Books

Books is the accounting part of CreekPOS Online: quotes and invoices, supplier bills and expenses, bank statements, the figures for your VAT return and your profit, with every till sale posted for you. It comes with the Online Restaurant and Chain plans (not Retail); there is no separate Books plan, and it is not in the buy-once desktop program. Books prepares figures for you and your accountant: it files nothing for you.

#Switching Books on

1. Sign in as the owner and open Settings → Features.
2. Switch Books on and save. Books appears in the menu.
3. Open Books and create your chart of accounts in Set up Books: about 60 numbered accounts in English and Arabic, with locked system accounts.

Switched off, its pages disappear and the till carries on. Managers get no Books access until you give it: the six rights are view, sales, purchases, bank, journals and closing.

#Setting up

Five steps, each saved on its own:

1. Your business: the business type, the month your financial year starts, the opening date (when Books starts reading the till), whether the prices you type include VAT, payment terms, and the footer and bank details on your documents. Choose one of three designs, your colour and your logo.
2. Tax identity: for each branch, the TRN, address and phone printed on invoices. Books does not check the number with the FTA.
3. Cash and bank accounts, with the bank's name, account number and IBAN.
4. Opening balances: bank and cash, what customers owe you and what you owe suppliers. Books suggests figures; review them with your accountant. They freeze when you close your first month.
5. Your accountant: an e-mail invitation with the Books rights.

#Till sales in the books

Every few minutes Books posts each day's sales, returns, VAT and payment methods from the till: one entry a day (the default) or one per receipt.

• A sale made offline and synced later is added as a correction; a posted day is never rewritten.
• A customer has one balance for the till, the credit book and Books invoices.
• A few till amounts, such as loyalty, land in a suspense account at first: ask your accountant to move them.

#Quotes, invoices and payments

Send a quote, then turn it into an order, a delivery note and an invoice, in full or in parts. The customer can accept a quote online by typing their name.

• Record one payment against up to twelve invoices.
• A posted invoice is never edited: use Credit note on it, then refund or apply the credit.
• Recurring invoices issues invoices on a schedule; Customer price lists gives a customer their own prices.
• 13 currencies at the rates you enter; bank accounts stay in AED.
• Send by e-mail, or as a WhatsApp link you send yourself (then record that you sent it). Print or save as PDF from the browser.

The customer's page shows your bank details: there is no online card payment. Ask your accountant to confirm your invoice layout meets the tax-invoice rules for your business.

Invoices and credit notes to companies with a TRN can go out as UAE e-invoices through Flick (coming soon): the status shows on the invoice and on its A4 print. See E-invoicing through Flick.

#Bills, expenses and suppliers

Enter a supplier bill from scratch or from the goods you received (stock does not move twice) and see what is due this week. A supplier invoice number entered twice is refused.

• Part payments, supplier advances and supplier credits.
• Expenses and mileage; rent and other recurring costs repeat by themselves.
• Attachments keeps a PDF or photo of the paper, private and encrypted.
• A bill can start from a photo with AI invoice reading (in pilot).

#Bank statements

Banking keeps bank and cash accounts, transfers, card settlements with their fees, cheques and petty cash. Nothing logs in to your bank, so no bank password is stored.

1. Download the statement from your bank: CSV, Excel, OFX or MT940.
2. Upload it and check the header row, the date order and the columns.
3. Import. Lines imported twice are recognised, and an import can be undone.
4. For each line, Books suggests the invoice, bill or transfer it belongs to. Nothing is matched until you confirm. Bank rules handle repeating lines such as fees: Create entry posts them.
5. Reconcile: enter the statement's end date and closing balance, and finish at a difference of zero.

A 13-week cash forecast shows what is coming in and going out.

#VAT return figures

Choose monthly or quarterly returns and give each branch its emirate. Books prepares the VAT 201 figures box by box: standard-rated supplies by emirate, reverse charge, zero-rated, exempt and recoverable input tax, with the transactions behind every box. Tax codes cover 5 % standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope and reverse charge.

1. Clear the period's review items. Till sales without VAT always need one, because Books cannot tell zero-rated from exempt: your accountant classifies them, with a reason.
2. You or your accountant file the return on the FTA's portal.
3. Record the filing reference in Books: it settles the VAT accounts and locks the months.
4. Record the payment or refund when it happens.

Books does not file your return or work out corporate tax, and a filed return cannot be amended in Books. The figures are not tax advice.

#Your accountant and controls

• Journal → New journal entry posts a manual entry; a posted entry is reversed with a reason, never edited.
• Chart of accounts: add your own accounts beside the locked system ones.
• An optional second approval for postings above an amount you set; nobody approves their own entry.
• Cost centres, budgets, Currency revaluation and Search journal are there when your accountant wants them. Fixed assets with depreciation moved from Books into the Fixed assets module: the assets that were in Books came over once with the same book values, and the old links open the new pages.
• If your accountant works in Zoho Books, Xero or QuickBooks Online, the till's days, invoices and payments can go there by themselves (coming soon): see Connections.

#Month close and year end

An ended month closes from its checklist: the till's sales checked day by day, suspense at zero, VAT reviewed, depreciation posted (the checklist counts the depreciation of the Fixed assets module), every bank account reconciled. Close and reopen with a reason. A sale that syncs after the close needs the month reopened, checked and closed again.

At the year end, with all twelve months closed, Books moves the profit to retained earnings and writes the next year's opening balances. Press Continue if it stops halfway.

#Reports

The dashboard shows cash, profit, what you are owed and what you owe, the VAT estimate and the biggest expenses, with a to-do list: invoices to send, bills due, bank lines to match, months to close.

• Profit and loss, the balance sheet, Trial balance and the general ledger, for 1 to 36 months, against the months before and last year.
• Profit by branch and by cost centre.
• Business activity, Quote outcomes, Cash flow (indirect), and ageing of what is owed.
• Excel and CSV for every report.

Some reports prepare their figures first: press Continue until they show. More on the Books page.