What is double-entry accounting?

In double-entry bookkeeping, every transaction touches at least two accounts. Money comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. A cash sale increases cash (a debit) and increases sales (a credit) by the same amount. Because debits and credits always match, the totals of the whole ledger must be equal, which is what a trial balance checks.

Accounts fall into five types: assets (cash, stock, money owed to you), liabilities (supplier bills, sales tax owed), equity (the owner's stake), income and expenses. Debits increase assets and expenses; credits increase liabilities, equity and income. The chart of accounts is the list of every account the business uses, and a journal entry is one balanced transaction.

A POS sale is a good example because it touches several accounts at once. The payment goes to cash or a card clearing account, the sale goes to income, the tax goes to a sales-tax liability, and if stock is tracked, the cost of the item moves from inventory to cost of goods sold. Doing this by hand for every sale is impossible, which is why POS systems either post to the books themselves or send summaries to accounting software.

SeroPOS offers double-entry books as the Accounting add-on module: a chart of accounts with a one-click set of default accounts, journal entries that refuse to save unless debits equal credits, reversing journals, transfers, budgets and a ledger per account. Map Transactions sets which accounts each payment method posts to, so new sales and purchase payments post on their own. Reports include the trial balance, balance sheet, cash flow and AR and AP ageing. SeroPOS also connects to QuickBooks.