How to Set Up Your QuickBooks Online Chart of Accounts
This is the first of a 5-step process to set up Quickbooks to create financial statements for your business.
Step 1: Setting up your chart of accounts
The chart of accounts is how you organize and report on the transactions that occur in your business. Accounts are assigned to either the income statement or the balance sheet.
This video provides background on the chart of accounts in QuickBooks.
Understanding how the chart of accounts works in QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks will come with a default chart of accounts and I would recommend making some adjustments.
Bank and Credit Card Accounts
You will want to make sure you have accounts set up for each bank account and credit card account. This will need to be referenced when connecting your bank accounts and credit card account in QuickBooks which will allow QuickBooks to pull in transactions as they occur.
How to add accounts to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online
Remove Unnecessary Accounts
Determine the accounts you will not use and make them inactive.
Make an account inactive:
Fix Account Types
Some accounts may have the incorrect type, for example they may be Other Income and Expense and you want it to be Operating Expense.
Change account types
To change the type of an account, start with the subaccounts, then change the parent account.
Standard Chart of Accounts
Here is a comprehensive starter chart of accounts designed to give you immediate clarity on your business’s finances. It contains the core accounts every business needs and can be easily tailored to your unique operations by adding new accounts as required.
