WELCOME TO

BaSIS BoardTM

What is
BaSIS Board™?

BaSIS Board is a concept map for accounting.  It is a diagram that presents financial data in a way that helps people make sense of the information. Think of it as accounting on a page. A graphical general ledger.  

BaSIS Board makes accounting much easier to explain, understand and learn.  

The name comes from Balance Sheet and Income Statement, the two key financial reports that describe anyone’s financial position and performance.  

This website offers free downloadable PDFs that you can use to print posters or reference sheets to use in your own financial conversations.
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History and Pointability

In the early 1980s Apple computer introduced the first computer that used pointing instead of typed commands to control the device. That Macintosh computer changed how the world interacts with computers. Today we all carry a computer with a GUI in our pockets.  BaSIS Board is like a graphical user interface for accounting. Now anyone can explain key accounting concepts by pointing to the diagram. This is particularly significant because all of accounting is based upon a duality, which means that in any financial situation there are always two, not one, aspects to consider.  The reason accounting has been difficult for so many people is mostly because they consistently confuse the two aspects of various financial situations.  For example, when you earn cash by working, the two financial considerations are the earning and the cash.  The earning is your revenue, and the cash is the asset you get.  Many people think the cash is the revenue.  Being able to point to where the revenue is on the BaSIS Board, separate from the cash, is a game changer.   The power of BaSIS Board lies in this pointability that the concept map enables.

How to use it

Anyone can use BaSIS Board in their work, life, teaching, personal and workplace financial conversations, meetings with their accountant, budget planning, and so on. Download the free PDFs on this page and print them out letter size or poster size. You can use BaSIS Board in any way that conforms to the licensing below. We encourage you to try it and discover for yourself how it can enhance your financial conversations. In our experience, it gets under your skin and you’ll start envisaging all financial information in the layout of the concept map. For example, you’ll start picturing assets in green at the top left of your mind’s eye and revenue at the bottom right, in orange.

Licensing

You may not charge for your use of BaSIS Board.  It is licensed to you under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, also known as CC BY-NC-SA. You can share copy and redistribute BaSIS Board in any medium or format and you can also adapt and build upon the BaSIS Board, if you give attribution to the Wealthvox (the developer of BaSIS Board), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not use BaSIS Board for commercial purposes. And if you build upon the BaSIS Board, you must distribute your work under the same CC BY-NC-SA license.

Publisher

The name “BaSIS Board” is a trademark of Wealthvox Innovation, the publisher of the diagram. Visit Wealthvox.com for information on how BaSIS Board is used in business, and coloraccounting.com to see how it’s used at high-schools and colleges.

Key aspects of BaSIS Board

  • A title line locks down the entity whose story is being told.
  • BaSIS Board comprises 5 element-blocks, sometimes known by the mnemonic  R-E-L-A-X.
  • The definition of the blocks is precise and deliberate: 
  • Revenue (US) – Value-generating activities
  • Income (International) – Value-generating activities
  • Equity – Obligations to owners/shareholders
  • Liabilities – Obligations to creditors

  • Assets – Rights to valuable things

  • eXpenses – Value-sacrificing activities
  • Top three blocks represent the balance sheet
  • Bottom two blocks represent the income statement
  • Sources & uses of funds:
  • Left-hand two green elements represent uses of funds
  • Right-hand three orange elements represent sources of funds
  • Bottom two blocks roll up into the equity profit-account
  • Coloring:
  • Green codes debit accounts and debit entries (see arrows)
  • Orange codes credit accounts and credit entries

Vision of 
financial inclusion

The fans of BaSIS Board want to tattoo it onto the mind of humanity so that everyone has a voice in the financial conversation.

Download BaSIS Board™

BaSIS Board™ Posters (USA)

Download these BaSIS Board posters for use in your workshops. This collection is for use in the United States. These versions refer to the Value Generating Activity element as "Revenue" and have 32:48 dimensions. Choose between three formats.
BaSIS Board for USA 32X48 with icons
BaSIS Board for USA 32x48 outlined
BaSIS Board for USA 32X48US solid

BaSIS Board™ Posters (International)

Download these BaSIS Board posters for use in your workshops. This collection is for use internationally. These versions refer to the Value Generating Activity element as "Revenue/Income" and have metric system A0 dimensions. Choose between three formats.
BaSIS Board for International A0-A4 with icons
BaSIS Board for International A0-A4 outlined
BaSIS Board for International A0-A4 solid