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Bookkeeping

Target Audience: Users, Stakeholders

Introduction

Payway includes a built-in bookkeeping module that automatically generates financial records for subscription and payment activity. When enabled for an organisation, the system produces double-entry journal entries for every financial event — payments, invoices, credits, refunds, and daily revenue recognition.

The bookkeeping module is designed to give publishers a complete, auditable trail of their subscription revenue without manual work. Journal entries follow the Swedish BAS 2023 standard chart of accounts and adhere to IFRS 15 revenue recognition principles.

Enabling bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is enabled per organisation. Contact Tulo support to enable bookkeeping for your organisation. Once enabled, the system begins generating journal entries for all new financial activity automatically.

Key Concepts

Chart of Accounts

Every organisation with bookkeeping enabled has a chart of accounts — a set of financial accounts based on the Swedish BAS 2023 standard. These accounts categorise financial activity into groups such as:

Code Category Examples
1510 Assets Accounts receivable (customer invoices)
1580 Assets PSP receivable (payment provider settlements)
1930 Assets Bank account
2610 Liabilities VAT output
2990 Liabilities Deferred income
2997 Liabilities Reseller clearing
2998 Liabilities Internal clearing (manual adjustments)
2999 Liabilities External clearing (migrations, external adjustments)
3001+ Revenue Sales revenue (configurable per product type)

The chart of accounts is set up automatically when bookkeeping is enabled. Account codes and names can be customised in PAP — see Chart of Accounts (admin guide). Organisations can configure which revenue accounts are used for different product types through accounting profiles.

Double-Entry Bookkeeping

Every financial event produces a journal entry with at least two lines — one debit and one credit — that always balance. For example, when a customer pays 99.00 SEK (incl. 25% VAT) for a subscription online:

Account Debit Credit
DR PSP Receivable (1580) 99.00
CR Deferred Income (2990) 79.20
CR VAT Output (2610) 19.80

This records that the payment provider (e.g., Adyen) owes the publisher 99.00 SEK (PSP receivable increases), that the organisation has an obligation to deliver the subscription service worth 79.20 SEK excl. VAT (deferred income increases), and that 19.80 SEK is owed as output VAT. The settlement from the payment provider to the publisher's bank account is handled outside Payway — see PSP Settlement Reconciliation for how to account for settlements and payment provider fees. See Journal Entries for all entry types.

Deferred Income

When a customer pays for a subscription, the full amount is not immediately counted as revenue. Instead, it is recorded as deferred income — a liability representing the organisation's obligation to deliver the service over the subscription period.

Revenue is then recognised gradually as the service is delivered, either daily (for digital subscriptions) or per published issue (for print subscriptions). This approach follows IFRS 15 and ensures that financial reports accurately reflect when revenue is actually earned.

See Revenue Recognition for details on how deferred income converts to revenue over time.

What Gets Booked

The bookkeeping module covers the full subscription financial lifecycle. Journal entries are created automatically when financial events occur:

Event What happens
Online subscription payment PSP receivable (1580) and deferred income are recorded
Online article payment PSP receivable (1580) and revenue are recorded (immediate recognition)
Invoice sent Customer receivable (1510) and deferred income are recorded
Invoice payment received Bank account increases, customer receivable decreases
Revenue recognition Deferred income converts to revenue daily or per issue
Credit / refund Reversal entries with proportional split between deferred income and already-recognised revenue
Reconciliation payment Internal (2998) or external (2999) clearing with deferred income adjustment
Reseller payment Reseller clearing (2997) and deferred income are recorded
Subscription renewal New obligation period created, extending revenue recognition

See Journal Entries for the detailed debit/credit entries for each event type.