Managing SYSCOHADA sub-accounts

Sub-accounts are customized accounts created within the hierarchy of the SYSCOHADA revised 2019 chart of accounts. They enable individual tracking per contact, payment reconciliation, and general ledger consultation per customer or supplier.

What is a SYSCOHADA sub-account?

The SYSCOHADA chart of accounts defines root accounts (e.g. 411000 “Customers”, 401000 “Suppliers”). To track each customer or supplier individually, SynkriaOps creates custom sub-accounts under these roots:

Contact type	Root account	Example sub-accounts
Customer	411000 — Customers	411001, 411002, 411025
Supplier	401000 — Suppliers	401001, 401008
Employee	421000 — Staff	421001, 421003

Numbering is sequential and automatic: each new contact receives the next available number.

Why use sub-accounts?

Sub-accounts are essential for:

• Individual tracking: view all invoices issued, received, and settled for a specific contact
• Reconciliation (lettrage): match debits and credits on the same contact account (e.g. invoice 500,000 XAF ↔ payment 500,000 XAF)
• Detailed financial statements: general ledger by account, customer/supplier auxiliary balance
• Audit and compliance: complete traceability per contact, required by SYSCOHADA standards

How are sub-accounts created?

Automatically — when creating a contact

Every time you create a customer, a supplier, or an employee, SynkriaOps creates the corresponding sub-account in the same atomic transaction. You cannot create a contact without a sub-account.

Manually — in the chart of accounts

You can also create a sub-account directly in your chart of accounts:

1. Go to Accounting → Chart of accounts.
2. Navigate to the root account (e.g. 411000).
3. Click + Add a sub-account.
4. Enter the account number (respect the hierarchy: e.g. 411xxx for a customer).
5. Enter the account label.
6. Click Save.

Note

Manually creating a sub-account in the chart of accounts does not automatically create a contact record. To link this sub-account to a contact, create the contact via Contacts → Customers or Suppliers — a new sub-account will be created. Manual creation is reserved for technical accounts without an associated contact.

Viewing a contact’s sub-account

1. Open the contact record (Contacts → Customers or Suppliers → click the name).
2. In the right panel, under Accounting information, the SYSCOHADA sub-account number is displayed (e.g. 411025).
3. Click View SYSCOHADA account to open the account record in the chart of accounts.

Navigating to the general ledger of a sub-account

From the sub-account record in the chart of accounts:

1. Click View general ledger (button at the top right).
2. The general ledger opens filtered on this account: you see all accounting entries posted to this customer or supplier, with the current balance.
3. Use the date and journal filters to refine the view.

Tip

Accessing the general ledger of a contact sub-account is the fastest way to verify whether an invoice has been properly recorded and whether the payment has been correctly reconciled.

VAT sub-accounts — pre-created, do not modify

Your SYSCOHADA plan includes pre-created VAT sub-accounts that SynkriaOps manages automatically:

Account	Label
44310	VAT collected on sales
44320	Deductible VAT on purchases
44330	Deductible VAT on fixed assets

Caution

Do not manually modify these VAT accounts. They are populated automatically when accounting entries are validated. Any direct modification can create inconsistencies in your VAT declarations.

Deactivating vs deleting a sub-account

Action	Condition	Effect
Deactivate	Always possible	Sub-account invisible in selections; history preserved
Delete	Impossible if entries exist	Permanent deletion only if no entries exist

In practice, deletion of a sub-account linked to an existing contact is blocked at the database level as long as at least one accounting entry is attached to it. The only available action is archiving the contact (which deactivates the sub-account).

Caution

Do not try to manually delete a sub-account via the chart of accounts if it has entries. The operation will be refused. Archive the contact from their record to properly deactivate the sub-account.

Common errors

Error	Cause	Solution
”Cannot delete this account”	Entries exist on this sub-account	Archive the contact instead of deleting the account
”Account number already in use”	A sub-account with this number exists	Choose a different number or leave automatic assignment
”Account outside hierarchy”	Number inconsistent with the root account	E.g. creating a 411xxx under 401xxx — check the root
”Sub-account not found”	Contact created without sub-account (rare technical case)	Contact support

Further reading

• Creating a customer — atomic creation of contact record + 411xxx sub-account
• Creating a supplier — atomic creation of contact record + 401xxx sub-account
• Setting up your chart of accounts — explore and customize the full SYSCOHADA hierarchy