Exact Online (UK) — Balance Sheet & Profit and Loss configuration

This guide explains the Balance-Sheet and Profit-and-Loss configuration on an Exact Online (UK) connection: why it exists, how it behaves out of the box, when you need to touch it, and how to look up the exact values to enter from your own Exact administration.

⚠️ A UK administration normally needs this configuration. The built-in defaults are the Dutch RGS headings: this connector shares its Balance-Sheet and Profit-and-Loss classification logic with the Exact Online NL connector. Most UK first-level headings therefore go unrecognised — though not all: matching is substring-based, so Capital and reserves already hits the default reserves. Check your report output, then use §4 to read your own headings and enter them as described in §3.

1. The problem it solves

A Balance Sheet and a Profit & Loss are just your General Ledger accounts grouped into sections (Assets / Liabilities / Equity, and Income / Cost of Goods Sold / Expenses / Other income / Other expenses).

In Exact Online, that grouping comes from a classification scheme: every GL account is mapped to a classification, and each classification rolls up to a first-level heading. On a UK administration those headings typically follow the statutory formats — Fixed assets, Current assets, Capital and reserves, Creditors: amounts falling due within one year, Interest payable and similar charges, Tax on profit, and so on. The first-level heading is what decides the section.

The catch: schemes differ per administration, and the integration's built-in defaults are the Dutch RGS headings — the classification logic is shared with the Exact Online NL connector. A UK administration's scheme uses different first-level names, so the integration cannot recognise most of them, and those accounts fall back to a coarser heuristic or land in the wrong section.

This configuration is the escape hatch: you tell the integration the first-level classification titles your administration uses, and it classifies accordingly.

Check your Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss output first. If a section total looks wrong or empty — the usual case on a UK administration — configure the titles below. If your reports already look correct, leave every field empty.

2. How it works with the defaults

For each account, the integration finds its top-level classification heading and matches that heading (case- and accent-insensitive; a heading matches if it contains one of the titles) against these built-in defaults. They are the Dutch RGS headings, listed here so you can see what your own titles need to replace — a few are generic enough to catch an English heading (reserves, kapitaal), but most will not:

Balance Sheet

Section	Default first-level titles
Assets	activa (broad catch), vaste activa, vlottende activa, voorraden, liquide middelen, effecten, onderhanden projecten, vorderingen, debiteuren
Liabilities	schulden (broad catch), langlopende schulden, kortlopende schulden, verplichtingen, voorzieningen, achtergestelde leningen, leningen, crediteuren
Equity	eigen vermogen, ondernemingsvermogen, groepsvermogen, gestort kapitaal, kapitaal, reserves

Profit & Loss

Section	Default first-level titles
Income	netto-omzet, omzet, opbrengsten, overige opbrengsten
Cost of Goods Sold	kostprijs van de omzet, inkoopwaarde van de omzet, kostprijs
Expenses	som der bedrijfskosten, bedrijfskosten, personeelskosten, afschrijvingen, lonen en salarissen, overige bedrijfskosten
Other income	financiële baten, buitengewone baten, aandeel in het resultaat, (combined "…baten en lasten" groups)
Other expenses	belastingen, vennootschapsbelasting, financiële lasten, buitengewone lasten, (combined "…baten en lasten" groups)

The tables above show the main defaults, not the full list — the built-in sets are longer, and matching is substring-based, so a heading like Overige bedrijfskosten already matches bedrijfskosten and Rentebaten en soortgelijke opbrengsten already matches rentebaten. Check your report output before concluding a heading is unrecognised.

Two important behaviours:

Combined result groups (financial / exceptional / participations). A single first-level heading can hold both income (interest received) and costs (interest paid). When that heading appears in both the Other income and Other expenses lists, each account under it is routed by the sign of its balance: a credit balance → Other income, a debit balance → Other expenses — so interest income and interest expense split correctly instead of both landing in operating expenses. The built-in defaults already do this for the Dutch combined headings (financiele baten en lasten, buitengewone baten en lasten); for your own scheme you get the same behaviour by entering the heading under both fields — see the tip in §3.
Operating detail (Income vs COGS vs Expenses). Some schemes don't separate revenue, cost of sales and operating costs at the first level (they sit under a single EBITDA-style subtotal). When a heading isn't recognised as non-operating, the split falls back to the Dutch RGS account-number range (8xxxx = revenue, 7xxxx = cost of sales, 4xxxx/6xxxx = operating costs) — a Dutch numbering convention, so it will not help an administration that numbers its accounts differently. After that the account's Exact Type is used, which is scheme- and region-independent. Nothing is ever dropped — anything still unresolved goes to Uncategorized.

3. When and how to configure

Configure whenever the defaults don't match your scheme (sections look wrong or empty) — normally the case on a UK administration. Enter the first-level titles as they appear in your Exact administration, separated by commas. Each field is independent — override only the ones that differ; the rest keep using the defaults.

Balance-Sheet configuration

Assets Titles — your first-level Asset headings.
Liabilities Titles — your first-level Liability headings.
Equity Titles — your first-level Equity headings.

Profit-and-Loss configuration

Income Titles — operating revenue headings.
Cost of Goods Sold Titles — cost-of-sales headings.
Expenses Titles — operating-expense headings.
Other Income Titles — non-operating income (financial / exceptional / participations).
Other Expenses Titles — non-operating expense headings, including taxes.

Tip for combined groups: if a first-level heading holds both income and costs (for example one heading covering interest receivable and interest payable, or a single Exceptional items heading holding both gains and losses), enter it under both Other Income and Other Expenses — the integration then splits each account by its balance sign. If a heading runs one direction only (for example Tax on profit), enter it under a single field.

4. How to look up your first-level titles (via the Apideck Proxy)

Your first-level classification headings live in Exact's GLClassifications table. You can read them through the Apideck Proxy (any HTTP client works). You need three request headers besides auth: x-apideck-consumer-id, x-apideck-app-id, and x-apideck-service-id: exact-online-uk, plus an x-apideck-downstream-url pointing at the Exact endpoint. Always send Accept: application/json (otherwise Exact replies in XML).

The Exact URL contains your division id — the same value stored on the connection as systemDivisionId (visible in the connection settings / GET /vault/connections/accounting/exact-online-uk).

Step 1 — find your main GL scheme id


curl 'https://unify.apideck.com/proxy' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <APIDECK_API_KEY>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-app-id: <APIDECK_APP_ID>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-consumer-id: <CONSUMER_ID>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-service-id: exact-online-uk' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "x-apideck-downstream-url: https://start.exactonline.co.uk/api/v1/<DIVISION>/financial/GLSchemes"

In the response, take the scheme where "Main": 1 and copy its ID (a GUID).

Step 2 — list the classifications for that scheme


curl 'https://unify.apideck.com/proxy' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <APIDECK_API_KEY>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-app-id: <APIDECK_APP_ID>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-consumer-id: <CONSUMER_ID>' \
  -H 'x-apideck-service-id: exact-online-uk' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "x-apideck-downstream-url: https://start.exactonline.co.uk/api/v1/<DIVISION>/financial/GLClassifications?\$filter=TaxonomyNamespace eq guid'<SCHEME_ID>'&\$select=ID,Code,Description,Parent,PeriodType"

Step 3 — pick the first-level headings

In the response (d.results):

Find the two root rows — the ones with Parent: null. One has PeriodType: "instant" and a description like Balance Sheet; the other has PeriodType: "duration" and a description like Profit and loss. Note their IDs.
The first-level headings are the rows whose Parent equals a root ID. Their Description values are exactly what you paste into the configuration:
- Rows under the instant (Balance Sheet) root → sort into Assets / Liabilities / Equity Titles by meaning (activa → Assets, eigen vermogen → Equity, schulden / leningen / voorzieningen → Liabilities).
- Rows under the duration (Profit & Loss) root → sort into the P&L fields (financial / exceptional / participations → Other Income and Other Expenses; belastingen → Other Expenses; operating headings → Income / COGS / Expenses if your scheme separates them).

Only the first-level (direct children of the root) headings matter — the integration walks every account up to its first-level heading automatically. You don't need the deeper sub-levels.

Worked example (a Dutch RGS scheme)

For a scheme whose Balance Sheet root has children VASTE ACTIVA, VLOTTENDE ACTIVA, EIGEN VERMOGEN, LANGLOPENDE SCHULDEN, KORTLOPENDE SCHULDEN, VOORZIENINGEN, and P&L root children EBITDA, FINANCIELE OPBRENGSTEN EN KOSTEN, BELASTINGEN, BUITENGEWONE OPBRENGSTEN EN KOSTEN:

Assets Titles: Vaste activa, Vlottende activa
Liabilities Titles: Langlopende schulden, Kortlopende schulden, Voorzieningen
Equity Titles: Eigen vermogen
Other Income Titles: Financiele opbrengsten en kosten, Buitengewone opbrengsten en kosten
Other Expenses Titles: Belastingen, Financiele opbrengsten en kosten, Buitengewone opbrengsten en kosten
(Income / COGS / Expenses left empty — this scheme groups operating under EBITDA, so the account-number range handles the split automatically.)

These headings match the built-in defaults precisely because they are the Dutch RGS defaults — the example exists only to show how first-level headings map onto the fields. A UK administration's headings will differ, so read yours with the three steps above rather than copying this list.

5. What if I misconfigure or leave it blank?

Blank: the Dutch RGS defaults are used. On a UK administration most headings will not match, so classification falls through to the account-number range and then to Exact's account Type, giving coarser sections than configuring the titles would.
A heading not recognised (blank or wrong): those accounts fall back to the RGS classification code on the Balance Sheet (01.01–01.06 → Assets, 01.07–01.09 → Equity, 01.10–01.12 → Liabilities) or to the RGS account-number range in the P&L, and finally to Exact's account Type, which is scheme- and region-independent (with a balance-sign tiebreak on the Balance Sheet). The report still balances and nothing is dropped, but a section total may be off — which is exactly what configuring the titles fixes.