Getting started with 1C: accounting software basics

What 1C:Enterprise is, platform versus configuration, catalogs, posting documents, reports, backups and a hands-on exercise for beginners.

Job adverts for accountants, storekeepers, cashiers and sales managers often ask for “experience with 1C”: many businesses in Uzbekistan keep their books in exactly this system. To a beginner the 1C window looks complicated at first, but its logic rests on a handful of core ideas. In this article we look at the difference between the platform and a configuration, the parts of the interface, and catalogs, documents, journals and reports. We explain what it means to “post” a document and how that relates to accounting entries, walk through a simple workflow in a hypothetical shop, and cover everyday actions, tracking down errors, backups and user permissions. At the end you will find a learning path, a practice exercise and a checklist.

The 1C interface is most often in Russian, so menu names here are given in English translation or in Latin transliteration of the Russian, with the English interface name where useful. Names may differ slightly depending on the configuration and version.

What 1C:Enterprise is: platform and configuration

1C:Enterprise (in Russian, “1C:Predpriyatie”) is a software system for automating a business’s record-keeping. The key to understanding it is telling two layers apart.

The platform is the “engine”. It draws the windows, stores the data, manages users and runs the built-in programming language. On its own, the platform “knows” nothing about accounting.
A configuration is a ready-made application that runs on top of the platform. It is the configuration that defines which catalogs, documents, reports and accounting rules exist.

A simple comparison: the platform is a phone’s operating system, a configuration is an app. Different configurations run on the same platform:

an accounting configuration: chart of accounts, entries, preparation of tax reporting;
a trade and warehouse configuration: receipts, sales, stock balances, settlements with customers;
a payroll and HR configuration: employees, timesheets, payroll, HR orders;
integrated solutions that combine several areas in one database.

There are also configurations in Uzbekistan adapted to local legislation and accounting requirements. Which one is needed depends on what the business does; that is decided by the chief accountant or the specialist who supports the software.

One more concept is the infobase (informatsionnaya baza): the database that holds all of a business’s data. One computer can have several infobases, for example a live one and a training one. When the program starts, a list of infobases appears and you choose which one to open.

Modes and interface basics

1C starts in one of two modes:

1C:Enterprise mode is the ordinary user’s workplace. Accountants, storekeepers and cashiers work here.
Designer (Konfigurator in the Russian interface) is the developer and administrator mode. This is where the configuration is changed, the infobase is backed up and updates are installed. A beginner goes in only when instructed.

In current configurations the window usually consists of these parts:

Sections panel: the large sections on the left or at the top, for example “Main”, “Bank and cash”, “Sales”, “Purchases”, “Warehouse”, “Payroll and HR”, “Reports”, “Catalogs”, “Administration”. Section names depend on the configuration.
Functions menu: the list that opens when you choose a section, with links to all the documents, catalogs and reports in it.
Work area: the open list or document form.
Favourites and history: you add frequently used items to “Favourites” with the star, while “History” shows recently opened documents.

Above every list or form there is a command bar: “Create” (Sozdat), “Post” (Provesti), “Print” (Pechat) and the “More” (Eshchyo) menu. The most useful commands are hidden in the last one.

Catalogs, documents, journals and reports

Almost everything in 1C belongs to one of four types of object. Once you can tell them apart, you can find your way around any configuration.

Catalogs (spravochniki)

A catalog is a permanent list that changes rarely. The main ones are:

Counterparties: customers and suppliers, with name, taxpayer identification number (STIR), address and bank details.
Items (nomenclature): the list of goods and services, with name, unit of measure and group.
Employees (or “Individuals” and “Employees”), used for payroll and HR.
Warehouses, Companies, Bank accounts and others.

Items are organised into groups, for example “Groceries” and “Household chemicals” in the item catalog. A clean catalog is the foundation of all accounting: if one product is entered under two names (say, “Sugar 1 kg” and “sugar 1kg”), its stock balance is split in two.

Documents

A document records a business transaction: what happened, when, with whom and in what quantity. Every document has a date and a number. Typical documents:

Goods receipt (postuplenie): receiving goods from a supplier;
Sale (realizatsiya): selling goods or services to a customer;
Payment document: a payment or receipt through the bank, cash receipt and cash payment vouchers;
Transfer: moving goods from one warehouse to another;
Stocktake (inventarizatsiya): comparing the physical balance with the recorded one.

In a goods receipt the counterparty, warehouse and items are selected from catalogs, not typed in by hand.

Journals

A document journal shows documents of several types in one list, for example all bank and cash documents. The icon next to each document shows its status: posted, not posted or marked for deletion.

Reports

A report builds a summary table from the data in the infobase. It changes nothing; it only displays. In each report you set the period (from which date to which date), the company and any filters you need, then click “Generate” (Sformirovat). The most common ones are the stock balance report, the state of settlements with counterparties and, in an accounting configuration, the trial balance by account.

Posting documents and accounting entries

What confuses beginners most is the difference between saving a document (Zapisat, “Save”) and posting it (Provesti, “Post”).

A saved but unposted document is just a draft. It exists in the infobase and appears in the list, but it has no effect at all on balances, settlements or reports.
A posted document is a transaction reflected in the books. Based on it, the program changes balances and settlements and, in an accounting configuration, also creates accounting entries.

An entry (provodka) is a bookkeeping record: which account is debited, which is credited and by how much. We covered the principle of double entry in detail in the article on getting started with bookkeeping. In 1C an accountant usually does not write entries by hand: they fill in the right document correctly and post it, and the program builds the entries itself according to rules built into the configuration. That is why every field in a document, such as the transaction type, warehouse, counterparty and date, affects the result.

To see what a posted document has done, click the “Dt/Kt” button in its form (or the “Document records” command). The window that opens shows the entries and balance records created by that document. This is the most reliable way to check a document.

Document status is shown with icons in the list: a posted document has a green tick, an unposted one has none, and one marked for deletion has a red cross. The Delete key does not remove a document immediately; it only marks it for deletion. Marked objects are removed permanently with a separate command, usually by the administrator. This is a safeguard: an accidental press of Delete does not destroy data, and pressing it again clears the mark.

A posted document can be edited and posted again, and its records will be updated. But changing a document in a closed period breaks the reports, so many businesses forbid it.

Workflow example: a hypothetical shop

This example is hypothetical: Dilnoza Yusupova is learning to keep the books of a small grocery shop in 1C. The quantities are made up, and we ignore amounts and prices because the logic is what matters. The general principles of shop record-keeping are covered in the article on record-keeping in a shop.

Step 1. Prepare the catalogs.

In the “Catalogs” section, open “Counterparties” and use “Create” to add a supplier: Baraka Savdo LLC (a made-up name). Add a customer in the same way: sole trader “Hamid aka” (also made up).
In “Items”, create a “Groceries” group and add three products to it: “Rice” (kg), “Flour” (kg), “Vegetable oil” (litre).
In “Warehouses”, check that a “Main warehouse” exists.

Step 2. Goods receipt.

In the “Purchases” section, create a goods receipt document.
Date: today; counterparty: Baraka Savdo; warehouse: Main warehouse.
Add lines to the table: Rice, 100 kg; Flour, 200 kg; Vegetable oil, 50 litres.
Click “Post”. Check that a tick has appeared next to the document in the list.

Step 3. Sale.

In the “Sales” section, create a sale document: customer “Hamid aka”, the same warehouse.
Lines: Rice, 30 kg; Flour, 50 kg; Vegetable oil, 10 litres.
Post the document and use “Dt/Kt” to see what records it created.

Step 4. Stock balance report.

In the “Warehouse” or “Reports” section, open the stock balance report.
Set the period to today and click “Generate”.
The result: Rice, 70 kg; Flour, 150 kg; Vegetable oil, 40 litres.

Step 5. Experiment. Open the sale document and run the “Undo posting” command (Otmena provedeniya). Generate the report again: the balances go back to 100, 200 and 50. Post the document again. This one experiment explains what posting means better than any theory.

Everyday actions and tracking down errors

Frequently used actions

Search and filter. Type a word in the search box above the list or press Ctrl + F. For more complex conditions, add a filter in “More → Customise list” (Nastroit spisok): for example, a single counterparty or unposted documents only.
Setting the period. In a document list, use “Set period” (Ustanovit period) to show only the month you need; the list gets shorter and works faster.
Copying. Select a similar document in the list and press F9 or choose “Copy” (Kopirovat). The new document is created with all its lines; you only change the date and the quantities you need.
Create based on. From a goods receipt, “Create based on” (Sozdat na osnovanii) produces a payment document with the counterparty and other details filled in automatically.
Exporting to Excel. A generated report can be saved in Excel format with “Save” (Sohranit) or the disk icon. Any list can be output to a table with “More → Output list” (Vyvesti spisok) and then saved. For further analysis, see the article on Excel basics.

Useful keys: Insert creates an item, F9 copies, F2 or Enter opens, Delete marks for deletion, Ctrl + F searches.

Tracking down errors

If a report shows an unexpected figure, the cause is usually one of the following:

An unposted document. Look for lines without a tick, or isolate them with a filter. If a goods receipt was saved but not posted, the balance will come out too low.
The wrong date. A document was entered with the wrong month or year by mistake. For example, a September document was saved with an October date, so it is missing from the September report.
The report period. The wrong period is selected in the report, or an old filter has been kept.
A different warehouse or company. The goods were received into another warehouse instead of the “Main warehouse”, or the infobase has several companies and the report has a different one selected.
A duplicate item. One product appears twice in the catalog, so its balance is split.
A document marked for deletion. It counts as unposted and is left out of reports.

The order of checks: first the report settings, then the document list (period, status), then the “Dt/Kt” window of the suspicious document.

Backups and user permissions

Backing up the infobase

A 1C infobase is a business’s entire accounting history. If the computer breaks or many documents are changed by mistake, only a backup can save you. The main methods are:

Exporting the infobase. In Designer mode, the “Administration → Export infobase” command (Vygruzit informatsionnuyu bazu) saves the whole infobase to a single .dt file. Other users must be logged out while it runs.
Copying the file. For small file-mode infobases, the main file in the infobase folder (1Cv8.1CD) is copied, but only after everyone has closed the program.
Server infobases are backed up automatically by the administrator.

Rules: keep a copy on another drive and off the computer as well, add the date to the file name, and always make a copy before installing updates or making major changes. Every so often, restore a copy into a training infobase: a backup that cannot be restored is not a backup. General principles are in the article on backups.

User permissions

Each employee logs in to the infobase with their own name and password. In the “Administration” section, the administrator creates users and assigns them roles or access groups: the cashier sees only cash documents, the storekeeper only warehouse documents, and the chief accountant everything.

Rules for beginners: do not give your password to a colleague, do not work under someone else’s name, and log out or lock the screen when you leave your desk. If you need access to a section, ask the administrator for permission.

How to learn and common mistakes

A learning path

A training or demo infobase. Many configurations come with a demo infobase containing sample data. Feel free to create, post and delete documents there; do not experiment in the live infobase.
Official documentation. The built-in help (F1) and the developer’s manuals are the most reliable source; advice on forums may apply to a different version.
Accounting theory. 1C is a tool and does not replace accounting knowledge. Without understanding the chart of accounts and entries, it is hard to see “why” the program does what it does.
Courses. Learning with a teacher helps you correct mistakes quickly. Ask which configuration is taught.
Daily practice. Every day, repeat one workflow in the demo infobase: receipt, sale, payment, report.

We wrote about the accounting profession and how to get into it in the article on the accountant’s profession.

Common mistakes

Saving without posting. Always check for the tick.
Duplicates in catalogs. Search before creating a new item.
Typing text by hand. Select the counterparty or product from the catalog instead of typing it in the comment field, otherwise reports will not “see” it.
Carelessness with dates. Entering yesterday’s document with today’s date, or mixing up the new year’s date at year end.
Updating without a backup. No copy was made before an update or a major correction.
Unnecessary trips into Designer. Changes there affect the whole infobase; go in only on the administrator’s instructions.

Practice exercise and checklist

Do this exercise only in a training or demo infobase.

Log in to the demo infobase and look at which documents and catalogs each section contains.
In “Items”, create your own group and add 4 products to it (hypothetically: tea, sugar, salt, pasta).
Add a new supplier and a new customer.
Fill in and post a goods receipt for these products (hypothetical quantities: 40 pieces or kg of each).
Create two sale documents: the first by hand, the second by copying with F9 and changing the quantity.
Deliberately save the second sale without posting it. Generate the stock balance report and see the difference, then post the document and generate the report again.
Open the “Dt/Kt” window of one document and read the records.
In the document list, use a filter to show only your customer’s documents.
Save the stock balance report as an Excel file.
With the administrator’s permission, back up the training infobase.

Checklist

I can explain the difference between the platform and a configuration in one sentence.
I can tell a catalog, a document, a journal and a report apart.
I understand the difference between saving and posting and can find unposted documents in a list.
I can view a document’s records through “Dt/Kt”.
I use filters, the period setting, copying and saving to Excel.
If a report shows an unexpected figure, I check the date, period, warehouse and document status.
I know how a backup is made and never share my password.

Once you understand the core logic of catalog, document, posting and report, you will quickly find your feet in any configuration.

If you would like to study accounting and accounting software systematically with a teacher, take a look at our association’s free accounting programme and other training programmes. When you are ready, submit an application and our specialists will get in touch.