Getting started with Actuly.
From an empty workspace to a company with mapped accounts, loaded trial balances and a first P&L you can trust. Everything else in Actuly is built on what you set up here.
Welcome to Actuly
Let's get Home & Garden Retail Co's numbers in. First, tell us where they live today.
Which accounting software does this company use?
Connecting takes a couple of minutes and pulls in your chart of accounts and trial balances automatically.
Connect to XeroA brand-new company opens on this panel. Pick where the numbers live and Actuly takes it from there. Home & Garden Retail Co is an example company.
1. Companies and licences
Everything in Actuly belongs to a company.
Your workspace holds the companies you report on. Each one has its own accounts, reports, forecasts and documents.
The Companies page lists every company with its sales, growth, EBITDA, a performance and stability rating, and any alerts. To add one, open the menu at the top right and choose Add Company. The dialog asks for one thing, the name. Actuly then opens the new company, asks the licence question, and takes you to its Overview tab, where the welcome panel asks where the numbers live. You do not pick accounting software before the company exists.
Using a licence. Until a company has a licence, opening it asks whether to use one before you reach its Overview, every time. A licence unlocks the company for everyone in the workspace and stays with it. If you remove it, or delete the company, that slot is locked for 90 days before it can be reused, so put licences on companies you mean to keep. Choose Not yet to go back to the Companies list and decide later.
The demo companies. Three are already in the workspace: a retailer, a software business and a clothing company. They have realistic numbers, do not use a licence slot, and every screen works on them, so they are the place to look around before your own data arrives. They cannot be connected to accounting software, so rehearse a connection on a real company.
One field to create a company, then the licence question the first time it is opened.
2. Connecting your accounts
Connect it, or bring a file.
Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent connect directly and sync on a schedule. Everything else comes in as a CSV or Excel export, one file at a time.
Pick a tile on the welcome panel. For Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, press Connect and a wizard walks through six steps (five for FreeAgent, which has no dimensions):
- Connection. Authorise Actuly in the accounting system, then pick the organisation if you have access to more than one.
- Company Setup. Confirm the year end (pre-filled from the accounting system where it reports one), industry, currency, number format, profit measure and VAT details.
- Chart of Accounts. The accounts are fetched. If some have no reporting line, press Get Suggestions and Actuly proposes a mapping for all of them, which you accept or reject. Section 4 covers this.
- Dimensions. Xero tracking categories (up to two) or QuickBooks Classes and Locations become reporting dimensions, with one marked as the main one. Skip it if the company has none.
- Trial Balance. Choose how far back to fetch. Actuly starts from the month the organisation was created in the accounting system, or five years back if it cannot find that date, and you can move the start month.
- Complete. The trial balances are fetched in the background. Come back when the Overview shows data.
For Sage, NetSuite or anything else, press Start manual import and Actuly creates a job that takes you through it in order: the company's details, its reporting dimensions, the chart of accounts, a question about whether to start from an opening balance (and that file if you say yes), then the numbers themselves. The numbers can be a month-end trial balance per month, or the full ledger transactions, which Actuly adds up for you. The job lives on the Jobs tab, so you can leave and come back.
Dimensions and accounts come before the numbers. A file's tag columns can only be read into dimensions that already exist (the Importing from a file guide explains why), and a trial balance can only land on accounts Actuly already knows about. If a file arrives with codes it has never seen, the import stops and lists them, and a Re-check button lets you carry on once they are added.
Trial Balance
We're now ready to fetch your trial balances.
We usually try and fetch the last 5 years, but you can specify below if you like.
We've used the date your organisation was created in Xero as the start date. Please change this to as far back as you'd like to go.
Top: the Xero wizard choosing how far back to fetch. Below: the trial balance import checking each month balances before anything is saved.
3. Year end and company details
A few settings shape every report. Check them early.
The year end decides what "year to date" means. The rest decide how figures are labelled and which P&L layout the company starts with.
Both live under the company's Settings, Company tab, as two cards with Edit buttons. The connect wizards ask for the same things on their Company Setup step, so if you came through a wizard you have already answered them.
Year end. Edit the Accounting Dates card and choose the month. A list of upcoming periods shows which month will carry the Year End tag, so you can see the effect before saving. Check it: with the wrong month, year to date, full year and the forecast's year boundary are all off.
Company Details. Name, legal name and Companies House number. Industry, which is required. Profit measure, which decides whether the company reports EBITDA or operating profit, and picks the layout the company's Default P&L is copied from. Currency and Number format: the currency labels every figure, and the number format follows it unless you want "1.234,56" or "1 234,56" instead. VAT: registered or not, and which quarter pattern, which the cash forecast uses for VAT timing.
Company Details, and the year end with its live preview of upcoming periods.
4. Mapping the chart of accounts
Every account points at a reporting line. The line's category decides where it lands.
Get this right and every report, forecast and document that follows is right. It is the one piece of setup worth doing carefully.
Category
The structure every report is built on: Sales, Cost of Sales, Staff Costs, Current Assets and so on. Categories decide whether a line is P&L or balance sheet, and how it is forecast. You pick from the list; you cannot add one.
Reporting line
The lines your reports show. Each belongs to one category. A new company gets a sensible default set of about sixty, and you can rename, add, reorder or archive them.
- Retail sales, in Sales
- Online sales, in Sales
- Rent, in Premises Costs
GL account
Every account in the chart of accounts points at exactly one reporting line. Several accounts can share a line. An account with no line is unmapped and its balances appear nowhere.
- 4000 Shop sales
- 4010 Shop sales, Reading
- 4100 Web sales
The Chart of Accounts page
Under Settings, Chart of Accounts, every account is listed with its code, title, reporting line, unit and the category it inherits from its line. Open an account to change its line. The Reporting Line field is a type-ahead over your lines, and the Unit field, covered in the Dimensions guide, assigns the whole account to a dimension value. If no line fits, Create Reporting Line on the row's menu makes one named after the account, in the category you choose.
Letting Actuly match for you. In the connect wizards, the Chart of Accounts step offers Get Suggestions when accounts are unmapped. It proposes a reporting line for every one, creating new lines where nothing fits, and you accept or reject the whole set. In the file import, the review step asks "Let Actuly match your reporting lines?" and fills each unmapped row it can match to one of your existing lines, tagged AI in the table so you can change it before importing. Rows it cannot match stay unmapped. Both run on Actuly's AI in the EU.
Accounts that arrive later. When someone adds an account in Xero or QuickBooks, the next sync brings it in, and unless its code matches Actuly's standard chart it arrives unmapped. The company's Overview shows "N unmapped accounts" with a Fix button, and the monthly job will not complete its matching step until they are mapped. This is the one recurring chore: check for unmapped accounts each month.
| GL Code | Title | Reporting Line | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4000 | Shop sales | Retail sales | Sales |
| 4010 | Shop sales - Reading | Retail sales | Sales |
| 4100 | Web sales | Online sales | Sales |
| 5010 | Garden furniture purchases | Cost of sales | Cost of Sales |
| 7210 | Reading store rent | ||
| 7215 | Reading store rates |
2 of the accounts in this file have no reporting line. Would you like Actuly to match them for you? Every suggestion is marked AI in the table, so you can review or change it before anything is imported.
Two accounts added for the new Reading store have arrived with no reporting line, so their Reporting Line is empty. Below: the file import's offer to match them. Its suggestions are tagged AI in the import's review table, where you can change them before importing.
The Reporting Lines page
Under Settings, Reporting Lines. Each line shows its description and category, and you drag the handle to set the order reports use. Add Reporting Line creates one: a description and a category are all it needs. Order by Category in the menu re-sorts the whole list into statement order, P&L first then balance sheet, keeping each line's place within its category. Import defaults restores the standard set if you need to start again.
Archiving a line hides it without losing history. If Split Dimensions is on for the company, a Dimension column appears here too, assigning a dimension per line.
Drag the handle to reorder. The greyed line is archived.
5. Your first reports
The job tracks the setup. The Overview tells you when the data is in.
Pressing Connect or Start manual import on the welcome panel started a job. It carries the setup through to the first monthly sync, and shows where you are.
On the Jobs tab you will find an onboarding job named for the route you chose. For a connected company it has four stages:
- Complete Xero Process (QuickBooks and FreeAgent have their own). Finish the connect wizard. The task completes itself when the wizard's final screen reports in.
- Generate GL Dimensions (Generate GL Lines for QuickBooks and FreeAgent). Automatic: Actuly builds the GL Lines dimension from the chart of accounts.
- Schedule your imports. Choose how often to sync. Monthly is the default, quarterly if that fits the company. This creates the Monthly Close and Sync (Cloud) schedule.
- Done! Its one task, Go to Dashboard, takes you to the company's dashboard.
The manual import job is longer because it walks through each file. After the imports it builds the GL Lines dimension, then a Check your data! stage asks you to set the default dimension and points you at the Reporting Lines, Chart of Accounts and Trial Balance pages. Then it refreshes the reports, schedules your future imports and finishes with Ready!
What to check first, on any route: the Reporting Lines page reads like the P&L you expect; the Chart of Accounts page shows no unmapped accounts; the Trial Balance viewer under Settings shows the months you expected; then open Performance and read a month you know well. If a number is wrong, it is almost always a mapping, and fixing the account fixes every month at once.
The Overview tab is the at-a-glance check from then on. The Current Status widget shows the sync state and the month the data runs to, and alert counts. On a connected company it also counts any unmapped accounts, with a Fix button. Until the first trial balance lands, the company only shows Overview, Jobs and Settings. Scorecard, Performance, Forecast and Documents appear once it has data.
Every month after that, the Monthly Close and Sync (Cloud) job arrives on its schedule. Press Fetch Data on its sync task to pull the latest trial balance. Checking the accounts are matched and refreshing the reports then run by themselves, and the job gives you tasks to review the P&L and balance sheet and approve the period.
Short tours. Five areas show a short tour the first time you open them: the Companies page, Performance, Forecast, Jobs and Documents. The Guide pill in the breadcrumb bar replays the tour for the area you are in.
Before the first trial balance: only Overview, Jobs and Settings. The greyed tabs appear once data lands.
Onboarding Xero
Started 1 Oct 2026 · 2 of 4 tasks completed
The Current Status widget, with and without unmapped accounts, and the onboarding job's four stages.
Things worth knowing before you start
| Topic | What to know |
|---|---|
| Dimensions and accounts first | For a file import, create the dimensions, then import the chart of accounts, then the numbers. A trial balance cannot land on an account Actuly does not know: add the accounts, then Re-check the import. |
| Ledger files and year ends | A file of ledger transactions must not cross a financial year end. Split it at the year end. If there is no opening balance for the first month, Actuly asks before starting from zero. |
| Xero tracking | At most two tracking categories, and one must be the main reporting dimension. |
| QuickBooks plans | Plans below Plus have no Classes or Locations, so the Dimensions step is skipped and reports show totals only. |
| FreeAgent | No dimensions of any kind. Use the Unit field on accounts, or a GL Lines dimension, to split anything. |
| History sync | Xero or QuickBooks history, back to the start month you chose, is fetched a month at a time and can take a while. The job keeps going on its own, and resumes after a rate limit. |
| Currency | Changing it relabels every figure, including history, and converts nothing. |
| Profit measure | Changing it rebuilds the Default P&L format and loses edits made to it. |
| Licences | A licence stays with its company. Removing it, or deleting the company, locks the slot for 90 days. |
| Demo companies | Safe to explore and never use a licence slot, but they cannot be connected to accounting software. |
In short
Connect, check the year end, map the accounts, read a month you know.
- Add a company by name. The welcome panel asks where its numbers live.
- Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent connect in a six-step wizard. Everything else comes in as files: dimensions and chart of accounts first, then the numbers.
- Check the year end and company details before you trust a year-to-date figure.
- Every account points at a reporting line, and the line's category decides where it lands. Let Actuly suggest, then review.
- Watch for unmapped accounts each month. On a connected company the Overview tells you, and Fix takes you there.
More guides
Keep going
Importing from a file
Dimensions, the chart of accounts, trial balances or ledger transactions, the review step, and re-importing safely.
All help guides
Every guide, grouped by what you are doing.
Still stuck? Contact support and we will get back to you.