Categories & accounts
How the category register and the chart of accounts organise your charity's money — what each is for, and where to manage them.
Every figure in Finance is filed against a category — the line of work the money is for, such as Zakat, Mosques or Wells & water. The category register is the organised list of those categories, and it is what makes your income and expenses add up into something you can report on. You'd come here to see how your register is laid out, add or rename a category, or understand why a category is locked or restricted. This page is the map of the section; each task below has its own short guide.
Who can do this. Seeing the register needs any finance role — Accountant, Finance Manager, CEO or Auditor (the organisation Owner and Admin can reach it too). Adding a category needs a role that grants create — typically the Accountant or Finance Manager — and changing one needs update; both then go through an approval step. Approving a category change, and seeing balance figures in the register, is reserved for the Finance Manager and CEO. If a control is missing for you, your role doesn't include it; see Members & roles.
Where to find it
Open Finance → Settings from the dashboard, then choose Categories in the left-hand menu. (The old Finance → Categories link takes you to the same place.)
How the register is organised
The register is a simple two-level tree, so it stays readable even with a hundred lines in it:
- Main categories are the broad headings — Endowments (waqf), Zakat & kaffarat,
General sadaqah, Mosques, and so on. Each has a two-digit code (
01,02,03…) and its own colour, which you'll see echoed on receipts and reports. - Sub-categories sit underneath a main category and are where money is actually filed.
Their code extends the parent's —
01.01,01.02,03.05— so you can always tell at a glance which heading a line belongs to.
Click a main category to expand it and see its sub-categories. Each sub-category line can carry a few markers worth recognising:
- Shariah class — a small label (Zakat, Waqf, Sadaqah, and so on) that tells WAQAF how the money must be treated. A sub-category inherits this from its main category, so everything under Zakat & kaffarat is treated as Zakat.
- Fee-exempt — a badge showing the administration fee is not taken from this category. Zakat is always exempt, because Zakat must be disbursed in full.
- Spending restricted — a small lock, meaning only certain roles may spend from this category. Hover it to see which.
- Draft — a new sub-category that is waiting for approval before it can be used.
Categories and the chart of accounts
Underneath the everyday register sits the chart of accounts — the small set of accounting ledgers (such as Cash/Bank, Donation Income and Program Expenses) and the funds (Zakat, Sadaqah, Waqf, General) that the bookkeeping actually posts to. You don't file day-to-day work against these directly; instead, each category is wired to the right fund and ledger account for you, based on its Shariah class. That wiring is why choosing the correct category is all you ever need to do — the accounting underneath follows automatically.
For everyday work you only ever touch categories. The chart of accounts is the accounting layer behind them, and it is set up once when finance is first enabled. See Ledger accounts for a calm tour of what it contains.
Changing the register is deliberate
The register is the backbone of every report, so it is not freely editable. Adding a sub-category, renaming one, or deactivating one all create a change request that a Finance Manager signs off and the CEO approves before it takes effect. A few rules flow from that, and they explain a lot of what you'll see:
- A new sub-category stays a draft until it is approved — you can't file money against it before then.
- A category that still holds money cannot simply be switched off. Its vault must be empty first, which usually means moving the balance elsewhere before deactivating.
- Nothing about a category is ever truly deleted; the safe way to retire one is to deactivate it, which keeps its history intact.
Categories sort real money into the right fund. Changing a category's Shariah class can move money between funds — including out of protected Waqf endowment principal — so these changes are guarded and need two people to approve them. When in doubt, add a new category rather than re-purpose an old one.
Explore this section
Managing categories
Add a new sub-category or main category, rename one, restrict who may spend from it, or deactivate one you no longer use.
The category approval workflow
How a category change moves from Finance Manager sign-off to CEO approval, and how to approve on the CEO's behalf.
Ledger accounts
A plain-language tour of the chart of accounts and funds that sit behind your categories.