Ledger posting — where sales and purchases land in your books

A sale or purchase carries a value before tax, its GST, and sometimes extra charges. Ledger posting decides which of your ledger accounts each part lands in — and so what your Trial Balance, Balance Sheet and Account Ledger show. Set it up under Administration → Setup → Ledger Posting.

What ledger posting decides

The switch Post sales & purchases into my real ledger accounts turns it on or off when you press Save — and the Provision buttons described below switch it too. With it off, each sale and purchase appears in your reports as one total, tax included, under a built-in Sales or Purchases heading instead of being split across your own accounts. With it on, each part goes to the account chosen on its row:

• Sales, Purchase and Other Charges come first. All three must have an account before the switch can be turned on and saved (the two Provision buttons do not check this — see below).
• Freight, packing and other charges post to the account connected to that charge in Masters → Bill Sundry, in its Ledger connection box. A charge with no connection falls into Other Charges — see Bill sundries.
• Some accounts can't be chosen. A party, bank, cash or stock account is refused for every row. An unusual choice — say a sales row pointed at an account that is not an income account — is allowed, and saved with a note so it stays visible.
• Saving never edits a document. It changes which account your reports show the amounts under, and sales and purchases already in your books move to the new accounts in your reports shortly after you save. While posting is on, a return or a credit or debit note takes its tax accounts from here when it is saved, so a change applies to the ones saved after it.
• Who can change it. Master and admin users, by default.

Combined or separate ledgers

GST head layout sets how each GST head appears in your reports. Both ways are correct — pick what your books use. The page shows your Current layout: Combined, Separate, or Custom when the heads are mixed.

• Use combined points each head's output and input rows at one account — a ledger named exactly CGST, SGST, IGST or Cess if you have one, otherwise the account the head already uses. It only changes the rows on screen: check them, then press Save.
• Provision combined chart and Provision separate heads take effect as soon as you press them — there is no Save step. They fill the rows that are still empty, finding the standard account for each or creating it, keep every account you have already chosen, and then switch posting on — without the check of your books described under Ledgers that are not mapped.
• Once Sales, Purchase and Other Charges each have an account chosen, they fill nothing — even if one of those accounts has since been deleted. They leave every row as it is, an empty GST row included, and only switch posting on. If the Sales or the Purchase account has since been deleted, every sale or every purchase then shows as one total, tax included; a sale or purchase that uses a GST head with no account shows that way too. So map every GST head your documents use, and press Save, before you press either button: pressing one reloads the rows as they were last saved, and changes you have not saved are lost.
• Under the composition scheme, where input GST is a cost rather than a credit, they fill nothing — and if posting was on, they switch it off.
• With Combined, a head that nets to tax payable shows under liabilities in the Balance Sheet, and one that nets to a credit — more input than output — shows under assets. Its Account Ledger still lists the sale-side and purchase-side entries separately.

Reverse charge

Under reverse charge you pay the GST on a purchase instead of your supplier, and claim it back as input credit. One entry records both the tax you owe and the credit you can claim, so the (RCM) rows keep separate accounts for input and output.

Ledgers that are not mapped

A row with no account shows Not mapped. What that means depends on the row:

• Sales, Purchase or Other Charges. The switch cannot turn posting on until all three have an account (the Provision buttons do not check this).
• A GST row. A sale or purchase that uses a GST head with no account is shown the old way — as one total, tax included, under the built-in Sales or Purchases heading. Map every head, including the ones you rarely use, such as IGST and Cess.
• Switching on checks your books. When you turn the switch on and press Save — or, while posting is on, take the account off a GST row — the page checks the sales and purchases already in your books, and refuses if any of them uses a head that would be left without an account, naming the heads to map first. On a large set of books the check can take a little while. The Provision buttons do not make this check.
• An account that has been deleted counts as not mapped. Choose another one for that row.

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