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Clio Accounting: Chart of Accounts and Journal Entries

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In Clio Accounting, your chart of accounts is a list or map of your firm's finances. It organizes your firm's general ledger accounts, which are accounts containing everything your firm owns (assets), what your firm owes (liabilities), the amount that would be left if your firm sold its assets and paid off its debts and liabilities (equity), the funds your firm takes in (income), and the funds your firm needs to pay for services (expenses). Your chart of accounts makes it easy to quickly find and access transactions and is the starting point for your firm's accounting needs. 

This feature is just one component of Clio Accounting. Learn more about the other features by reading the articles listed below. We recommend starting with "Clio Accounting: Basics and Guidelines to Get Started" and routinely reviewing the recommended guidelines list to stay on top of your accounting and bookkeeping. 

Set up chart of accounts/add new accounts

If you are using Clio Accounting for the first time and went through the setup wizard that was launched when you first opened the application, your chart of accounts should already be set up with accounts for your firm, each with an opening balance and general firm information. Each account in the chart of accounts should also have journal entries that synced from Clio Manage.

If you did not follow the steps in the setup wizard or if you need to add an additional account to your chart of accounts (e.g. if you got a new credit card), you can do this from within Clio Accounting. Once accounts are added, relevant client and matter data (including hard and soft cost expenses), and invoice and payments data will automatically sync almost instantly from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting.

Tip: Expenses that sync from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting are expenses related to clients and matters. If you need to record firm operating expenses, you can manually record those transactions directly in Clio Accounting. Learn more about recording your operating expenses here. 

  1. Go to Chart of accounts and click New account.
  2. Complete the required fields:
    • Name: Enter a recognizable name for the account. For example, if this account is for a new credit card under your name that you use for firm finances, you could name it "[Your name's] AMEX Credit Card."
    • Detail type: Select a standard type from the general ledger dropdown list. The list is a default list that cannot be changed. Once the account is saved, you can find it using the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) in the Chart of accounts tab.
  3. Complete the optional fields:
    • Code: Enter a unique account identifier code. These codes can make it easier to organize your accounts and identify specific accounts in your chart of accounts, but they are not required and may not be necessary depending on your firm. If you added your accounts with codes in the setup wizard, you would already have determined your coding system. While there is no official standard, if you decide to use a coding system, most accounting softwares use the following:
      • 1000-1999: Assets
      • 2000-2999: Liabilities
      • 3000-3999: Equity
      • 4000-4999: Revenue (income)
      • 5000-5999: Expenses
    • Parent account (only for sub accounts): Depending on the Detail type you selected, you may want to select a parent account for your new account to show expenses at a more detailed level. For example, you may have a parent accounts for "Marketing/Advertising," and under that account have sub accounts for "Promotional," "Marketing software," "Website," etc. to show expenses in more detail. The account you create now will appear as a sub account under that parent account when viewing the account in the Chart of accounts tab. 
  4. Click Create account. 

 

 

Edit accounts

Once a ledger account is created in the chart of accounts, you can make changes to the account fields at any time.

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or the search box to find the account that you want to edit.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Edit from the list of options
  4. Make your changes and then click Update account.

 

Make accounts active or inactive

Sometimes, you may no longer need to use an account permanently or temporarily. To remove the account from your main chart of accounts view, you can make the account inactive. You can also make an inactive account active again if you need to interact with it again. You can make accounts inactive and active one account at a time or in bulk.

Tip: Making accounts inactive is useful if your firm opened a new bank account and you stopped using the old one. You can also make accounts inactive and active cyclically depending on your firm's preferences. This is helpful if you only need some accounts during tax season: You can make them inactive most of the time to avoid seeing them and then make them active during tax season when you need to use them.

Make inactive

One account Multiple accounts in bulk
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Make inactive from the list of options.
  4. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

Make active

One account Multiple accounts in bulk
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Click Status: Active and then select Inactive to view inactivated accounts.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Make Active from the list options.
  4. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

 

 

Filter, search, and sort accounts

When viewing your Chart of accounts tab, you can filter accounts using the general ledger quick filters or filter by active or inactive accounts, use a keyword search to find specific accounts by name, and sort columns in ascending or descending order.

Filter Keyword search Sort columns
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Select one of the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) to find a specific account. You can also click Status: active and then select either Active or Inactive to view accounts that are either active or inactive. 

 

View transactions in ledger accounts

You can view a list of transactions associated with a particular ledger account in your chart of accounts. If the account is not connected to a bank account and/or you have not manually entered journal entries, there will be no transactions in the account.

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Click the account's name.

 

View reports and reconcile accounts

For each account within your chart of accounts, you can generate a ledger report to view transactions with their beginning balances. If the account has a corresponding bank account or credit card account, you can also reconcile the account.

View report Reconcile
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Once you find the account, click three dots under the Actions column, and select View Report.
    • The report will show transactions associated with the account you selected.
    • You also have the option to select additional accounts or view all accounts. You can do this by selecting the accounts under the Accounts field (the report will show transactions in those selected accounts) or leaving the field blank (the report will show transactions in all accounts), and then click Generate report. Learn more about the general ledger report and other Clio Accounting reports here.
  4. Optional: If you need a physical copy of the report or if you need to save a copy to your computer outside of Clio Accounting, click Print in the top right corner.

 

Add, view, edit, and delete journal entries

A journal entry is a record of a single business transaction that notes which accounts are affected. In double-entry bookkeeping, every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a different account (a debit and a credit). Clio Accounting creates journal entries from the data synced from Clio Manage and your bank feed. You can also manually create journal entries to make adjustments, such as correcting an error. 

 

 

Important: Journal entries should not be commonly used. If your books do not balance, determine why they do not balance before creating a journal entry. Common reasons for books not balancing include a check that a firm user forgot to deposit, a payment that was not recorded, etc.

Note: You can edit journal entries manually created in Clio Accounting, but you cannot edit transactions (e.g. hard cost matter expenses) that synced from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting. The sync between the two applications is a one-way sync from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting, which means that changes made in Clio Accounting will not sync back to Clio Manage. If you need to make changes to any transactions created in Clio Manage, go to Clio Manage to make those changes. 

Add journal entry

  1. In the Clio Accounting header, click the global Add transaction menu and then select Journal entry.
  2. Under Date and Description, enter the date of the transaction and a description. The information you enter in this Description field will appear under the Memo when you view the saved journal entry.
  3. Complete the details of the debit and credit and which accounts are affected. 
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, such as with Clio Accounting, you need to enter a credit and a debit (and select corresponding ledger accounts) for every journal entry/transaction that you record, and the values should be equal. For example, if you made a payment to an IT vendor from your credit card, select the credit card under the first Ledger account field and enter the amount you paid under Credit. Then, select the IT vendor under the second Ledger account field and the amount they received under Debit. The amount you paid and the amount they received should be the same.
    • The Description fields for each ledger account are optional and used to distinguish the credit and debit. You can view what is entered for these fields when viewing the journal entry after it is saved.
  4. Optional: Click Add item to add another debit or credit to another ledger account.
  5. Once the debit and credit are equal, click Save journal entry.

View journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, such as with Clio Accounting, every journal entry has a credit and a debit, which means you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into. 
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click View.

Edit journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, every journal entry has a debit and a credit. This means that you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into. For example, if you selected a credit card as a ledger account when you created the journal entry, click Liability. This section will show accounts where money is withdrawn from. In the same journal entry, if you selected an IT vendor as a ledger account when you created the entry, click Expense. This section will show accounts where money is sent to external parties for firm expenses. 
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Edit from the list of options.
  5. Make your edits and then click Save journal entry.

Delete journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, every journal entry has a debit and a credit. This means that you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into. For example, if you selected a credit card as a ledger account when you created the journal entry, click Liability. This section will show accounts where money is withdrawn from. In the same journal entry, if you selected an IT vendor as a ledger account when you created the entry, click Expense. This section will show accounts where money is sent to external parties for firm expenses. 
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Delete from the list of option.
  5. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

 

Understand transaction statuses

When viewing a transaction in a ledger account within your chart of accounts, you will see one of three statuses for each transaction. This is what each one means:

  • Created: The record was created in Clio Accounting.
  • Matched: The record was matched to a bank feed transaction in Clio Accounting. This only applies to transactions linked to bank accounts or credit cards. 
  • Reconciled: The record was included in a completed reconciliation cycle. This only applies to transactions linked to bank accounts and credit cards. 

 

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