Trying to configure tryton for UK accounts

Support User
35

Thanks @pokoli very helpful.

36

So I managed to install the uk accounts manually inside of a running docker image but I cannot get a docker image to build with the above additions.

I’ve tried various options and they all result in a continuously ‘building’ docker that never errors out or stops, which I have never seen before.

At what point could the changes be incorporated into a module that can be loaded normally into the system?

Can it be noted as a beta or whatever the usual process is in these instances…thanks in advance

37

Hi,

I think the Dockerfile from @pokoli might be trying to install the development version (5.1) of trytond as well as the account_uk module on the RUN pip3 ... line. It is probably just taking ages to try and do that.

Try this Dockerfile to see if this is any better:

FROM tryton/tryton
USER root

# Install the patch command
RUN apt-get update \
  && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
    patch \
  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Manually install the account_uk module
ARG MODULE_PATH=/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/trytond/modules
RUN mkdir $MODULE_PATH/account_uk \
  && cd $MODULE_PATH/account_uk \
  && curl https://codereview.tryton.org/download/issue51551002_40001.diff \
  | patch -p1

USER trytond
38

Thanks, that seems to be building now.

39

Hi,

I’m trying out tryton and will need to use a sole trader version of the uk accounts package. I installed trytond & the sales, purchase, product and stock modules which installed other dependent modules and sao. I have loaded these modules into the database but have not enabled or configured them yet. I now need to install a chart of accounts. This looks a good place though it doesn’t seem to be released as a module yet. How do I get the latest version and install it on my venv (using pipenv). I note that the company accounts are to be used as the basis for it therefore I anticipate I will need to make adjustments, primarily in the shares/capital section in order to make it suitable for sole traders.

I know this is an old thread however it still seems relevant given that the module isn’t yet released therefore apologies if this isn’t the right etiquette here.

Thanks

Eamonn

1 Like
40

Hi Eamonn,

Welcome.

Even though I’m still working on the account_uk module, you should hopefully find that it is okay to use.

The module can be found on the codereview site: https://codereview.tryton.org/287741002/

You can create the source package by downloading the latest raw patchset from the link above, and then use patch on it to create the module. You should then update the version in the tryton.cfg file to match the version of trytond that you are running. Once you have done this you can then create the package using python and the setup.py file. You should be able to do this by doing this:

$ curl https://codereview.tryton.org/download/issue287741002_327131002.diff | patch -f -p1
$ cd modules/account_uk
$ sed -i -e '/^version=/s/.*/version=5.6.0/' tryton.cfg
$ python3 setup.py sdist

You should then find the package in the dist directory.

I haven’t used pipenv before, but you might be able to install it by doing something like this?

$ pipenv install dist/trytond_account_uk-5.6.0.tar.gz

As the aim was to create a single UK chart of accounts, you should find that there are already accounts that cover your needs(?). However, once you have created the chart of accounts from the template you may want to deactivate some of the accounts in under the Capital and Reserves account that you do not need - specifically those with codes 32 to 35 (and their children). You may find the Account chart to choose? thread useful for this.

I know that sometimes resurrecting old threads is not the best thing to do, but as your post is on topic I think it is fine here.

If you have any problems getting it working let me know. Also I would be very interested to hear any comments you have about the account_uk module. I’m especially interested in feedback about the structure of the accounts and about any accounts that you think are incorrect, missing, or in the wrong place. Also any other information which can help improve it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2 Likes
41

Thanks @dave for the welcome and for your work on this. I haven’t had a chance to work my way through your response fully but I have managed to get the module installed though like the other modules haven’t activated it yet. I want to make sure there’s no order to how these are activated first.

In order to install with pipenv I did:

$ pipenv install -e <path to account_uk folder in the module>

I’ll get a more full look at this tomorrow.

Eamonn

2 Likes
42

Hi Dave,

I am a company accountant interested in Tryton.

With regard to UK taxonomies XBRL reporting taxonomies could be used as a starting point.

These are the standards that I believe will be used as there is further UK digital reporting integration.

Companies house will accept xbrl uploads but the information to upload is so varied, specialist filing software would only be appropriate for uploading information.

Nevertheless, it offers a reporting framework that could be partially adopted.

Here is the presentation framework link:

It is in accordance with the main accounting reporting standard FRS 102.

Section 031 demonstrates P&L entries.
Section 222 demonstrates Balance sheet entries.

Here describes the main reporting standards where FRS 102 is the general reporting standard.

Since FRS 102 uses IFRS for SMEs but with significant modifications, the chart format may already exist in Tryton for another country?

1 Like
43

Hi JEM,

Thanks! That is very useful information.

I know there has been a discussion on IFRS / NIIF Accounting, and from what you have said it seems like that will be a better starting point for the UK accounts rather than the information that I have been provided with previously.

I’ve found the P&L and Balance sheet information in the sections that you mentioned - thank you, but I can’t seem to find a standard chart of accounts structure anywhere - am I looking in the wrong places, or is this something that doesn’t exist?

44

Hi Dave,

FRS 102 section 4 and 5 specify the information required for presentation.

They also refer to the Companies Act for presentations but there are options (FRS 102 section 4.2 and 5.5 respectively).

The Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008

There are 2 possible balance sheet formats and 4 P&L formats!
I think balance sheet format 1 and P&L format 1 are the “traditional” formats.

Nevertheless, presentation format does not necessarily relate to the accounts an accountant needs. There is a tax dimension that slices through presentation requirements.
e.g. segregating non-allowable corporation tax allowable expenses.

45

Hi JEM,

The good news is that I did use the regulations that you linked to for the P&L and Balance sheets (although I’m not totally sure I’ve got it structured correctly in Tryton…).

For the taxes I referenced:

Although that just covers VAT…

I struggled to find a standard chart of accounts (the accounts that an accountant needs), but I’m pretty sure that is because for the UK there isn’t one. Although, it would be nice to have a structured set of nominal and real accounts, that most accountants would be familiar with, and that covered just the basic essential accounts.

I’m also not sure if there is anything else that is needed…

46

Hi Dave,

It is correct to have these separate, manual “payments on account” nominals in certain businesses and they are different from a payment not yet matched to an invoice (the common definition) which Ced referred to.

In project based businesses, invoicing usually occurs at milestones which do not always reflect the true financial revenue the business can recognise.

An easy example is at the beginning of a project where the payment milestone agreed is on commencement of work. Let’s say £25k is invoiced to the customer at that time (to satisfy HMRC regarding advanced payment tax points).

An accountant needs to recognise that although we have a debtor of £25k, we also have invoiced £25k which we have not yet earned and therefore should not recognise.

Therefore debtors are correct, sales are £25k too high and we need to recognise these separate payments which are “on account” of £25k.

A manual journal is needed to reduce sales by £25k (dr) and create a £25k payment on account (cr), which is usually performed by a reversing journal which resets the financial position at the beginning of the next period.

The opposite of “payments on account” (work performed but not invoiced) reside in accruals and deferred income balance sheet.

1 Like
47

Hi all,

Back again. Last time wasn’t the right time to look at anything as Coronavirus sent our sales through the roof.

I’ll start of by saying I think the chart of accounts is too prescriptive. I don’t advocate for using regulatory accounting formats for a chart of accounts. The basis for a sane chart of accounts should be driven by the needs of management accounting as they are the ones who need to provide monthly performance and other data for Management use. Financial Accounting whilst extremely important is secondary to good management accounting data. The chart of accounts can be adapted to accommodate easy extraction of data needed to create the Financial Accounts.

I think the approach being currently taken makes getting approved localisation too slow as the end result is something highly prescriptive and hard to attain when the point should be to help a business get up and running as quickly as possible. They will need to adapt the accounts anyway therefore being too prescriptive to the point of stagnation isn’t helping anyone, least of helping adoption of Tryton.

The focus should be less on a regulatory based chart of accounts and more on the chart of taxes as that is where there is really no room, as regards the recording of taxes, for creativity and where the tax rules apply to all in a standard way.

I know this view is unpopular therefore explain why regulatory accounts are so important to the day to day operation of a business? Financial accounts are historic data. Management accounts are about the here and now. The business lives and dies on its ability to take sane decisions and that relies on up to date, accurate and easily accessible information which comes from the accounting data in the system. There are no Financial Accounting reporting needs if the business has gone bust. The point being to serve the needs of management accounting first and, as mentioned above, add whatever is needed to allow Financial accounts to be created more easily not the other way round.

Show me what accounting software out there has the overblown regulatory chart of accounts that is proposed here and that’s not in anyway given any disservice to the work Dave has put in as this is the approach that is clearly favoured in Tryton therefore it’s a product of that philosophy? I can’t think of one. Sage / Xero / Quickbooks, the more general purpose accounting packages don’t. They give a basic template whose purpose is to serve as ready to use for micro businesses who have no internal Management Accountant and instead have an external Financial Accountant who will do all the work to provide them with compliant accounts and tell them their tax liabilities. Those businesses which have Management Accounts will draw up their own charts of accounts. All they want to know is how to adapt it correctly to their needs.

Any ERP I’ve seen have the bare bones of a chart of accounts, if they have anything at all, even less than what Sage, etc have. They only want to get a sense of what the chart looks like and then expect you to go away and draw up what is needed for your business. I think that is entirely reasonable.

What makes adoption harder? Having a regulatory based chart of accounts that takes years to make into Tryton or having a chart of accounts which is much more compact, and no I’m not suggesting the minimal chart of accounts which is too compact, and available for a much wider range of countries because it is not so intimidating to produce a localisation package which is available now?

You can’t be all things to everyone and I fear on this issue it has bogged things down to the extent that a chart of accounts will probably never make it into mainstream.

1 Like
48

Which is the real problem? That it takes years to make it into Tryton or Having a regulatory chart of accounts which is harder to use?

49

Harder to use is misnomer. If you accept that any chart of accounts will ultimately need adapted then all will require work. Seeming to have no support would seem the least welcoming of all scenarios. No point aiming for perfection that never makes into mainstream and having something that at least points people in the right direction to set up all the accounts they need or want to meet the specific needs will ultimately be the most helpful in my view. Their business needs is the important bit here. Its specific therefore a general chart of accounts which is overly complicated by regulatory considerations when it will need heavily adapted by all but the most complicated businesses seems a ridiculous waste of time and resource.

The main problem here is that Financial Accounting and Management Accounting are not the same things. They do not serve the same purpose. Any Management Accounts will need adjusted to make them legally compliant. Any Financial Accounts will need to be adapted to make them useful for the business. Management Accounts are intended to give an up to date view of the business therefore any adaptation that is required will be required to be done mostly likely monthly if the CoA is based on Financial Accounting standards whereas by and large Financial Accounting is only required once per year. It makes sense therefore to base the CoA around what is most useful for management accounting.

50

Hi @mps,

Thanks for the feedback and your comments. Constructive criticism is always very welcome!

Yes, financial and management accounting is different, and I’m sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I think the standard and localised account modules are mostly intended to support financial accounting, and the analytic account modules are there for the management accounting side of things.

Having said that do you have a suggestion of what a very basic UK chart of accounts would look like in your opinion, and what the balance sheet and income statement that goes with it would contain?

51

Hi @dave,

The main chart of accounts exists to support the business. It should not be seen as a Financial Accounting chart of accounts because ultimately that would not be useful for the business. I say that because are you going to exclude depreciation, etc from the Chart of Accounts because that’s not an allowable expense? It has its own bespoke equivalent in the Tax universe of Capital Allowances. What the business does for depreciation may well vary wildly from what HMRC requires you do if you are using Capital Allowances. How are you going to handle both depreciation and writing down allowances? They are serving the same purpose. The answer is the Financial Accountant deals with it when they get the Accounts and makes all the appropriate adjustments using their own software.

I could almost guarantee that any Financial Accountant will need to do a whole series of adjustments to the accounts that are presented to them even using the “Financial Accounting” chart of accounts. If that is the case then this notion that a Financial Accounting chart of accounts exists an then analytic accounts will solve all the problems just isn’t based in reality as the Financial Accounts will still need adjustment.

Analytic accounts is more about refining the chart of accounts to allow access to more information related to specific areas of the business. It doesn’t seek to replace the existing chart of accounts or at least I don’t think it should.

I preferred your last chart of accounts to be perfectly honest, whilst it wasn’t overly fussy it did have some things that didn’t seem right. From memory was there were Long Term assets. Those are Fixed (Non Current Assets) or Intangible Assets so whilst you can have Long Term Liabilities Section you won’t have a section called Long Term assets. Depreciation was used instead of Amortisation for those Intangibles but overall it was a fairly simple structure that had plenty of general accounts that at least gave a hint to anyone coming about how they might it adjust it for their needs.

I think it would helpful to say the reason why you probably had Accountants wave their hands over it and say that it looks about right is because ultimately it isn’t that important as it is considered a starting point not an end point and so long as it gives direction for adaptation and ever thing ends up in the financial statements in the correct place with the correct values then it is good enough.

1 Like
52

We can not accept in standard a chart of account that is made by one person. Because we (the maintainer) can not valid the correctness of such chart nor do the maintenance (once the contributor is no more there). This is why we only accept a chart of account that is the incarnation of a published standard (and preferably published by the state).

1 Like
53

@ced Using legislation does not guarantee the chart of accounts is valid. It merely says you have words right on a page. You should understand the difference between Management Accounting and Financial Accounting. The business requires Management Accounts therefore building a Chart of Accounts around Financial Accounting is not in the businesses interest. You seem to be of the opinion that following a standard makes your software correct. It doesn’t guarantee that at all and just makes the chart of accounts less useful for the business who needs something that meets the businesses needs and not regulatory needs. That’s the job the Financial Accountant.

A basic set of accounts is not that difficult. There are many out there published by other accounting software that will show that they all have a similar look and feel. That should be basis enough to say the chart of accounts is based on solid ground.

Here’s a relevant article on the subject:

Anyway I’ll leave it there as I know there are closed minds on this issue.

54

As you seem to know exactly what to do. Could you publish your chart of accounts somewhere so we can see what you mean?