Chart of accounts template (free Excel download)

What this chart of accounts template gives you

A chart of accounts template is a ready-made, numbered list of the general ledger accounts a business posts to, with each account's type, normal balance and place in the financial statements. This free Excel template contains 113 accounts for a trading and services company, maps every account to the balance sheet or profit or loss, and flags numbering errors before you import it.

The template is a starting point, not a prescription. IFRS does not publish a standard chart of accounts, and neither do most European or Canadian regulators for general businesses; some countries, such as France with its Plan comptable général, do prescribe one for statutory books. Where no national chart applies, a clear, consistent chart that maps cleanly to your statements is what matters, and that is what the template is built to give you.

What is inside the workbook

The workbook has four sheets, and the design principle is that you choose one thing per account, its class, and the template works out the rest. That keeps normal balances and statement mapping consistent across the whole chart.

Yellow cells are inputs and grey cells are formulas; nothing is password-protected, so the colours are the guard against overwriting a formula. The columns are arranged in the order most accounting systems ask for on import: code, name, class or type, posting or heading, parent and second-language name. That means the finished sheet can be saved as CSV and mapped to an import file without retyping, and the notes column records why an account exists, which helps whoever maintains the chart after you.

• How to use: the numbering logic, step-by-step instructions and good practice notes.
• Account classes: 23 classes, from cash and cash equivalents to income tax, each with its account type, normal balance, financial statement, statement section, IFRS 18 profit-or-loss category and the first code digit it expects.
• Chart of accounts: 113 example accounts (20 headings and 93 posting accounts) with code, name, class, posting or heading, control account type, parent code, an optional second-language name and notes.
• Grey lookup columns on each row: account type, normal balance, statement, section, IFRS 18 category, a code range check, a duplicate check and a parent check.
• Checks: counts of accounts, posting and heading accounts, control accounts, and four issue counts that must all be zero before the status reads ALL CHECKS PASSED.
• A summary of posting and heading accounts by type, which must add back to the total number of accounts.

The numbering scheme

The template uses four-digit codes in which the first digit tells you the account's place in the statements. Headings end in 00 and group the posting accounts beneath them. Posting accounts step in tens, so you can insert a new account between two existing ones without renumbering anything.

Contra accounts sit at the end of their group, for example 1190 Allowance for expected credit losses under trade receivables and 1610 to 1670 accumulated depreciation under property, plant and equipment. Keeping the contra account next to the account it reduces makes the trial balance easier to read and the balance sheet easier to build.

• 1000-1999 Assets: cash, receivables, inventories, other current assets, property, plant and equipment, accumulated depreciation, intangibles, other non-current assets
• 2000-2999 Liabilities: payables, tax liabilities, other current liabilities, non-current borrowings, leases, deferred tax and provisions
• 3000-3999 Equity: share capital, share premium, retained earnings, income summary, dividends and drawings
• 4000-4999 Revenue and other operating income, including returns and discounts as contra-revenue accounts
• 5000-5999 Cost of sales
• 6000-6999 Operating expenses
• 7000-7999 Finance income and finance costs
• 8000-8999 Income tax

Account types and normal balances

Every account has one of five types: asset, liability, equity, revenue or expense. The normal balance follows from double entry. Assets and expenses normally carry a debit balance because they increase with debits; liabilities, equity and revenue normally carry a credit balance because they increase with credits.

Contra accounts reverse the normal balance of their type, which is why the template assigns balances by class rather than by type. Accumulated depreciation is an asset-type account with a credit balance. Sales returns and discounts are revenue-type accounts with a debit balance. Dividends declared and owner's drawings are equity-type accounts with a debit balance. When a trial balance shows an account on the wrong side of its normal balance, for example a trade payables account in debit, it usually points to a posting error, a duplicate payment or a missing invoice, and the normal balance column tells the reviewer what to expect.

Statement mapping and the IFRS 18 column

Each class maps to a financial statement and a section: current or non-current assets and liabilities, equity, revenue, cost of sales, operating expenses, finance income, finance costs or income tax. The current and non-current split matters because it drives the balance sheet presentation that lenders and auditors read first.

IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements replaces IAS 1 for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027. It requires income and expenses in the statement of profit or loss to be classified into categories, principally operating, investing and financing, plus income taxes and discontinued operations, and it introduces required subtotals such as operating profit. The template's IFRS 18 column shows the category normally used by a company without a specified main business activity, that is, a company that is not, for example, a bank or an investment entity: trading revenue and expenses are operating, interest income on bank deposits is investing, and interest on bank loans and lease liabilities is financing. Confirm the classification with your auditor, because banks, insurers and investment entities classify some items differently.

How to adapt it, step by step

Adapting the chart takes an afternoon if you work from the statements backwards. Decide first which lines your balance sheet and income statement need, then make sure every posting account maps to exactly one of them.

• Review the Account classes sheet and add a class only if your statements need a line the list does not have.
• Delete example accounts you will never use; an account that nobody needs to see on its own should not exist.
• Add your own accounts with a code in the right range, a class, Posting or Heading, and a parent code.
• Mark control accounts: receivables, payables, inventory, VAT, payroll and fixed assets are fed by sub-ledgers and should not take manual journals.
• Use dimensions for analysis: branches, departments, cost centres and projects belong on the journal line, not in extra accounts.
• Open the Checks sheet and fix every issue until the status reads ALL CHECKS PASSED.
• Freeze the chart before the first posting, and change it only through a documented request once transactions exist.

The built-in checks

Four checks catch the errors that cause the most trouble after import. The code range check compares the first digit of the code with the digit expected for the class, so an expense coded 1500 is flagged. The duplicate check flags any code used twice. The class check finds accounts with a code but no class, which would have no type or normal balance. The parent check confirms that each parent code exists as a heading.

The template's formulas were recalculated by two independent spreadsheet formula engines, and the lookups were compared with the class table for every one of the 113 example accounts. A negative test injected a duplicate code, a revenue class on an asset code, a missing class and a non-existent parent; each was flagged and the status changed to FIX THE ISSUES ABOVE.

Run the checks again every time the chart changes, not only on the first build. Most chart problems appear a year later, when someone adds an account in a hurry at the year end, gives it the next free number in the wrong range and posts to it before anyone reviews the list.

Common mistakes when building a chart of accounts

A chart of accounts is hard to change once transactions are posted, so the mistakes below are worth avoiding at the start rather than cleaning up after a year of history.

• Too many accounts: one account per customer, supplier, employee or branch instead of using sub-ledgers and dimensions.
• Too few accounts: a single 'sundry expenses' account that swallows a material share of costs and cannot be analysed.
• Reusing a code for a different purpose after it has history, which breaks year-on-year comparisons.
• Mixing current and non-current items in one account, such as a loan with instalments due within and after 12 months.
• Treating a suspense account as permanent rather than clearing it at every month end.
• Forgetting the accounts the year-end close needs: retained earnings, an income summary, dividends and current and deferred tax.
• Copying another company's chart without checking that it maps to your own statement lines.

Country and industry variations

For Europe, add VAT accounts per rate or per return box if your return needs them, and keep reverse-charge input and output VAT visible. In Canada, businesses registered for GST/HST, and for QST in Quebec, usually keep separate payable and recoverable (input tax credit or input tax refund) accounts per tax so each return reconciles to the ledger; provincial sales tax collected in British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Manitoba needs its own payable account, while PST paid on purchases is generally not recoverable and stays in the cost of the item. In the Gulf, VAT and, in Saudi Arabia, zakat accounts are typical additions.

Service businesses often replace inventories with work in progress and contract assets. Manufacturers add raw materials, work in progress and finished goods, plus production overhead accounts. Groups add intercompany receivable and payable accounts for each counterparty so eliminations can be matched.

Doing this in Skyline Nexus ERP

Skyline Nexus ERP keeps its chart of accounts in the Fiscal Authority module under Chart of Accounts. Account types carry a classification (asset, liability, equity, revenue or expense), a normal balance, a parent type, and report classifications for P&L category, balance sheet liquidity (current or non-current) and cash flow activity, which is the same idea as the template's class table. Each account has a GL Code, an Account Nature of Posting or Heading, a Parent Account, and control settings such as Is Control Account with a Control Type for receivables, payables, payroll, VAT, inventory or fixed assets.

A finished template can be imported: the Chart of Accounts import accepts CSV, XLSX or XLS files, and its import template has columns for gl_code, name, name_ar, account_type, parent_gl_code, account_nature and opening_balance, so the template's code, name, second-language name, parent and posting or heading columns map across with little rework once matching account types have been set up. Leave the opening_balance column at zero: opening balances are entered afterwards on the Opening Balances screen, which only saves a set where total debits equal total credits. New installations can also start from a Saudi, UAE or Generic starter chart.