Chart of Accounts Template: Structure, Numbering and Standards Compared

A chart of accounts template is a ready-made list of numbered accounts, grouped by assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses, that you install instead of designing your ledger from scratch. A good template follows the reporting standard you use, leaves room to grow, and tags each account so financial statements can be produced automatically.

This guide covers how charts are structured, the numbering schemes used under IFRS, US GAAP, the European PCG and the GCC charts, which accounts you can post to, why categories matter more than codes, and how to keep the chart small by using parties, cost centers and projects. At the end there is a side-by-side comparison of the templates that ship with Ledgeriano.

#Chart of accounts at a glance

#What is a chart of accounts?

A chart of accounts is the complete, coded list of every account a business uses to record transactions in its general ledger. Each journal entry line points to exactly one account in it, so the chart decides what your trial balance, balance sheet and income statement can show.

Every account has at least four properties:

• Code: a number that fixes its position, for example 1103.
• Name: what it holds, for example "Bank, main operating account".
• Type: asset, liability, equity, revenue or expense. The type sets the normal balance: assets and expenses normally carry a debit balance; liabilities, equity and revenue a credit balance.
• Parent: the group it rolls up into, which creates the tree.

The chart is not the ledger itself. It is the skeleton the ledger hangs on. That is why changing it in the middle of a year is painful and why choosing a sensible template on day one pays off. If double entry is new to you, start with our guide to double-entry journal entries.

#Chart of accounts structure: groups and postable accounts

A chart of accounts is a tree: top-level classes branch into groups and subgroups, and only the leaves at the bottom receive postings. Group accounts exist to total their children; postable accounts hold the actual debits and credits.

Here is one branch of the IFRS template in Ledgeriano:

In Ledgeriano an account becomes a group automatically as soon as it has children, and journal lines can only use postable accounts. Two safety rules protect the tree once money has moved:

1. You cannot add a child under an account that already has journal lines, because its balance would suddenly be split in a way the history does not support.
2. You cannot change the type of an account that has lines, or delete an account that has lines, children or a system role. Deactivate it instead, which blocks new postings but keeps history intact.

The trial balance can be viewed at any depth, so the same tree gives you a one-page summary at class level or a full list at account level.

#Account numbering schemes by standard

Account numbering is a convention, not a law, but most countries and standards follow a familiar pattern. The first digit almost always identifies the class, and the remaining digits narrow it down.

#IFRS chart of accounts (1xxx to 8xxx)

IFRS does not publish a chart, so IFRS reporters use a logical layout that mirrors the statements. Ledgeriano's IFRS template uses eight classes with four-digit postable codes:

#US GAAP chart of accounts (1000 to 9999)

The classic American layout uses four-digit numbers in blocks of a thousand: 1000s assets, 2000s liabilities, 3000s equity, 4000s revenue, 5000s cost of goods sold, 6000s operating expenses, 7000s other income, 8000s other expenses and 9000s income taxes. Ledgeriano's US GAAP template follows that pattern: 1000 Cash on hand, 1020 Operating checking account, 1100 Accounts receivable (trade), 1230 Merchandise inventory, 3000 Common stock, 3100 Retained earnings, 7030 Foreign currency gain (loss). Numbers step in tens, so 1010, 1020 and 1030 leave space for new accounts in between.

#European PCG classes (1 to 7, plus 8)

The French Plan Comptable Général, used in similar forms across continental Europe and francophone Africa, groups accounts into classes by nature rather than by statement: class 1 equity and long-term liabilities, 2 fixed assets, 3 inventories, 4 third parties, 5 financial accounts, 6 expenses and 7 revenue. Codes are short and famous: 401 suppliers, 411 customers, 4456 deductible VAT, 4457 VAT collected, 512 bank, 53 cash, 707 sales of merchandise. Ledgeriano adds class 8 for technical accounts (890 opening balance, 891 income summary).

#GCC charts with VAT and zakat (six-digit codes)

Businesses in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the other Gulf states usually report under IFRS but need extra accounts for VAT and, in Saudi Arabia, zakat. Ledgeriano's GCC template keeps the IFRS class order and uses six-digit codes such as 110101, which leaves room for many accounts at every level of the tree. Detail such as individual customers or branches still belongs in dimensions, covered in the section below.

The VAT block is the part most teams use every day: 110405 Input VAT recoverable, 210301 Output VAT payable, 210302 VAT on imports (reverse charge) and 210303 VAT settlement account, with 210304 Zakat payable and 810101 Zakat expense next to them. The UAE VAT accounting guide walks through a full quarter of entries on these accounts, and the Zakat accounting guide shows how the equity and provision accounts feed the Zakat base.

#How should chart of accounts numbers be structured?

Use a fixed number of digits, give the first digit to the class and leave gaps between siblings. A four-digit scheme such as 1000 to 9999 gives each class a thousand codes; stepping new accounts in tens (1010, 1020, 1030) leaves nine free codes between neighbours for accounts you have not thought of yet. If you expect deep trees, as groups with many bank accounts or tax accounts often do, a six-digit scheme (class, group, sub-group, account) avoids renumbering later.

#Categories: why they matter more than codes

A category tells the software what an account means for reporting, independent of its code. Codes help humans find accounts; categories let the system build the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement without a manual mapping.

Ledgeriano uses these categories, grouped by type:

Each category answers three questions at once: is it current or non-current, where does it sit on the statement, and which cash flow section does it belong to. Receivables, for example, are current, appear under current assets and feed working capital in operating cash flow. PPE is non-current and belongs to investing activities. Long-term debt is non-current and belongs to financing.

Get the category right and the code barely matters. A new bank account coded 1109 but left in the "other current asset" category will make your cash flow statement stop reconciling, because its movements are treated as working capital instead of cash.

The financial statements guide shows how those categories turn into report lines.

#Contra accounts

A contra account sits under a normal account but carries the opposite balance, reducing it on the statements. The classic example is accumulated depreciation: it lives among assets but has a credit balance, so buildings at cost minus accumulated depreciation gives the carrying amount.

Common contra accounts in the templates:

• 1221 Accumulated depreciation, buildings (IFRS), credit balance under assets
• 1120 Allowance for doubtful accounts (US GAAP), credit balance under receivables
• 3203 Dividends declared (IFRS), debit balance under equity
• 108 Owner's drawings and 119 Accumulated losses brought forward (PCG), debit balances under equity

When an account is marked as contra in Ledgeriano, its normal balance flips automatically, so a credit balance on accumulated depreciation is shown as a reduction of assets rather than as an error.

#Use parties, cost centers and projects instead of thousands of accounts

The best charts are short. Instead of creating one receivable account per customer or one expense account per branch, keep a single account and tag each journal line with a dimension. Ledgeriano has three:

1. Parties (customers and suppliers). One trade receivables account (1111) with a party on each line replaces hundreds of customer accounts. Accounts such as receivables and payables are marked "requires party", so a line cannot be saved without one, and the party balances report lists what each customer owes.
2. Cost centers (branches, departments). Tag expense lines with "Downtown branch" or "Sales team" and filter the income statement by cost center. An account can be set to require a cost center.
3. Projects (contracts, jobs, campaigns). Tag revenue and costs to see profit per project without duplicating the chart.

Compare the two approaches for a business with 400 customers, 6 branches and 12 expense types:

In Ledgeriano this detail layer is shared across accounts, so the same customer can appear on receivables, notes receivable and advances received.

#System accounts and roles

Some accounts have a system role that tells Ledgeriano which account to use in automated postings. They are created by the template, marked as system accounts, and cannot be deleted.

Other roles mark the default cash, bank, receivable, payable, sales, cost of goods sold, VAT, salaries, depreciation and bank charges accounts, which workflows and integrations can reference. The closing process in the year-end closing guide depends on the income summary and retained earnings roles, so keep them in place when you customise a template.

#Will IFRS 18 change my chart of accounts?

IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements replaces IAS 1 for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027, with comparatives restated. It classifies income and expenses into operating, investing and financing categories (plus income taxes and discontinued operations) and adds two required subtotals: operating profit, and profit before financing and income taxes. Account codes do not have to change, but each income and expense account must map clearly to one category. In practice that means splitting accounts that mix categories, for example separating interest income on surplus cash from interest earned as part of the main business activity, and separating foreign exchange differences by the category of the item that produced them. Review the mapping before your first IFRS 18 year; the IFRS vs US GAAP guide summarises how this compares with US GAAP.

#How to choose a chart of accounts template

Choose the template that matches the standard you report under and the country you file in, then trim it rather than building from zero. When you create a business in Ledgeriano, the default follows your accounting standard: US GAAP installs the US GAAP chart, GCC IFRS installs the GCC chart, European local GAAP installs the PCG chart, and IFRS installs the general IFRS chart (or the GCC chart for Middle East businesses).

Counts include group accounts. You can compare the standards in more detail on the standards page.

#Customising without breaking things

• Add accounts inside existing groups and keep the same code length.
• Leave gaps (step by 10 or by 1 with room to spare) so related accounts stay together.
• Do not encode dimensions in codes. "4101-NYC" for New York sales belongs in a cost center.
• Set the category on every new account before posting to it.

#Copying the chart to a new fiscal year

In Ledgeriano each fiscal year has its own copy of the chart, which lets you restructure next year without rewriting last year's history. When you create a new year you choose one of three sources: copy the previous year's chart (the default once a previous year exists), install a fresh template, or start empty.

Closing a year creates the next year automatically with the chart copied, then generates the opening entry by matching account codes. Any balance whose code no longer exists in the new chart is posted to the opening balance account (3301 in the IFRS template), so nothing gets lost, but you should reclassify it. The practical rule: renumber accounts before you close, or accept a clean-up entry afterwards.

#Chart of accounts mistakes to avoid

1. Too many accounts. Hundreds of customer or branch accounts make the trial balance unreadable. Use dimensions.
2. Missing or wrong categories. Statements are built from categories, so a wrong one moves an amount to the wrong line.
3. Posting to group accounts. Postings belong on leaves; groups only total.
4. Renumbering mid-year. It breaks comparatives. Plan changes for the start of a fiscal year.
5. Deleting instead of deactivating. Deactivation stops new postings and keeps the audit trail.
6. One chart for several companies. Each business in a group should keep its own chart; account maps in intercompany workflows connect them.

Your chart is also the vocabulary your API integrations use: the developer documentation shows how entries reference accounts by code, which is one more reason to keep codes stable. For definitions of terms such as contra account and normal balance, see the accounting glossary, and for the monthly routine that keeps every account reconciled, the month-end close checklist.