bus accounts — manage the chart of accounts

`bus accounts` — manage the chart of accounts

bus accounts owns the chart of accounts for the workspace. Use it when you need to create the account table, add or rename accounts, validate the chart, or print a filing-grade tililuettelo.

This is also the module that owns the canonical account-group hierarchy used by statutory reporting workflows.

Common tasks

Create the baseline accounts datasets:

bus accounts init

Add two common accounts and then validate the chart:

bus accounts add --code 1910 --name "Pankkitili" --type asset
bus accounts add --code 3000 --name "Myyntituotot" --type income
bus accounts validate

Rename an account without changing anything else:

bus accounts set --code 1910 --name "Pankkitili EUR"

List the chart in a script-friendly format:

bus accounts list --format tsv --output accounts.tsv

Show the first-class account-group tree:

bus accounts groups
bus accounts --format tsv groups

Explain one account’s canonical group membership:

bus accounts groups explain --account 1910

Show one subtree with opening and closing balances:

bus accounts groups --group-id assets --as-of 2024-12-31 --opening-as-of 2024-01-01

Assign accounts to groups in bulk:

bus accounts groups assign --rule '1*=assets' --rule '1501=inventory_materials'

Add, update, or remove one group row without editing CSV by hand:

bus accounts groups add --group-id inventory --code 150 --name "Vaihto-omaisuus" --parent-group-id assets --profile bs_full
bus accounts groups set --group-id inventory --name "Aineet ja tarvikkeet" --profile bs_short
bus accounts groups delete --group-id inventory_materials

Create a printable chart-of-accounts PDF:

bus accounts report --format pdf --output tililuettelo.pdf

Show the automatic requested-date, prior-period, and opening-balance history view:

bus accounts report --as-of 2024-12-31 --format tsv

Override the final opening-balance column date explicitly when needed:

bus accounts report --as-of 2024-12-31 --opening-as-of 2024-01-01 --format tsv

Generate suggested lines for sole-proprietor owner withdrawal or investment:

bus accounts sole-proprietor withdrawal \
  --equity-code 3000 \
  --cash-code 1910 \
  --amount 500.00

Synopsis

bus accounts init [-C <dir>] [global flags]
bus accounts validate [-C <dir>] [global flags]
bus accounts list [-C <dir>] [-o <file>] [-f <format>] [global flags]
bus accounts groups [--group-id <group-id>] [--as-of <date>] [--opening-as-of <date>] [-C <dir>] [-o <file>] [-f <text|tsv>] [global flags]
bus accounts groups explain --account <code> [-C <dir>] [-o <file>] [-f <text|tsv>] [global flags]
bus accounts groups assign --rule <selector=group-id>... [-C <dir>] [global flags]
bus accounts report [--as-of <date>] [--opening-as-of <date>] [-C <dir>] [-o <file>] [-f <format>] [global flags]
bus accounts add --code <account-id> --name <account-name> --type <asset|liability|equity|income|expense> [-C <dir>] [global flags]
bus accounts set --code <account-id> [--name <account-name>] [--type <asset|liability|equity|income|expense>] [-C <dir>] [global flags]
bus accounts sole-proprietor withdrawal|investment --equity-code <code> --cash-code <code> --amount <amount> [global flags]

Which command should you use?

init is the first command for a new workspace.

add creates a new account. set updates an existing one.

validate is the safety check before you rely on the chart in bus-journal, bus-reports, or bus-vat.

list is the quick machine-friendly view. groups is the native tree view for first-class account groups. report is the accountant-facing and filing-facing view.

sole-proprietor is a helper command for owner withdrawals and owner investments. It does not post anything by itself, but it gives you balanced lines that you can feed into bus-journal.

Choosing the account type

For BusDK, every account must have one of these types:

Type	Typical use
`asset`	cash, bank, receivables, fixed assets
`liability`	payables, loans, VAT payable
`equity`	share capital, retained earnings, owner’s capital
`income`	sales and other revenue
`expense`	purchases, services, wages, fees, depreciation

If you are following a Finnish numbered chart, the common practical pattern is still useful: 1xxx often means assets, 2xxx liabilities, 3xxx equity, 4xxx income, and 5xxx to 7xxx expenses. BusDK does not force a national numbering scheme, but consistent typing matters because downstream modules use it.

Reports and groups

bus accounts init now also creates account-groups.csv and account-groups.schema.json. This dataset stores a stable group_id, presentation code, group name, and optional parent_group_id. Use it for the Finnish-style account tree instead of pretending that posting accounts are group rows.

bus accounts groups prints that tree in a deterministic human-facing form. It can also render one selected subtree, include opening and closing balances, and print subgroup subtotals together with the full subtree total. bus accounts groups explain --account <code> prints the canonical account to group path for one posting account, including the code ancestry, the human group path, and the direct report_profiles on the assigned group. Validation rejects:

orphan parent references
cyclic group chains
sibling groups under one parent reusing the same presentation code
account rows whose optional group_id points to a missing group

Use groups add, groups set, and groups delete for first-class hierarchy maintenance. Delete is safety-checked and refuses to remove a group that still has child groups or account members.

report generates a tililuettelo view and can include journal-derived balances. By default it shows one Saldo column for the selected workspace state. The row order follows the canonical account-groups.csv hierarchy automatically, so group rows with aggregated totals appear together with indented posting accounts from accounts.csv:group_id without any extra report flag. In PDF output the group rows are also styled as distinct hierarchy rows so it is easy to tell groups from leaf accounts at a glance. When you add --as-of, the report switches to explicit date-keyed balance history columns. The first leftmost balance column is the requested document date, intermediate columns come from prior period ends in newest-to-oldest order when the workspace has period control data, and the final rightmost column is the fiscal-year opening balance. --opening-as-of requires --as-of and lets you override that final opening-balance date explicitly. groups assign gives you a native way to set account-to-group membership in bulk without hand-editing CSV rows.

For Finnish statutory reports, this module owns the only canonical reporting structure:

account-groups.csv

Every posting account belongs to one reporting group through accounts.csv:group_id. Reports then derive their structure from that group tree. Short and full balance sheet or profit-and-loss variants are controlled by each group’s report_profiles, not by separate account-to-layout override files.

This means there is no separate per-account reporting-classification file and no layout-specific account-mapping file in the current model. The reporting tree is configured in one place: account-groups.csv.

Typical workflow

For a new workspace, the flow is usually this:

bus accounts init
bus accounts add --code 1910 --name "Pankkitili" --type asset
bus accounts add --code 3000 --name "Sales income" --type income
bus accounts add --code 4000 --name "Purchases" --type expense
bus accounts validate
bus period init
bus journal init

Files

The core files are accounts.csv and accounts.schema.json at the workspace root. This module also owns:

account-groups.csv and account-groups.schema.json

Output and flags

These commands use Standard global flags. In practice:

list is usually used with tsv.

report is where text, csv, markdown, and pdf matter most.

For groups, prefer the canonical global-flag order bus accounts --format tsv groups. That keeps command-specific flags like --group-id out of the trailing-global parser path.

add and set support --dry-run when you want to validate a change without writing it.

For the full command and flag details, run bus accounts --help.

Exit status

0 on success. Non-zero on invalid usage, schema violations, duplicate account codes, or invalid account references.

Using from `.bus` files

Inside a .bus file, write this module target without the bus prefix.

# same as: bus accounts add --code 4100 --name "Service revenue" --type income
accounts add --code 4100 --name "Service revenue" --type income

# same as: bus accounts set --code 4100 --name "Service revenue FI"
accounts set --code 4100 --name "Service revenue FI"

# same as: bus accounts report --format pdf --output tililuettelo.pdf
accounts report --format pdf --output tililuettelo.pdf

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