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- Small Business Accounting
- Data model
The tables behind Small Business Accounting
Small Business Accounting ships with 26 tables, grouped here by the feature that uses them. Every record your team works with lives in one of them, and you can add fields and tables in Proto.
- Tables
- 26
- Features
- 6, plus shared settings
- Change it
- Add fields and tables in Proto
How the model is organised
Ledger and periods
Chart of accounts, accounting periods, journal entries, journal entry lines. Balanced journal lines retain their owning entry and accounting period; posted corrections preserve the original journal.
Customers and suppliers
Contacts, Invoices, invoice items, payments received, receipt allocations, Bills, bill items, payments made, vendor payees. Documents retain their lifecycle and line ownership. Receipt allocations and approved supplier destinations preserve the evidence behind each settlement.
People and expenses
Employees, expense claims, expense claim items, employee payees. Expense detail remains linked to its own claim, with separate reviewed reimbursement destinations and decision owners.
Banking and currencies
Bank accounts, bank statements, bank transactions, bank reconciliations, payment methods, Currencies, exchange rates. Imported bank rows and statement references support reconciliation without duplicating cash; currencies and rates provide reviewed monetary context.
Tax and evidence
Tax rates, audit events. Reviewed tax defaults and immutable audit events explain protected changes, decisions and confirmed external effects.
Every table, by feature
- General ledger6
- Customer invoices and receipts6
- Supplier bills and payments6
- Bank reconciliation8
- Expenses and period controls7
- Statements and tax reporting6
- Shared and settings1
- Chart of accounts
The account master. Self-parenting tree supports roll-up into summary accounts. Optional
Linked to Chart of accounts (self), Currencies (only for bank / multi-currency accounts)Entitytag on each account for the two-to-three entity case. - Journal entries
GL journal entries — manual, subledger-auto-posted, or reversing. State:
Linked to Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees, Journal entries (self)Draft → Posted → Reversed. - Journal entry lines
Line-level debits and credits with account and optional FX amount.
Linked to Chart of accounts, Currencies, Journal entries - Accounting periods
Fiscal periods with simple open/closed state. Closed periods reject new postings unless the Controller reopens them.
Linked to Employees - Currencies
ISO currency codes.
- Exchange rates
Daily FX rates for conversion into home currency. Lightweight — only
Linked to CurrenciesSpotandAveragerate types.
- Contacts
Unified directory of customers and vendors.
Linked to Currencies (default for transactions), Tax ratesType = Bothhandles a counterparty on both sides. - Invoices
Customer invoices.
Linked to Contacts (Type IN Customer, Both), Accounting periods, Currencies - Invoice items
AR lines with optional per-line tax.
Linked to Chart of accounts, Tax rates, Invoices - Payments received
Customer receipts applied against one or more invoices.
Linked to Contacts, Accounting periods, Payment methods, Currencies - Receipt allocations
Amount-bearing allocations of one confirmed customer receipt across permitted invoices.
Linked to Payments received, Invoices, Currencies, Employees - Payment methods
Named methods for receiving and making payments. Points at the bank account that clears the payment.
Linked to Bank accounts
- Contacts
Unified directory of customers and vendors.
Linked to Currencies (default for transactions), Tax ratesType = Bothhandles a counterparty on both sides. - Vendor payees
Independently reviewed supplier payment destination. Contacts own counterparty identity; this record owns the versioned destination used by a vendor payment.
Linked to Contacts, Currencies, Employees - Bills
Vendor bills.
Linked to Contacts (Type IN Vendor, Both), Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees - Bill items
AP lines with expense account and optional tax.
Linked to Chart of accounts, Tax rates, Bills - Payments made
One vendor-bill payment or one approved employee-claim reimbursement. Pay run ID groups separate payment records; it does not make one payment belong to several bills or mixed payees.
Linked to Contacts, Accounting periods, Payment methods, Currencies - Payment methods
Named methods for receiving and making payments. Points at the bank account that clears the payment.
Linked to Bank accounts
- Bank accounts
The firm’s bank, credit-card, and cash accounts. Each maps to one GL account and can take a bank feed.
Linked to Currencies, Chart of accounts - Bank statements
Imported bank statements for reconciling a bank account to the GL.
Linked to Bank accounts, Currencies - Bank transactions
Individual bank lines — inbound receipts, outbound payments, fees — matched to
Linked to Bank accounts, Bank statementsPaymentsReceived/PaymentsMadeor posted as direct JEs (fees, interest). - Bank reconciliations
Matches a statement to GL bank activity for a period.
Linked to Bank accounts, Accounting periods, Bank statements, Employees - Payments received
Customer receipts applied against one or more invoices.
Linked to Contacts, Accounting periods, Payment methods, Currencies - Receipt allocations
Amount-bearing allocations of one confirmed customer receipt across permitted invoices.
Linked to Payments received, Invoices, Currencies, Employees - Payments made
One vendor-bill payment or one approved employee-claim reimbursement. Pay run ID groups separate payment records; it does not make one payment belong to several bills or mixed payees.
Linked to Contacts, Accounting periods, Payment methods, Currencies - Journal entries
GL journal entries — manual, subledger-auto-posted, or reversing. State:
Linked to Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees, Journal entries (self)Draft → Posted → Reversed.
- Expense claims
Employee out-of-pocket reimbursements.
Linked to Employees, Accounting periods, Currencies, Journal entries - Expense claim items
Receipt lines on a claim.
Linked to Chart of accounts, Tax rates, Expense claims - Employees
Finance principals and permitted employee claimants. Approval limit constrains a separately authorized Controller / CFO decision; it never grants approval to an AP Clerk or technical Admin.
Linked to Employees (self) - Employee payees
Reviewed employee reimbursement destination; bank details remain in protected provider storage.
Linked to Employees, Currencies - Payments made
One vendor-bill payment or one approved employee-claim reimbursement. Pay run ID groups separate payment records; it does not make one payment belong to several bills or mixed payees.
Linked to Contacts, Accounting periods, Payment methods, Currencies - Accounting periods
Fiscal periods with simple open/closed state. Closed periods reject new postings unless the Controller reopens them.
Linked to Employees - Journal entries
GL journal entries — manual, subledger-auto-posted, or reversing. State:
Linked to Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees, Journal entries (self)Draft → Posted → Reversed.
- Chart of accounts
The account master. Self-parenting tree supports roll-up into summary accounts. Optional
Linked to Chart of accounts (self), Currencies (only for bank / multi-currency accounts)Entitytag on each account for the two-to-three entity case. - Journal entries
GL journal entries — manual, subledger-auto-posted, or reversing. State:
Linked to Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees, Journal entries (self)Draft → Posted → Reversed. - Journal entry lines
Line-level debits and credits with account and optional FX amount.
Linked to Chart of accounts, Currencies, Journal entries - Tax rates
Named sales / purchase tax rates. One GL account each (Tax Payable or Receivable), a direction, an effective window. One-to-two jurisdiction SMB is the intended shape.
Linked to Chart of accounts (tax payable or receivable) - Invoices
Customer invoices.
Linked to Contacts (Type IN Customer, Both), Accounting periods, Currencies - Bills
Vendor bills.
Linked to Contacts (Type IN Vendor, Both), Accounting periods, Currencies, Employees
Keys and references
Preserve canonical record identifiers, source-system identifiers and the workspace or legal-entity scope. A readable name is not a unique identity. Validate every referenced record before saving a transaction. Vendor payees and employee payees retain separately approved destination revisions for their exact supplier or employee. Payments bind that destination and its approved version before release. Receipt allocations split a confirmed receipt while retaining one original receipt identity. Derived monetary fields are server-computed; imports cannot bypass that calculation or change issued history.
Migration order
- Confirm scope. Agree entities, currencies, responsible people and imported opening positions.
- Load masters. Resolve duplicate identities and reviewed policy defaults.
- Load documents. Preserve source references, line ownership and supporting files.
- Reconcile history. Compare balances and outcomes before enabling automated work.
- Verify access. Test permitted and denied actions using actual assigned roles.
Set up Small Business Accounting your way.
Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.