Practice: a CA firm and its clients
A CA firm keeps one business in eLedger, and each of its clients is a company in that business. The Practice page lists every company you are in, with what waits in each, so you start with the one that needs you most.
Use your browser's Back button to return to the screen you came from.
Use the Practice page
- Open Practice in the top bar. Each row is a company: your role in it, the drafts to check, the bank lines unmatched for over 7 days, the GST returns due this month, the TDS deductions not yet on a challan, the date of the last voucher and the date the books are locked up to.
- The companies that need you most are first. Press the Up and Down arrow keys to choose a company and Enter to open it.
- To add a client of the firm, open Companies and create the company. To add a member of your staff to it, a business admin gives that person a role in the company (owner or accountant to enter and post, viewer or auditor to read).
- To give a client's own person access, a business admin gives that person the role client in that company only. They sign in with their own login and see only their company.
Who sees what
- A staff member sees only the companies they have a role in. A client person sees one company, and the Practice page shows that one row.
- A firm head sees every client company of the firm, salaries included, without being added to each one, and can set client access in each. A business admin of a CA firm ticks the person under Firm head in Settings, Account type; the change asks you to confirm with your passkey. Tick only someone who should read all clients' books. A client person cannot be firm head, and the setting works only while the account type is A CA firm.
- A client person can read the day book and the reports, and upload bills and bank statements. A bill becomes a draft purchase and a statement becomes bank lines; your staff check them and post. Unless you turn on Post without review (below), a client person cannot post, reverse or correct a voucher, discard a draft, match a bank line, lock the books or change the masters.
- What a client person may do is set by the company's owner on the Client access page (open it from the company home). There are three levels. View: reports and ledgers only. Upload: also bills and bank statements, which become drafts for you to check. Confirm: also confirm or question entries (below). The company has one choice for all its clients, and each client person has a level of their own. The lower of the two applies, at once, so choosing View for the company takes uploads away from every client person straight away and choosing Upload again gives them back to those whose own level is Upload. Changing client access asks you to confirm with your passkey. A client person on View does not see the Bills link or any upload control.
- A third level, Confirm, lets a client person also look over entries you posted: on an entry they press Looks right or write a question with Ask a question. Your staff and the firm head see the questions under Questions from your client (linked from the company home with the count) and answer there; the client sees the answer and can press Looks right. Confirming or asking never changes the books: nothing is posted, reversed or corrected by it, and the notes are kept as a record.
- Post without review: on the Client access page, with the company at Enter, tick Post without review and set the person to Enter. They then post vouchers straight into the books, from the Vouchers link on the company home, in the areas you left ticked. They cannot make ledgers or stock items, set locks, see salaries or enter opening balances, and they can reverse or correct only their own entries. Locked periods stay closed, every entry is in the edit log under their name, and if All work needs approval is on, their entries are refused and they use batches. With Sales ticked and GST unticked, a sale they post carries no GST details: tick GST for a registered company unless you add those yourself. Unticking an area closes its ledgers on every voucher type, except Payroll: a journal to a salary ledger is not stopped by the Payroll tick. Lowering the company below Full use clears Salaries. Lowering the company below Enter ends Post without review; raising it again leaves review on until you tick it again.
- Full use: choose Full use on the Client access page and set the person to Full use. They run their own books: ledgers and stock items, vouchers, bank matching, and GST and TDS work, in the areas you left ticked. They cannot set locks, close or reopen a year, mark a GST return filed, change the TAN, approve a batch or an import, import a company or a Tally file, or change who has access. They can upload bills and bank statements, and export the company and its edit log; the export leaves out payroll, and says so, unless you ticked Salaries and Payroll. They cannot enter opening entries or opening balances, reverse another person's entries, or cancel an e-invoice or e-way bill they did not make. A ledger or group in an unticked area cannot be changed or moved. They see salaries and can run payroll only if you tick Salaries and Payroll. A journal to a salary ledger is not stopped when Payroll is off, and the ledger's balance shows in reports as usual.
- A bank account must be set up once by your staff (its name and its columns) before a client person can upload its statement. If it is not, the client sees: ask your accountant to set up this bank account once.
- A bill uploaded by a client person is read by the plain reader only, except a person at Full use, whose bills are read like your staff's; the AI help is used for bills your staff upload.
- Client admin: tick Client admin next to a client person on the Client access page. They open Our people on the company home and can change the level and areas of the company's other client people, or remove them. They never go above your choice for the company or above their own level and areas, cannot change themselves or another client admin, and see only this company's client people, never your firm's list. Adding a new person stays with you for now.
- Seats for a company: on the Client access page, set how many client people the company may have, then tick Client admin. On the new sign-in, that person adds their own staff on Our people, up to the number you set, without asking you. The seats come from your firm's seats. Removing a person from the firm stays with you. To take the right back, untick Client admin.
- A client who leaves the firm takes the books out by export and imports them into a business of their own.
- On the Client access page you can also tick which areas clients may enter: sales, purchases, bank, stock, GST, TDS and payroll. An area left unticked is hidden from the client person, who then sees no menu entry and no upload for it, and an upload that still arrives is refused with "ask your CA".
- Reports stay whole: a bank balance still shows in the reports even when the client may not enter bank statements.
Your CA (for a business that is not a CA firm)
- If your accountant works for you from outside your business, you can give them their own access to one company. Open the company, then Your CA. Only the owner of the company sees it.
- First your business admin gives your CA a seat in the business. A business admin cannot be the CA. Then, on Your CA, choose the person under Add a CA and press Add as my CA. You confirm with your passkey. They see only this company.
- Choose a level. View: reads your books and reports. Review: also reviews and approves, and does the steps you tick. Keep the books: also enters and changes entries and bank work like an accountant. What your account allows is set by IT Labs; a level above it is not offered.
- Then tick what your CA may do beyond reading: approve batches and imports, answer questions on entries, lock the books, close a financial year, mark GST returns as filed, TDS work, salaries and payroll, and take a copy of the books. At View only the copy works, and salaries only work at Keep the books; the page says so next to each step. The line Works now shows what applies today.
- A new CA starts at Review with the usual steps ticked, but not salaries and not the copy of the books. Change it whenever you like.
- Lock the books: a CA with that step ticked sees Lock the books on the company home. They type a date and press the button; nothing dated on or before it can be entered or changed. They can only move a lock forward. Taking a lock back is for you.
- To remove your CA, press Remove next to their name and confirm. They lose access at once, and the company disappears from their list. Their past work stays in the books and the edit log.
- A CA firm does not use this page: the firm's own people do this work.
Direct clients
If a client outside your firm has added you as their CA, the client appears under "Direct clients: their rules" on the Practice page: name and link only. The link opens that client's books with its own sign-in, under what that client lets you do.