Automated account setup
What is a Chart of Accounts?
Imagine your company's money is a big pile of LEGO bricks — bills, loans, equipment, sales, and etc. The Chart of Accounts (COA) is like the instruction booklet that tells you which bin to drop each brick into so, at the end, you can build two pictures:
- Profit & Loss – "Did we make money or lose money this month?"
- Balance Sheet – "What do we own (cash, PCs, inventory), owe (loans, unpaid bills), and have left over (investment + profit kept in the biz) right now?"
The Chart of Accounts (COA) is a way to organize your company’s activities and data so they show up clearly in the financial statements.
- Without the COA, your finances could end up a total mess—like receipts piled up on a desk.
- With it, every dollar has a home, and your reports actually make sense.
Here’s the fun part about COA: every accountant has their own preferred way to sort the bins. For example:
- Accountant A likes tiny bins: "paper clips", "printer ink", "cloud storage".
- Accountant B prefers big bins: "All office stuff goes here."
Either way works. It depends on the accountant style, your industry, and what kind of reports you actually look at. The bottom line is, the COA is like your company's financial filing cabinet. Keep it simple enough to use every day, but smart enough to grow with your biz.
What is the problem?
Setting up a Course or Item usually requires basic accounting knowledge, which can feel overwhelming if you're not an accountant.
Here’s what’s involved:
- Create an Income account (where sales money goes).
- Create a COGS account (Cost of Goods Sold – what it costs you to deliver the course/item).
- Create a Discount account (to track price reductions, promotions).
Only after these three accounts are set up can you finish creating the Course or Item.
The problem?
It’s a long, manual, and time-consuming process — especially for non-accountants who just want to list a product or service and start selling.
What kind of knowledge do you need to complete the setup?
To set up a proper Chart of Accounts, users need accounting knowledge and hands-on experience — that’s why it can feel tricky if you are not an accountant.
The beauty of automation
With a sub-system that guides users through account creation, no accounting knowledge is required — significantly reducing the burden. It also speeds up setting up Courses and Items.
The pain of automation
Some organizations use a standardized Chart of Accounts. In this case, the auto-creation feature won’t be much help — it just doesn’t fit your setup.
Auto-creating accounts sounds helpful, but it can add lots of unnecessary accounts that make your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet feel cluttered and confusing — like a closet stuffed with random stuff.
Smart, behind-the-scenes magic — no accounting degree required!
In the Course setup section of our BitzButler CRM, we've hidden the accounting fields (see the desktop view as shown below). As a result, you can finish setup in minutes without the need to create an Income account, or COGS account. So you can focus on teaching or selling — not bookkeeping.
On the other hand, in the Accounting\Item setup, it is more flexible. You get two easy options to speed things up:
- "Auto-create accounts" – let the system instantly make the Income, COGS, and Discount accounts for you.
- Pick manually – choose an account for Income, COGS, and Discount fields
The auto-create account feature is also available in Asset Group setup.
- Want speed? Turn on auto-create — done!
- Prefer full control? You can maintain the Chart of Accounts manually — just create these four accounts for each Asset Group.
Want even more automation? Just drop us a message! 😊
We’ll see if your idea is a smart win for most users — if it is, we’ll automate it!
Summary
BitzButler helps you organize assets and calculate yearly depreciation efficiently.
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