Transaction Accounts

Overview

Transaction accounts are the categories you use to organise your income and expenses. Every invoice line item, expense, and payment in Beeswax is allocated to a transaction account.

Think of them as labels for where your money comes from and where it goes.

Beeswax sets up a default set of accounts when you create your business. These are aligned to the categories on the ATO tax return so your end-of-year reporting is straightforward. See the Chart of Accounts help article for details on how the defaults map to your tax return.

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Account Types

Each account belongs to one of five types:

Type	Purpose	Examples
Income	Revenue you earn	Services, Interest Earned, Reimbursed Expenses
Expense	Costs of running your business	Rent, Software & Subscriptions, Contractors
Asset	Things you own or are owed	Bank accounts, Trade Debtors
Liability	Money you owe	Credit cards, Trade Creditors, GST Collected
Transfer	Internal fund movements	Clearing accounts

Tip: Most day-to-day work only involves Income and Expense accounts. Asset, Liability, and Transfer accounts are largely managed automatically by Beeswax.

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Creating an Account

Click New Account from the chart of accounts page.

Field	Required	Description
Account Type	Yes	Income, Expense, Asset, Liability, or Transfer. Cannot be changed after creation.
Name	Yes	A unique name for the account.
Description	No	What this account is for — shown as a hint when categorising transactions.
Tax Code	No	Default tax code applied to transactions in this account.
Opening Balance	No	Starting balance (Asset and Liability accounts only).
Bank Account	No	Asset accounts can be marked as bank accounts for reconciliation and statement imports.

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Bank Accounts

Asset accounts can be marked as bank accounts. This enables:

• Bank reconciliation — match transactions against bank statements.
• Statement imports — upload CSV or PDF bank statements.
• BSB and account number — store your banking details for invoices.
• Bank transfers — move money between bank accounts.

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System Accounts

Some accounts are created automatically by Beeswax and cannot be edited or deleted:

Account	Type	Created When
Trade Debtors	Asset	First invoice is created
Trade Creditors	Liability	First expense is created
GST Collected	Liability	First taxable invoice line
GST Paid	Liability	First taxable expense line

Note: Tax account names vary by region (e.g., "GST" for Australia, "VAT" for UK).

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Deleting & Reallocation

If an account has no transactions, it can be deleted immediately.

If an account has existing transactions, you need to reallocate those transactions to another account of the same type first:

1. Click delete on the account.
2. Select a destination account (must be the same type).
3. All transactions are moved to the new account, then the original is deleted.

System accounts cannot be deleted.

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Active & Inactive Accounts

• Active accounts appear in dropdowns when categorising transactions.
• Inactive accounts are hidden from dropdowns but remain in historical reports.

To reactivate an account, edit it and toggle the active switch back on.

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CSV Import

You can bulk-import income and expense accounts via CSV:

1. Navigate to the chart of accounts page.
2. Click the import menu and select CSV.
3. Upload a CSV with columns: name, type, opening_balance.

Asset, liability, and transfer accounts must be created individually.

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Permissions

Action	Owner	Super Admin	Accountant	Admin	General	Client
View accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Create accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Edit accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Delete / reallocate	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Import via CSV	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No