# Chart Preferences

Default accounts, period locking and who is allowed to post a journal.

Two settings, both about account codes, and one permission that matters more than either of them.

![The Accounts Chart list showing the Include in VAT Return column, which reads False on every row shown, and the Active Accounts filter above the table.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/accounts-chart/accounts-chart-list.png)

*Include in VAT Return is set per account, which is what decides whether its balance reaches a return.*

## Settings

Go to **Settings > Finance > Accountant**. The tab carries a single Chart of Accounts section, and there are two switches in it.

| Preference | What it does | Worth changing when |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Make Account Code mandatory | Refuses a new account with no code. | You report by code, or you are importing into a coded structure. |
| Require a unique Account Code | Refuses a code that is already in use. | Almost always. Duplicate codes make a chart unsortable. |

## What lives somewhere else

| Expected setting | Where it actually is |
| --- | --- |
| Base currency | Real, but not here. It is on your organisation profile, and it is set once. |
| Financial year start | Real, but not here. It sits beside base currency on the organisation profile. |
| Lock date | Not a single date. Periods are locked individually, each one Open or Locked, and unlocking is recorded against your name. |
| Default income account | Does not exist. A sales line takes its account from the item. |
| Default expense account | Not a setting. A bill line with no account falls back to the Purchase Adjustments account. |
| Rounding account | Does not exist as a preference. |

> **Warning:**
>
> **Base currency is permanent, and it is not on this page**
>
> It lives on the organisation profile, it is set at go-live, and every posting in your books is expressed in it. Get it right before the first transaction.

## Journal permission

Posting journals is a separate permission on the Finance role, and it should be held by as few people as the work allows. A journal is the only document in Finance that can post any amount to any account with no counterparty, no tax treatment and no other document behind it.

- Separate it from the permission to raise invoices and bills.
- Combine it with the monthly journal review, which is the control that makes it safe.
- Locking periods promptly limits how far back a journal can reach.