Ledger accounts (chart of accounts)
A plain-language tour of the chart of accounts and funds behind your categories, and how to view and set up the bank, cash and gateway accounts your money actually sits in.
Underneath the everyday category register sits the accounting layer that makes your books balance — the chart of accounts. It is made of two parts: the funds that keep different kinds of money apart (Zakat, Waqf, Sadaqah, General), and the ledger accounts the bookkeeping posts to behind the scenes. You never file day-to-day work against these directly; each category is already wired to the right fund and ledger for you. This page explains what that layer contains so the numbers make sense, and then shows you the one part you do set up and look after by hand: the bank, cash and gateway accounts your money physically sits in.
Who can do this. Viewing your accounts and their balance breakdown needs any finance role — Accountant, Finance Manager, CEO or Auditor (the organisation Owner and Admin can reach it too). Adding, editing, reconciling or deactivating an account needs a finance role that grants update — typically the Accountant or Finance Manager. Seeing the actual balance figures is a further, separate permission: by default only the Finance Manager and CEO see them, and an Accountant will see the accounts but with the amounts hidden. If a control or a figure is missing for you, your role doesn't include it; see Members & roles.
Where to find it
There are two places, for the two things you do here:
- To read your accounts and their balances: open Finance → Balance and choose the Accounts tab. (The old Finance → Accounts link takes you to the same place.)
- To set up or change an account: open Finance → Settings and choose Bank accounts in the left-hand menu. (The old Finance → Banks link takes you to the same place.)
The chart of accounts, in plain language
When finance was first enabled for your organisation, WAQAF set up a small, standard chart of accounts for you. It is not something you build line by line — it works quietly in the background. Two ideas are worth knowing.
Funds keep money apart. A fund is a separate "pot" that money must stay inside until it is spent for its proper purpose. WAQAF tracks four:
- Zakat — must be disbursed in full to those entitled to it, and is kept strictly separate from everything else.
- Waqf — endowment principal, which is protected and must be preserved.
- Sadaqah — general charitable giving.
- General — your organisation's unrestricted money.
Ledger accounts are where the bookkeeping lands. Behind the funds sits the short list of accounting ledgers — things like Cash/Bank, Donation income and Programme expenses — that every entry is recorded against. When you record income or pay an expense, WAQAF writes the matching ledger entries for you automatically, based on the category you chose.
For everyday work you only ever choose a category. Because each category is wired to the correct fund and ledger account, picking the right category is all you need to do — the chart of accounts underneath follows on its own. You don't add or edit ledger accounts by hand. To see where the money has landed, look at the category and fund balances.
Your bank, cash and gateway accounts
The one part of the accounts layer you set up and maintain yourself is the list of real places your money sits — your bank accounts, your petty cash, and your online payment gateway. WAQAF calls each of these an account, and every account has a short channel that says what kind it is:
- Bank — an ordinary bank account, with a bank name and IBAN.
- Cash — physical cash, such as a petty-cash float.
- Thawani — your online payment gateway, where website donations settle.
- Other — anything that doesn't fit the above.
Each account also carries a role that tells WAQAF what it is for — Main donations, Zakat (segregated), Waqf, Grants, Petty cash or Adjustments — and a currency. This is what lets your bank balances line up with the funds described above.
Viewing your accounts and their balances
Open the Accounts summary
Go to Finance → Balance and choose the Accounts tab. You'll see a table with one row per account.
Read the balance breakdown
For each account the table shows the carried-forward opening balance, the income and expenses in the period, and the resulting book balance — what WAQAF calculates the account should hold from your recorded activity. On the All-time view it also shows the actual balance you entered from your bank statement, the variance between the two, and when the account was last reconciled.
If you see ••• where an amount should be, you have permission to see the account but not its balance figures. That's by design — balance visibility is a separate permission held by the Finance Manager and CEO by default. The selector and the account details still work for you; only the numbers are hidden.
Setting up and maintaining accounts
Open Bank accounts in settings
Go to Finance → Settings and choose Bank accounts in the left-hand menu. Each account appears as a card showing its code, name, channel, role and (if you may see them) its balances.
Add a new account
Select New account. Fill in:
- a short Code (a fixed identifier you can't change later, so choose carefully),
- the Name in English and Arabic,
- the Bank name and IBAN for a bank account,
- the Currency, Channel and Role.
There are also a few switches: Use for disbursement (whether you can pay vouchers from this account), Show on income form (whether it appears when recording income), and, for bank accounts only, Show on letterhead (whether it prints in your document footer). If you may see balances, you can also enter the Opening balance and the Actual balance.
Save
Select Save. The new account appears in the list and, where it applies, in the income and payment pickers.
Edit an account later
On any account card, choose Edit to rename it, change its bank details, switch a toggle, or adjust its role. The Code stays fixed once the account exists.
Reconciling against your bank statement
Each account carries two balances: the book balance (what WAQAF calculates from your recorded income and paid expenses) and the actual balance (what your bank statement says). Keeping them matched is reconciliation.
Open the reconcile dialog
On an account card, choose Reconcile balance.
Enter the statement balance and date
Set the As of date to your statement date, and type the Actual balance from the statement. WAQAF shows the book balance as of that same date and the resulting difference, so you compare like for like.
Save
Choose Save reconciliation. The account now shows a green Reconciled badge when the two match, or an Off by … badge with the gap when they don't.
Reconciling only records what your statement says — it never moves money or changes your recorded income and expenses. If the book and actual balances don't match, the gap points to something missing from your records (an unrecorded receipt or payment), which you fix by recording it properly, not by overwriting the balance here.
Retiring an account
You can't delete an account, because your income and expense history refers to it. Instead you deactivate it: on the account card, choose Deactivate. A deactivated account is hidden from the income and payment pickers, but every past entry keeps its records intact, and you can Reactivate it at any time from the same card.
Deactivating an account is always safe and reversible. It does not touch a single past entry or balance — it only stops the account appearing in new forms going forward.
See also
Managing categories
Add, rename, restrict or deactivate the categories that money is filed against.
Balances & reports
See category and fund balances and build the reports the chart of accounts feeds.
Categories & accounts
How the category register and the chart of accounts fit together.
Members & roles
Which finance role lets you view accounts, edit them, or see the balance figures.