As a business grows, so does its chart of accounts. One bank account becomes four. Accounts receivable picks up a suspense account. A single expense head splits into consultancy, bank charges and processing fees. Each split is right for the books — but every one of them adds a line to your trial balance, and before long your financial statements read like a phone book: technically complete, practically unreadable.
TamilAccounting now lets you group related GL accounts under a parent account. The statements show one rolled-up line per family — and one click opens it into the detail, with a clean subtotal underneath.
What account grouping does
- One line instead of five. On screen, a parent account appears collapsed: a single row with a + box showing the combined total of the parent and all its children.
- Detail on demand. Press + and the row opens: the parent’s own balance, each child indented beneath it, and a bold Total line for the family. Press − to fold it back.
- Everywhere it matters. The grouping runs through the on-screen Trial Balance, the Balance Sheet drill-down and the Profit & Loss — and through the printed reports, where the family prints as an indented tree with its subtotal.
- Your totals never move. Group totals, class totals and the grand total are calculated exactly as before. Grouping is pure presentation — it changes how the rows read, never what they add up to.
Setting a parent account
Open General Ledger → Settings → GL Accounts and edit the account you want to file under a parent. Where the form used to show a spare code field, you will now find Parent Account — a dropdown of the eligible accounts, with None (Top Level) as the default.
- Edit the child account (say, your payroll bank account).
- Choose the parent from the Parent Account list.
- Update. That’s it — the statements pick the grouping up immediately.
Three simple rules keep the structure clean:
- Same group only. A parent and its children must belong to the same account group (both under Current Assets, for example). The dropdown only offers valid choices.
- One level deep. A parent has children — and that is the whole tree. An account that is already a child cannot be picked as someone else’s parent, and an account that has children cannot itself be filed under a parent. Statements stay easy to scan, and loops are impossible by construction. For deeper structure, use account groups and sub-groups as before.
- Freely reversible. Set Parent Account back to None (Top Level) at any time; the account returns to being its own line.
Worked example: bank sub-accounts in the trial balance
A trading company keeps a header account for its banks and two operating accounts under it, all in the Current Assets group:
| Account | Parent Account | Balance |
|---|---|---|
| Bank Accounts — Head Office | None (Top Level) | 0 |
| Bank — Main Branch | Bank Accounts — Head Office | 450,000 Dr |
| Bank — Payroll | Bank Accounts — Head Office | 275,000 Dr |
Collapsed (the default), the trial balance devotes a single line to the whole family — the figure shown is the rolled-up total:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| [+] Bank Accounts — Head Office | 725,000 | — |
Expanded with one click on the + box, the same family reads:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| [−] Bank Accounts — Head Office | 0 | — |
| Bank — Main Branch | 450,000 | — |
| Bank — Payroll | 275,000 | — |
| Total Bank Accounts — Head Office | 725,000 | — |
Either way, Total — Current Assets at the bottom of the section is identical: collapsed shows 725,000 on one line, expanded shows 450,000 + 275,000 with a 725,000 subtotal. The books don’t change — only the reading experience does.
Worked example: a parent with its own balance
A parent doesn’t have to be an empty header — it can carry postings of its own. Say Interest & Bank Charges has 120,000 of direct postings, and you file the separate Bank Service Charges account (35,000) under it. Expanded in the Profit & Loss:
| Account | Period |
|---|---|
| [−] Interest & Bank Charges | 120,000 |
| Bank Service Charges | 35,000 |
| Total Interest & Bank Charges | 155,000 |
Collapsed, the family shows one line of 155,000. The parent’s own postings are never lost — expanding always separates “the parent’s own balance” from “the family total”.
Where the grouping shows up
- Trial Balance (Financial Statement → Trial Balance) — collapsed parents with +/−, in both the debit/credit and balance views, and in all four printed trial balance formats.
- Balance Sheet — the on-screen drill-down and the printed report.
- Profit & Loss — the on-screen statement and the printed report.
Printed reports aren’t interactive, so they always show the full family: children indented under the parent, closed by the subtotal line.
Frequently asked questions
Will my statement totals change?
No. Group, class and grand totals are computed exactly as before. The subtotal lines are additional presentation rows, never additional amounts.
Can a child belong to a different account group than its parent?
No — parent and child must share the same account group, and the Parent Account dropdown only offers accounts from the group you have selected. If you later move an account to another group, the link quietly resets to top level.
Can I build a grandparent → parent → child tree?
By design, no — grouping is exactly one level: a parent and its children. Deeper hierarchy belongs to account groups and sub-groups, which the statements already nest. One level keeps every family readable and makes circular references impossible.
Can I still post journal entries to a parent account?
Yes. A parent is a normal posting account; its own balance is always shown on its expanded row, separate from the family subtotal.
How do I undo a grouping?
Edit the child and set Parent Account back to None (Top Level). The account immediately returns to being its own statement line.
Does the chart of accounts import support parents?
Yes — the chart import/export includes a parent code column, so you can bring an already-grouped chart in from a spreadsheet in one step.
Account grouping is available now in every TamilAccounting company — open General Ledger → Settings → GL Accounts, pick a parent, and watch your statements get shorter without losing a single number.
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