Chart of accounts
In accounting, chart of accounts means the account structure.
- Layer
- Lexicon
- Defined in
- Lexicon
- Components
- 3
Not a rule
Not prescribed by GAAP; presentation per Reg S-X 5-02. US GAAP governs recognition, measurement and presentation — not the mechanics a bookkeeper uses to get there. Anyone citing a standard for this word is citing the wrong thing.
Every citation in this system, with the text we read and the date we checked it, is in US GAAP and where these rules come from.
The lesson that teaches this
Accounting, 0 to 1 — a free course taught end to end on one month of one company, with the spreadsheet exercises to work it yourself.
Chart of accounts, in use
Quoted from the 3 documents that use the word — what it does to an interface, in the spec's own sentence.
A hierarchy. data-level rows (a chart of accounts) or data-row-variant rows (subtotals, section heads) carry meaning in their order — a subtotal floating away from the rows it totals is worse than an unsorted table.
The chart of accounts is a user-facing object, not schema.
If the chart of accounts has no COGS, the component omits the gross profit subtotal rather than showing a gross margin equal to revenue, which is a lie by omission.
For founders
The same idea written for a founder: what it costs a startup that ignores it, and what to do in a real month.
- Chart of accountsThe list of accounts every transaction is sorted into, grouped as assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses.
- Chart of accounts for startups: a starting templateA starting chart of accounts for a US startup: number ranges, the expense accounts you need, and when to add an account versus a class or tracking tag.
- Payroll journal entries, from gross to netGross wages, employer taxes, withholding and net pay as journal entries: what each payroll run books, how to accrue it at month end, and where benefits go.
- Company cards and receipts: coding, matching, reconcilingCompany cards without the month-end receipt chase: how to code card spend, match receipts, handle missing ones and reconcile the card to its statement.
What it is not called
Each of these is a real word for a different thing. Using it here is what makes a product read as though it was built by someone who has not done the work.
- categories
Components that render this
The concept is not documentation-only. These are the components that name it in their specification, grouped and stated exactly as the catalog states them.
Components that render the terms it depends on
Little in the catalog names this concept outright, but its definition is built out of others that are named. These render account.
Terms this one depends on
Also in Core ledger
Work with this concept
The calculators that compute it and the ledger payloads that carry it. A definition is where a reader starts; these are where they go next.
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.