Docs / Accounting
Accounting and payables
Spicy writes proper double-entry bookkeeping as you trade, and tracks what you owe suppliers. Your job is to make sure the accounts are correct.
This page is for managers and administrators.
What Spicy does for you
Every time a cashier takes a payment, Spicy writes the accounting entry. Every time you refund, Spicy writes the reversing entry. Every stock movement and shift close writes its own entry.
That means your books are up to date without anyone entering them. They balance by construction — Spicy will not write an entry where the money does not add up. If something is missing, Spicy refuses the sale, and you find out immediately.
Chart of accounts
Go to Accounting → Chart of accounts. This is the list of buckets that hold your money — Cash Account, Food Sales, Drinks Sales, Cost of Goods Sold, and so on.
The standard setup command already created a working set. You can add your own, but most restaurants run fine on the defaults. Only change something if you know why you are changing it.
Two things to be careful with:
- You can rename an account that is in use, but you cannot remove it.
- You can freeze an account to stop anything posting to it, without deleting its history. This is useful for closing a period.
Payment methods need accounts
Each payment method must point at an account — Cash to Cash Account, transfers to your bank account. Without one, Spicy cannot take that payment.
You set this under Payments in the back office. See Setup.
What a sale writes
For transparency, a sale of ₦1,500 of food paid in cash writes four things:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Cash Account | 1,500 | — |
| Food Sales | — | 1,500 |
For drinks, Spicy also records what the drinks cost you, so your profit reflects that cost. For a mixed order, the food and drinks go to separate accounts, which is why every report can show you food and drinks apart.
If you gave change, Spicy records only the amount you kept against cash. Spicy does not count the change as money in.
If the total needed rounding, the rounding goes to its own account. It is a small amount, but it is why your ledger always ties to the till.
Journal entries
Go to Accounting → Journal entries. Use it for anything the automatic entries do not cover: opening balances when you start using Spicy, accruals, and corrections.
You write one line per account, with a debit or a credit. Debits must equal credits, and Spicy checks before saving. The left column of each entry is debit, and the right column is credit.
For opening balances, use the Opening Entry voucher type. You only need one per year, and Spicy asks for a note on each line, so you know later what it was for.
You cannot edit a journal entry once you submit it. Cancel it and write a new one. The cancelled entry stays on file, and Spicy writes a reversing entry, dated today. This is how accounting should work — corrections stay visible.
Suppliers
Go to Accounting → Suppliers. Add each supplier you buy from, with contact details.
Recording a delivery
When goods arrive, create a purchase receipt. That puts the stock in your Store and records what you now owe. It does not record a bill yet.
When the invoice comes, go to Accounting → Supplier invoices and create one, choosing the receipt it belongs to. Spicy copies the items and prices from the receipt and locks them — you cannot invoice for something you did not receive.
Add any extra charges, like delivery, as expense lines on the same invoice.
An invoice with only expenses and no goods is fine for a bill like "gas cylinder refill".
Paying suppliers
Go to Accounting → Supplier payments. Choose the supplier, the payment method, and how much you are paying. Spicy then asks which invoices it settles. It will not let you overpay an invoice or pay an invoice that belongs to someone else.
Each supplier shows an outstanding balance — what you still owe them.
Do not cancel a receipt after you create the invoice. Spicy stops you, and that is deliberate. If the delivery was wrong, deal with the invoice first, or file an adjustment for the stock. Spicy does this to stop you from losing a liability you still owe.
Reports
- General ledger — this report lists every entry in date order, filterable by account. It is the full record of what happened to your money.
- Trial balance — this report shows what each account holds, and proves that everything balances.
- Profit and loss — this report summarises the ledger over a period.
All three export to CSV. See Reports for the sales side.
Fiscal year
Every posting has to land inside a fiscal year. The setup command creates the current one. Before your fiscal year ends, create the next one. If you do not, no sale will post in January, and your cashier will start getting errors.
Go to Accounting → Fiscal years and add next year's dates.
Create the next fiscal year before January. Years cannot overlap, so if you get the dates wrong, you will have to edit the existing year. Spicy refuses a sale with no year to land in.
Cash variance
When a shift closes short or over, Spicy writes the difference to the ledger on the drawer that actually held the money. A shortfall in the till hits cash. A shortfall in the transfer account hits that account.
If a difference is large, closing needs a manager's approval and a written explanation. That is your theft-and-error control.