Sevo Biz App
Sign inStart free trial
Help centre · Finance

Finance: how your books fill themselves

What the Finance menu does, where each screen is, and how sales, purchases, online orders and payroll reach the books without anyone typing them in.

Who can do this: Viewing needs the View accounts permission (Tenant admin, Store manager and Accountant roles by default). Making changes needs Manage accounts (Tenant admin by default).

The idea in one paragraph

Sevo keeps double-entry books for you. Double entry means every amount is written twice: once as a debit on one account and once as a credit on another, so the two sides always add up to the same total. You do not need to type most of these entries. When a sale is made at the till, goods arrive from a supplier, an online order is sent, or a payroll month is approved, the matching accounting entry is written at the same moment. Every report reads from those same entries.

Each entry gets a number such as JE-000123. Entries are never edited. A mistake is corrected with a reversal: a new entry with the opposite debits and credits.

Where things are

Finance → Reports: profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, trial balance, general ledger, VAT figures, aged payables and aged receivables.

Finance → Payables and Finance → Payments: supplier bills and the money paid against them.

Finance → Receivables: customers who bought on account at the till, and the receipts that settle them.

Finance → Bank: import your bank statement and tie it to the books.

Finance → Journal: every entry, automatic or manual; new manual entries; opening balances.

Finance → Chart of accounts: the list of accounts the books post to.

Finance → Periods: one period per month; close months here.

Finance → Postings: business events that could not be posted yet, with Retry.

Finance → Posting rules: which account each automatic posting uses.

Settings → Currencies & rates: exchange rates for foreign-currency documents.

Base currency and exchange rates

Your books are kept in one base currency, set when the company was created (usually LKR). When you buy from or sell to someone in another currency, the document keeps its own currency and the books convert it using the latest rate on or before the document date. If no rate exists, the posting waits under Finance → Postings until you add one.

  1. Open Settings → Currencies & rates and click Add rate.
  2. Enter the Foreign currency as a 3-letter code, for example USD.
  3. Enter how many units of your base currency one unit is worth.
  4. Pick Valid from. Entering the same date again replaces that day's rate.
  5. Optionally fill Source, for example CBSL or a bank quote, then click Save rate.

Deleting a rate does not change documents that already used it; they keep the rate they were posted with.

Your fiscal year

The fiscal year starts in April by default, the Sri Lankan tax year. A company that keeps its books January to December, or on any other twelve months, changes it. The This fiscal year and Last fiscal year choices in the report filters, and the balance sheet's split between earlier years' and this year's earnings, follow it. A year starting in April is shown as FY2026/27 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027); a year starting in January as FY2026.

Payroll's APIT year of assessment is set by law and always runs April to March, whatever you choose here.

Posting dates follow your company time zone (Asia/Colombo by default).

  1. Open Finance → Periods and click Fiscal year (needs Manage accounts).
  2. Choose the month in Fiscal year starts in and click Save. The line above the periods shows the current fiscal year and its dates.

Once any month has been closed, the start of the fiscal year is locked, so figures you have reported do not move to another year. To change it, reopen the closed months (latest first), change the start, then close them again.

On the dashboard

Users who can see finance get Cash & bank among the dashboard's figures for today once the first entry is posted. Profit this month, Payables due, 7 days, and Waiting for the books are under More figures. Each tile opens its screen.

More in this area