France, install the module l10n_fr.

Algunos de estos módulos preconstruidos son completos y exactos, otros se encuentran en estado más bien provisional y son simplemente indicadores de las posibilidades. Puede modificarlos, o crear sus propias cuentas en el catálogo por defecto, o reemplazarlo por completo con un catálogo personalizado.

Creating a Chart of Accounts

To add, modify or delete existing accounts, use the menu Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Financial Accounting ‣ Accounts ‣ Accounts.

Definition of an account

Tip

Multi-lingual Fields

In OpenERP, multi-lingual fields are marked by a small flag to their right. Click on the flag to get a translation of the value of the field in the different installed languages. You can also edit the translation.

This enables you to efficiently manage other languages as you need them. The field’s value appears in the language of the logged-in user or, in the case of reports printed for a partner, that of the partner.

Los campos principales de la cuenta son:

• Name : gives the account a name.
• Account Type : account types determine an account’s use in each journal. By default, the following types are available: View, Receivable, Payable, Income, Expense, Tax, Cash, Asset, Equity. You can add new types through the menu Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Financial Accounting ‣ Accounts ‣ Account Types. Use the View type for accounts that make up the structure of the charts and have no account data inputs of their own.
• Internal Type : internal types have special effects in OpenERP. By default, the following types are available: View, Regular, Receivable, Payable, Liquidity, Consolidation, Closed.

Note

Type of Account

Account types are mainly used as informative titles. The only two types that have any particular effect are Receivable and Payable.

These two types are used by reports on partner credits and debits. They are calculated from the list of unreconciled entries in the accounts of one of these two types.

• Code : the code length is not limited to a specific number of digits. Use code 0 for all root accounts.
• Secondary Currency : forces all the moves for this account to have this secondary currency.
• Reconcile : determines if you can reconcile the entries in this account. Activate this field for partner accounts and for chequeing (checking) accounts.
• Parent : determines which account is the parent of this one, to create the tree structure of the chart of accounts.
• Default Taxes : this is the default tax applied to purchases or sales using this account. It enables the system to generate tax entries automatically when entering data in a journal manually.

La estructura de árbol de las cuentas se puede modificar tantas veces como desee sin volver a calcular los asientos individuales. Entonces puede reestructurar facilmente sus cuentas durante el año para reflejar mejor la realidad de la compañía.

Virtual Charts of Accounts

The structure of a chart of accounts is imposed by the legislation in effect in the country of concern. Unfortunately, that structure does not always correspond to the view that a company’s CEO needs.

In OpenERP, you can use the concept of virtual charts of accounts to manage several different representations of the same accounts simultaneously. These representations can be shown in real time with no additional data entry.

So your general chart of accounts can be the one imposed by the statutes of your country, and your CEO can then have other virtual charts as necessary, based on the accounts in the general chart. For example, the CEO can create a view per department, a cash-flow and liquidity view, or consolidated accounts for different companies.

The most interesting thing about virtual charts of accounts is that they can be used in the same way as the default chart of accounts for the whole organization. For example, you can establish budgets from your consolidated accounts or from the accounts from one of your companies.

Tip

Virtual Accounts

Virtual accounts enable you to provide different representations of one or several existing charts of accounts. Creating and restructuring virtual accounts has no impact on the accounting entries. You can then use the virtual charts with no risk of altering the general chart of accounts or future accounting entries.

Because they are used only to get different representation of the same entries, they are very useful for:

• consolidating several companies in real time,
• depreciation calculations,
• cash-flow views,
• getting more useful views than those imposed by statute,
• presenting summary charts to other users that are appropriate to their general system rights.

So there are good reasons for viewing the execution of financial transactions through virtual charts, such as budgets and financial indicators based on special views of the company.

To create a new chart of accounts you should create a root account using the menu Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Financial Accounting ‣ Accounts ‣ Accounts. Your top level account should have Code 0 and Type View . Then you can choose your structure by creating other accounts of Type View as necessary. Check your virtual structure using the menu Financial Management ‣ Charts ‣ Charts of Accounts.

You have to set Internal Type as Consolidation and set Consolidated Children accounts to make accounts consolidate.

Finally, when you have got your structure, you must make the general accounts and virtual accounts match. For that, search the general accounts and ensure that each non-View account there also has a virtual account in the field Parent.

Puede consultar a través de su plan general de cuentas y también desde sus planes de cuentas virtuales que le dan otra representación de la empresa. Todas las acciones y estados de su plan general de cuentas también estarán disponibles en las cuentas virtuales.

Finally, you can also make virtual charts of accounts from other virtual charts. That can give an additional dimension for financial analysis.