Shogo Supported Accounting Posting Methods

After connecting your accounting software to Shogo, you'll choose a sales posting method — how Shogo writes your daily sales into your accounting system. Shogo supports three posting methods, each offering a different level of detail.

This article covers what each method does and which accounting systems support it. For how posting methods interact with sales tax, discounts, and reporting, see Sales Taxes in Shogo: How It Works.

Quick reference: support by accounting system

Posting method	QuickBooks Online / Desktop	Xero	Other systems (NetSuite, Sage Intacct, etc.)
Journal Entry	✔	✔	✔
Sales Receipt (QB) / Invoice (Xero)	✔ (Sales Receipt)	✔ (Invoice)	— Not available
Itemized Sales Receipt / Itemized Invoice	✔ (Itemized Sales Receipt)	✔ (Itemized Invoice)	✔ (Itemized Invoice)

Journal Entry

Available in: all accounting systems Shogo supports.

Creates a single journal entry per day, with sales grouped by POS department or category and posted as debits and credits to GL accounts. Tax, payments, and cash operations are all included in the same entry. It's the most streamlined option, reporting data directly to your General Ledger / Chart of Accounts.

Journal Entry is the only posting type that allows tax to be mapped directly to a tax GL (liability) account. The trade-off: journal entries don't feed your accounting system's product/service-based reports — including item-level sales reports, sales dashboards, and the built-in sales tax reports. Those reports read from sales receipts/invoices, not journal entries.

Example: a daily Journal Entry posting.

Sales Receipt (QuickBooks) / Invoice (Xero)

Available in: QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Xero only.

Creates a daily summary sales document with line items grouped at the POS department or category level. It's called a Sales Receipt in QuickBooks and an Invoice in Xero — same behavior, different names. No other accounting system has this posting method.

Sales Receipt / Invoice posting populates QuickBooks' product/service reports and Sales landing page (and the Xero equivalents). Use this option if you intend to use your accounting software's sales tax reports rather than those from your point of sale.

Note: Because the accounting system calculates tax on the totals it receives, the POS sales tax report and the accounting sales tax report can differ slightly. See Sales Taxes in Shogo: How It Works for details on the two Shogo settings that affect this.

Example: a daily Sales Receipt / Invoice posting. (This screenshot shows three tax-tracking modes side by side; for the simplest example, focus on the “Track Sales Tax OFF” panel.)

Itemized Sales Receipt / Itemized Invoice

Available in: all accounting systems Shogo supports.

Creates a daily sales document with one line per POS item (SKU/PLU). Called an Itemized Sales Receipt in QuickBooks and an Itemized Invoice in other systems. Taxes, payments, and cash operations are posted as a separate journal entry.

This is the highest level of detail Shogo offers, and it's the best choice if you use your POS for inventory control. It also requires the most setup and ongoing maintenance, since every POS item needs to be mapped.

When choosing Itemized, you'll select a Clearing Account and a Payments Clearing Item in your Shogo settings. All items on your Itemized Sales Receipt / Invoice post to the Clearing Account; the Payments Clearing Item then moves the funds across your real GL accounts. The two accounts zero each other out each day.

Itemized posting requires a Clearing Account and Payments Clearing Item in your Shogo settings.

Each day, Itemized posts two documents:

A daily Sales Invoice / Receipt listing every item sold, all posting to your Payments Clearing Account.
A Payments Journal that splits the funds received in the Clearing Account across your real GL accounts.

Example: Itemized Sales Invoice (top) and Payments Journal (bottom). The two zero each other out each day.

Note: If your POS provides COGS / Inventory Adjustment data, see the Shogo Point of Sale Help for details specific to your POS.

How to choose

A quick rule of thumb:

Journal Entry — simplest setup, lightest footprint in your accounting system, and the only method that lets you map tax directly to a GL account. Pick this if you don't need item-level sales data in your accounting system.
Sales Receipt / Invoice — pick this in QuickBooks or Xero if you want to use your accounting system's built-in sales tax reports or its product/service sales reports.
Itemized Sales Receipt / Invoice — pick this if you need item-level detail in your accounting system, e.g., for inventory tracking. Expect more mapping work up front and ongoing.

For how each method interacts with sales tax, discounts, and reporting by taxability, see Sales Taxes in Shogo: How It Works.

Accounting Posting Methods