Setting up a new gym's books before opening day
What a new gym should set up in Achekam before opening: workspace and country, VAT number, payment gateway, the till and products, payroll.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The equipment is bolted down, the mirrors are up and the opening-day flyers have gone out. What is usually not ready is the money side: how members will pay, where the takings will go, whether the first invoice will carry the right VAT, and who will run payroll for the instructors at the end of the first month.
Sorting that out after opening means fixing live records while members are queuing. Sorting it out before means the first sale and the first invoice land in the right place. This article goes through what to set up in Achekam, in the order that saves rework, and ends with a checklist you can tick off.
The workspace, its country and its administrator
Sign up as a business rather than as an accounting firm. You choose your country, and the gym gets its own workspace, its own books and its own web address on the Achekam domain. The person who signs up becomes the administrator.
Two decisions matter here:
- The country. It drives VAT behaviour and, later, the payroll rules. Choose the country the gym trades and employs in.
- The administrator. Settings such as payment gateway credentials can only be saved by an administrator. Make it the owner or the person who will genuinely run the back office, not a temporary helper.
When the books first open, a standard chart of accounts is created. Accounts can be added, renamed or switched off, so tidy it up before anything is posted: rename accounts to words your team uses and switch off the ones a gym will never need.
A business's menu leaves out the accounting-firm areas, so you will not see engagements or audit screens. The Commerce & POS menu stays hidden until the gym holds the commerce add-on.
Your VAT number, only if you are registered
If the gym is registered for VAT, enter the registration number in Settings under Firm Profile. Documents made by the server print it, and they are titled Tax Invoice only when a VAT number is set.
If you are not registered, leave it blank, and be careful with invoice lines. Achekam does not check whether a business is VAT-registered before charging VAT on its documents, so an unregistered gym must make sure its lines carry no VAT.
In Nigeria and Kenya, activate your country pack under Settings, Jurisdiction & regulators. After that, each invoice line takes a tax code (standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge), and only standard lines carry VAT at the approved rate for your country.
Payment gateway credentials
Members will want to pay invoices online and, at the desk, by scanning a code. Both rely on the gym's own payment gateway account. An administrator enters the gateway credentials in Settings under Payment Gateways & Checkout and can test the connection with a real call to the gateway. Other users can view the settings but cannot save them.
Open the gateway account early. Providers usually ask for documents from you before they switch on live payments, and that can take a while. The full walk-through is in setting up your payment gateway.
The till and your products
A gym with a front desk selling day passes, drinks and supplements needs the Point of Sale add-on. With it, the till appears under Commerce & POS; without it, the till is neither visible nor usable, because the server refuses till requests from a business that does not hold the add-on.
Products are created in the Item Master in the Accounting menu, with SKU, name, category, selling price, cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. Take your time over this one. No screen lets a business change a product's price, cost or VAT treatment after creating it, or switch it off. Build the list from your supplier invoices and price board, check it with a second person, then create the items.
Decide before opening which memberships you will invoice and which you will ring up at the till; membership at the till or on an invoice sets out the difference.
Setting up the employer before the first payroll
Instructors, cleaners and reception staff need paying at the end of month one. A business sets itself up as an employer and runs payroll under South African, Nigerian or Kenyan rules, chosen when the employer is created, so pick the right country at that step.
Plan for two people. A pay run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it, and nobody can approve a run that pays themselves. A one-person office cannot run payroll alone; the owner and a manager, or the owner and the accountant, usually share it.
Banking, credit control and your accountant
- Bank statements. Import them as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053. Each import is checked so the opening balance plus movements equals the closing balance. Bring in the first statement as soon as the account opens.
- Credit control. It is on for new workspaces and e-mails overdue reminders and monthly statements to members with a balance. It needs working e-mail settings, so send yourself a test invoice before members get real ones.
- Your accountant. Appoint your firm by its Achekam address or firm code, as accountant, auditor, tax practitioner, payroll provider or adviser, with an access level. The firm accepts or declines.
South African gyms deciding whether to register for VAT can read SARS's page on who may and who must register for VAT, which sets out compulsory and voluntary registration and what the application needs.
A pre-opening checklist
| Done | Item |
|---|---|
| ☐ | Workspace created in the right country, with the right administrator |
| ☐ | Chart of accounts tidied: names your team understands |
| ☐ | VAT number in Settings, or invoice lines set with no VAT if unregistered |
| ☐ | Nigeria or Kenya: country pack activated |
| ☐ | Gateway credentials saved and the connection tested |
| ☐ | Point of Sale add-on in place and the till opened once as a test |
| ☐ | Products created in the Item Master, checked by a second person |
| ☐ | Employer created under the right country, with two payroll people |
| ☐ | First bank statement imported |
| ☐ | Test invoice e-mailed to yourself |
| ☐ | Accountant appointed |
When you later replace or sell machines, trading in gym equipment picks up the story. For now, work down the list in order. A gym that opens with its money side ready spends opening week on members, not on fixing records.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
