BAS Chart of Accounts – Basics

The BAS chart of accounts is the backbone of Swedish bookkeeping. If you understand this article in ten minutes, you'll be able to read a P&L, talk to your accountant on equal footing and grasp what Vendion books for you. Promise.

What is BAS actually?

BAS stands for Bokföringsstandarden för Små företag (Accounting Standard for Small Businesses). It's a standardized list of which account numbers are used for what – developed by the BAS account group and used by essentially every Swedish company, accountant and accounting program.

It's not legally mandatory – in theory you could invent your own account numbers. But in practice:

• The Swedish Tax Agency expects BAS.
• The Bookkeeping Act (1999:1078) references it.
• Fortnox, Visma, Björn Lundén and Bokio all start from BAS.
• Your accountant refuses to work with anything else.

Bottom line: use BAS. Vendion does it for you.

The four-digit system

Every BAS account has exactly four digits. The first digit tells you what type of account it is:

The second, third and fourth digits give finer breakdown. For example:

• 3001 = Food sales 12% VAT
• 3002 = Beverage sales 12% VAT
• 3003 = Alcohol sales 25% VAT
• 3004 = Other sales 25% VAT

You see the pattern – 3xxx is revenue, and the last two digits tell what was sold and at what VAT rate.

Accounts a typical restaurant uses

Of the thousands of available BAS accounts, you'll actually encounter about 15 daily.

Assets (1xxx)

Liabilities (2xxx)

Revenue (3xxx)

Costs (4xxx–7xxx)

Note: Vendion only books 1xxx, 2xxx and 3xxx (plus 3740/3960) – what happens in the POS. The rest (4xxx–8xxx) is handled by your accountant.

Debit and credit – short version

Each account has two sides: debit (left) and credit (right). The rule is simple:

And the absolute most important thing: total debit = total credit in every voucher. Otherwise it can't be booked.

A concrete example

A guest buys a burger for 120 SEK (food, 12% VAT) and pays by card.

• Net = 120 / 1.12 ≈ 107.14 SEK
• VAT = 120 − 107.14 = 12.86 SEK

Interpretation:

• We received 120 SEK on the card receivables account (asset increases → debit).
• We earned 107.14 SEK in food revenue (revenue increases → credit).
• We owe the Tax Agency 12.86 SEK in VAT (liability increases → credit).

What Vendion reads from the chart of accounts

When you go into Admin → Accounting you see a list where every entry has an account number. Vendion uses these to build vouchers automatically.

You can customize account numbers if your accountant wants something different – e.g. if they have their own internal number (3020 instead of 3001). Everything can be changed without touching the POS flow.

Important: Never change account numbers mid-month. Then half the month's vouchers end up on one account and half on another. Make changes at month-end and notify the accountant.

Read more

• Accounts in Vendion – Default Setup — exactly which accounts are preconfigured
• Map Payment Methods to Accounts — cash → 1910, card → 1580 etc.
• Map Categories to Revenue Accounts — food → 3001, alcohol → 3003

BAS is a powerful language once you've learned it. And now you know a little of it.