How your accounts are mapped
Categories and mappings decide where each account lands on your statements. Here's how they're set and changed.
Category and mapping
Every account in your trial balance has two labels:
- Category: which part of the statements it belongs to, such as current assets, long-term liabilities, revenue or operating expenses. Every account must have one.
- Mapping: the line it rolls up into on your statements, such as Cash or Office Expenses. Several accounts can share a mapping.
When your data comes in
Ask Lou suggests a category and a mapping for each new account, and asks you to confirm any it isn't sure about. If an account's mapping belongs on the other statement (a balance sheet account mapped to an income statement line, say), the import pauses on it and offers the fix: use the suggested mapping, or keep it as is.
Recommendations after import
On the Trial Balance page, Analyze Mappings checks your mappings against accounting rules and opens Lou with any suggested changes. Lou explains each one; you decide what to keep, then review and save.
Changing a mapping yourself
On the Trial Balance page, turn on Edit Mode, double-click an account's mapping or category, and pick the new one (or add a new mapping). Your changes wait in Review & Save until you save them.
Mappings change how Ask Lou presents your numbers. They never change your accounting system.