Sales and Finance: how it works and how to set it up

What Sales and Finance does#

Sales and Finance is where your company sells, buys, gets paid, pays and keeps its books. You do the everyday jobs: send an invoice, record a payment, pay a bill. Hubtoll writes the accounting for you in the background.

You almost never write in the books yourself. When you issue an invoice or record a payment, Hubtoll adds the matching entries on its own. The reports (like Profit & Loss) are then worked out from those entries. Nobody types a report number in.

Double-entry books, with a shop example#

Hubtoll uses double-entry accounting. That sounds hard, but the idea is small: every time money moves, two things change, and they change by the same amount.

In accounting words, one side of the entry is called a debit and the other a credit. You do not need to learn which is which to use Hubtoll. You only need to know the rule that keeps everything honest: total debits always equal total credits. The Trial Balance page checks this for you. If it ever says the books do not balance, something is wrong and Hubtoll tells you.

Two more rules protect you:

• Posted entries are never edited. If something was wrong, you reverse it (cancel it with an opposite entry) and post the right one. The history stays clean.
• Every entry has a date, and the date must fall in an open period. You will set that up below.

The finance menus#

Finance has its own part of the left menu. Open the grid icon at the top right of the screen and pick Sales and Finance if you do not see it. The left menu shows the product you are in, so you may need to switch.

Inside Sales & Receivables, Payables & Bills and Products & Services, each document type is its own small menu that opens with a click. Open Quotes, for example, and you see:

• Overview: where every quote is in its life, as a row of cards.
• Quotes: the list itself.
• Forge Workflow: the approval steps for quotes, if your company wants any.

Every section also has an Overview page at the top. It draws the lifecycle of that part as a row of cards. Each card shows how many documents are at that step and links to them. If you ever wonder "where is my invoice?", start on the Overview.

Below the cards, Needs Your Attention lists things that are sitting still and probably should not be. Examples are overdue invoices, invoices waiting for approval and payments not yet applied to an invoice. When nothing needs you, it says Nothing Needs Your Attention.

Every Overview also shows a chip that reads Books kept in followed by your base currency, for example NGN. That is the currency your books are written in. More on that in a moment.

Learn more about each part:

• Selling: Sell: customers, quotes, invoices and payments
• Buying: Buy: vendors, orders, bills and payments
• Stock: Stock and inventory
• Banks: Banking: accounts, transfers and reconciliation
• Reports: Reports and closing the year

What Hubtoll sets up for you#

The first time anyone opens Finance, Hubtoll prepares a starting setup. You do not have to build it from nothing.

• A standard chart of accounts (the list of buckets money is sorted into).
• A base currency, taken from your company's country. If it cannot tell, it uses NGN.
• A fiscal year of twelve monthly periods, all open, starting in January.
• A tax profile for your country (for example VAT at 7.5% for Nigeria) and two withholding tax rates, 5% and 10%.
• A default stock location.

Your job is to check these and fill the gaps. That is the setup checklist.

The setup checklist#

Open Sales and Finance›Finance Settings. The Overview page of this section is a checklist titled Finance Settings. It shows a ring and a line like "3 of 5 essentials done". Each card has a button to take you to the right page.

The five essentials are:

1. Your base currency
2. Chart of accounts
3. Financial year & periods
4. Tax rates & groups
5. Bank accounts

Under Set These Up When You Need Them you will find the optional ones: Settlement account, Opening balances, Exchange rates, Customers, Vendors, Products & services and Procurement connection.

When the essentials are done, the page says You are set up and ready to trade. If the page cannot load, you see "Your finance setup could not be loaded. Check your permissions and try again." Click Try again.

Do the steps below in this order.

Step 1: Choose your base currency#

1. Open Finance Settings›Currency & Fiscal Year.
2. Read the line at the top: "Your books are kept in ..." followed by a currency code. This is what Hubtoll chose from your company's country.
3. If it is wrong, open Functional currency and pick the right one.
4. Click Save settings.

When it locks. The field turns off with the message "Locked: journals have posted in this currency (corrections would restate history)." Hubtoll also refuses a change before the first entry if your books already hold things priced in the old currency: exchange rates, price lists, items, customers, vendors or bank accounts. The message names what to remove first. Creating a bank account with an opening balance, or saving opening balances, posts entries too. So set the currency before those.

What about the fiscal year start? The same page has Fiscal year starts in. Hubtoll creates your fiscal year the first time anyone opens Finance, starting in January. After that the field is locked with the message "Locked: a fiscal calendar already exists for this corporate." So in practice you will usually see it locked. If your company needs a different start month, ask support before you start using Finance.

Read the full story of currencies in Currencies and exchange rates.

Step 2: Check your fiscal periods#

A fiscal year is the twelve months your company reports on. A period is one month of it. Nothing can be posted on a date that no open period covers. This is the most common reason a document refuses to post.

1. Open Finance Settings›Fiscal Periods.
2. Look at the table: Fiscal year, #, From, To and State. Check that a period is Open for today's date.
3. To close a finished month, click Close (one step) on its row and confirm Close period?.
4. To open a closed month again, click Reopen on its row and confirm Reopen period?. Only an accountant can do this.

A period moves Open, then Soft closed, then Locked. In plain words:

If you try to post into a closed month you see messages such as "The fiscal period ... is locked. Post a correction into an open period instead." or "The fiscal period is soft-closed; only an accountant can post into it." The fix is to change the document's date to a date in an open period, or ask an accountant to reopen the month.

Closing a whole year (and rolling profit into Retained Earnings) is on the Fiscal Years page. See Reports and closing the year.

Step 3: Review your chart of accounts#

The chart of accounts is your list of buckets. Examples: Cash on Hand, Accounts Receivable, Sales, Rent. Every entry lands in two of them.

Hubtoll gives you a standard chart. Look through it, then add or rename accounts to suit your business.

1. Open General Ledger›Chart of Accounts.
2. Click Add account to make one.
3. Fill in Code, Name and Account type. The types are Asset, Liability, Equity, Income and Expense.
4. Optionally pick a Parent account to group it under another one, and add a Description.
5. Click save.

Some accounts are system accounts. Hubtoll posts into them automatically, for example Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Output VAT and Retained Earnings. You can change only their name and description. You cannot delete them. You can Deactivate any other account, but only when its balance is zero.

Add many accounts from Excel. If you have a long chart, fill in a template instead of typing one by one.

1. On the Chart of Accounts page, click Download template. You get a file called chart-of-accounts-template.xlsx.
2. Open it. It has three sheets. How to fill this in explains the columns. Accounts has 120 blank rows for you. Existing accounts lists the codes you already have, so you can name a parent.
3. Fill the Accounts sheet: Account code, Account name, Account type, and optionally Parent account code and Description. Do not move or rename the columns.
4. Save it as an .xlsx file. It must be under 5 MB.
5. Click Upload filled template and pick your file.
6. Hubtoll checks the file in your browser first. If it is clean you see "Checked: N accounts to create, M already in your chart (skipped)." Click Create N accounts.

Good to know:

• A code you already have is skipped, not treated as an error.
• A child may be listed above its parent in the file. Hubtoll sorts it out.
• A bad file is not sent. You see "Nothing has been created. Fix the problems below in the file, save it as .xlsx and choose it again."
• Rows are refused for a repeated code, a parent that is neither in your chart nor in the file, an account that is its own parent, or an unknown type.

Step 4: Check your taxes#

Open Finance Settings›Taxes and confirm the rates are right for your company. Hubtoll seeds a profile for your country, but laws change and you may be in a different situation. Check with your accountant.

The full explanation, with examples, is in VAT and withholding tax.

Step 5: Add your bank accounts#

A payment has to say which account the money landed in. So you need at least one bank (or cash) account.

1. Open General Ledger›Bank Accounts and click New bank account.
2. Fill in Bank name. Optionally add Account name, Account number, NUBAN, Currency, and an Opening balance with an As of date.
3. Save.

Hubtoll creates a matching ledger account behind the scenes, so your bank statement and your books can agree. Transfers and checking against the bank's statement are in Banking: accounts, transfers and reconciliation.

Step 6: Bring in your starting balances#

If you used another system or a spreadsheet before Hubtoll, you already have money in the bank and amounts owed. Opening balances carry these over so your books start true.

1. Open General Ledger›Opening Balances.
2. Pick the Opening balance date. This is the day you start using Hubtoll for these numbers.
3. Add a line for each account: pick the Account and fill Debit or Credit. Click Add account for more lines.
4. Click Save opening balances. Only an accountant can do this.

Each line must have either a debit or a credit, not both. If you save again later, Hubtoll asks Replace opening balances? It reverses the old entry and posts a new one. This cannot be undone, so click Replace only when you mean it.

Step 7: Add a settlement account (to get paid straight into your bank)#

When a customer pays an invoice online through its pay link, Hubtoll can send that money to your bank automatically. This is called instant settlement. It needs a settlement account: the bank account that receives the payouts.

1. Open Finance Settings›Settlement Account.
2. Click Add settlement account.
3. Pick the Country, the Bank, and type the Account number. Hubtoll looks up the account holder name. If it cannot, type the Account holder name yourself.
4. Save, then click Activate on the account card.

Supported countries are Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. Accounts are never edited or deleted. You add a new one and activate it.

Nigerian accounts need a BVN check first. Anti money laundering rules say a payout may only go to an account owned by the person whose BVN you give.

1. On the Settlement Account page, find the card Identity Check (BVN) and click Verify BVN.
2. In Verify Your BVN, fill in the Bank Verification Number (BVN) (11 digits), the full name as registered, the bank and the account number.
3. Wait for the answer. If it says in progress, click Check now later.
4. When it is verified, click Activate on your settlement account.

Hubtoll then compares the bank's own name for the account with the name on the BVN. They must match at least 60%. If not, you see "This account can't be activated: its holder name matches the name on your verified BVN at only X% (at least 60%)...". If you try before verifying you see "Verify your BVN first. Settlement payouts can only go to an account owned by the verified BVN holder."

Your payouts are listed on the same page: Invoice, Collected, Platform charge, Paid to you, Status and When. A payout is Paid out, In transit, Awaiting account (no active account yet), Not enabled, Reversed or Failed. The platform charge is Hubtoll's fee for collecting the payment. The amount is set by Hubtoll and can differ by currency, so look at the Platform charge column to see what each payout cost. How it works for your customer is in Sell: customers, quotes, invoices and payments.

Step 8: Decide on the Procurement connection#

If your company also uses the Procurement product, you can link it to Finance. It is off by default.

1. Open Finance Settings›Currency & Fiscal Year and find the Procurement connection card.
2. Switch on Connect Procurement to Sales & Finance.
3. Click Save connection.

Only a finance accountant or settings admin can change this. If you do not use Procurement, leave it off. See Procurement.

Step 9: Give people the right access#

People need two things to use Finance: a Sales and Finance seat and a role that allows what they do. A seat is a paid or free place for one person in a product. See Seats, plans and subscriptions. A lapsed seat makes Finance read-only for that person.

The finance permissions are:

Each document type also has its own four permissions, the same way the HR modules do. Use them when a person should work on one thing only, for example quotes and nothing else:

The same four exist for invoices, sales orders, payments received, credit notes, delivery notes, customers, products & services, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, bills, payments made, vendor credits, vendors, goods receipts and stock adjustments. A person who can work on quotes can still pick a customer or an item on a quote. They cannot open bills, the ledger or settings. The broader Finance Management permissions above still cover every document type.

Approving is different. If a document is sent for approval, whoever the workflow names can approve it. They need no extra permission. See Approvals and workflows. To build roles, read Roles: give people the right access. The full list is in Permission reference.

Check that you are ready#

Go back to Finance Settings›Overview. When the five essentials are ticked, you are ready. A good first test:

1. Add a customer and an item. See Sell: customers, quotes, invoices and payments.
2. Create an invoice and click Issue.
3. Open General Ledger›Journal Entries and find the new entry.
4. Open General Ledger›Trial Balance.

Things that go wrong#

• "Nothing can post": a document will not issue. Check Fiscal Periods. Is a period open for the document's date?
• You cannot change the currency. Entries or priced items already exist. Read the message, which names what to clear.
• A foreign-currency document says there is no rate. Add one under Exchange Rates. See Currencies and exchange rates.
• A menu is missing. You may be in another product (use the grid icon at the top right), or you may lack the permission.
• You can read but not change anything. Your Sales and Finance seat may have lapsed. Ask your administrator.

Common questions#

Do I need to understand debits and credits?expand_more

No. Hubtoll posts the entries for you from invoices, payments and bills. You only meet debits and credits if you post a manual journal or read the Journal Entries page. The rule to remember is that total debits equal total credits.

Can I fix a mistake in a posted entry?expand_more

Not by editing. You void or reverse it, which adds an opposite entry, and then post the correct one. This keeps a trustworthy history. See Reports and closing the year.

Can I use Finance without Procurement, CRM or HR?expand_more

Yes. Finance works on its own. Connecting Procurement is optional and off by default.

Why does my base currency say NGN when I wanted dollars?expand_more

Hubtoll picks the currency of your company's country at first. Change it under Currency & Fiscal Year before anything is posted or priced. After that it is locked.

Who can see my finance data?expand_more

Only people with a Sales and Finance seat and a finance permission. Someone with the Sales Agent permission sees only their own sales.