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Welcome to DONNOTEC!

This guide will walk you through the three essential steps to get your books started: setting your financial year, recording your first expense, and seeing it on a report.

Step 1: Create Your Financial Year

Why: You can't record any transactions without an open financial period. This tells the system which year the transactions belong to.

  1. Navigate to the menu: Accounting -> Financial Periods.
    2. Manage Financial Periods screen
  2. Click the Add Financial Period button.
    3. Add Financial Period form
  3. Fill out the form:
    • Name: A descriptive name, like Fin 25_26.
    • Start Date: The first day of your financial year.
    • End Date: The last day of your financial year.
  4. Click the Add Financial Period button to save.

Result: You will now see your new, open period in the list on the "Manage Financial Periods" page.

Step 2: Record Your First Expense

Why: Let's record a simple, common transaction to see how the double-entry system works.

  1. Navigate to the menu: Accounting -> Transactions.
    2. Transactions list screen
  2. Click the Add Transaction button to open the pop-up modal.
  3. To speed things up, select a Template like "Purchase with Cash".
    4. Add Transaction modal with template
  4. The template pre-fills the account types. Now, specify the exact expense account. Click the "Debit Account" dropdown and select General Expenses (5200).
  5. Fill out the rest of the form:
    • Transaction Date: Choose any date within the financial period you just created.
    • Credit Account: This should already be set by the template (e.g., Cash/Bank).
    • Amount: 50.00
    • Description: Office Supplies
  6. Click the Add Transaction button inside the modal.

Result: The modal will close, and you will see your new "Office Supplies" transaction at the top of the list.

Transaction created successfully

Step 3: See The Result!

Why: The whole point of accounting is to see where your money is going. The Trial Balance gives you a complete overview.

  1. Navigate to the menu: Reports -> Trial Balance.
    2. Trial Balance selection form
  2. Select the Financial Period you created and click the Generate Trial Balance button.

Result: You will see a report showing all accounts with activity. Notice that the General Expenses account has a debit of 50.00, and the Cash/Bank Account has a credit of 50.00. The totals at the bottom are perfectly balanced. You have successfully recorded your first transaction!

Trial Balance report result
Printing Reports: You can click the orange Generate Trial Balance PDF button to create a professional, printable version of this report using the system's Document Editor layouts.
Trial Balance PDF preview

What's Next?

Congratulations! Your books are officially set up. You are now ready to explore the system further.

For detailed information on all features, please consult the full User Manual.