Chart of Accounts
The backbone of your books — a ready-made account list you can shape to your business.
Start from a template
Add account
Convention: 1000s assets, 2000s liabilities, 3000s equity, 4000s income, 5000s expenses. The Journal Entry, General Ledger and Trial Balance tools use this chart automatically.
Your chart of accounts
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What is a chart of accounts used for?
A chart of accounts decides where every rupee is sorted before it reaches your profit and loss statement and balance sheet. If rent, electricity and staff salaries all land in one Expenses account, you cannot tell which cost is rising. A good chart of accounts for a small business is short enough to use every day, yet detailed enough to answer the questions you ask most: how much went on purchases, what customers still owe and how much GST you owe.
Businesses that keep books in Tally know these accounts as ledgers, grouped under heads such as Current Assets, Sundry Debtors, Duties & Taxes and Indirect Expenses. The idea is the same: each account belongs to exactly one group, and the groups roll up into your final accounts. When your CA/CPA prepares the year-end statements or works on a tax audit, a clean and consistent account list makes the job faster and cuts down the questions sent back to you.
The chart is also where good bookkeeping habits start. Tax collected on sales goes into GST Payable, not Sales Revenue. Money the owner takes home goes into Owner's Drawings, not Salaries & Wages. A cash deposit into the bank is a move between two asset accounts, not income. Set these accounts up correctly once, and every journal entry, ledger and trial balance built on them follows the same rules.
Features of the chart of accounts builder
Six industry templates
Retail, Restaurant, Services, SaaS, Manufacturing and E-commerce each add accounts that trade uses, such as Aggregator Commission and Kitchen Fuel (LPG) for restaurants. Services and SaaS also drop Inventory and Purchases.
Sorted by code
Accounts are grouped into assets, liabilities, equity, income and expenses, and sorted numerically within each group, so 1010 comes before 1100.
GST Payable included
The starter chart has a separate GST Payable liability account, so tax you collect never sits inside Sales Revenue.
Confirm before delete
Deleting an account asks for confirmation first. Journal entries already posted to it are kept and show as a deleted account.
CSV export
Download the full chart with code, name and type to share with your accountant or open in Excel or Google Sheets.
No signup needed
The chart is saved in your browser's database on this device, and no account or login is required.
How to use the free chart of accounts builder
- 1Open the tool. The first time, a general small-business chart of 18 accounts loads automatically, from Cash in Hand to Miscellaneous Expense.
- 2To start from an industry template instead, choose Retail, Restaurant, Services, SaaS, Manufacturing or E-commerce under Industry, click Load this template and confirm. This replaces your current list.
- 3To add an account, type an account code and an account name, pick its type (asset, liability, equity, income or expense) and click Add account.
- 4Review the list under Your chart of accounts. Accounts are grouped by type and sorted by code; delete any you will never use.
- 5Click Export CSV to download the code, account name and type of every account.
- 6Open the Journal Entry tool to post transactions. Your accounts appear in its account dropdowns and in the General Ledger.
Tips for a clean chart of accounts
- Pick your industry template before posting entries. Loading one later removes accounts you added yourself, and postings to them show as a deleted account.
- Keep one account per purpose. Two accounts called Shop Rent and Rent Expense split the same cost across both.
- Record GST collected and paid in GST Payable, never inside Sales or Purchases.
- Book money the owner takes out in Owner's Drawings, not Salaries & Wages, so business profit is not understated.
- Keep Miscellaneous Expense small. If one cost keeps landing there, give it its own account.
- Review the chart with your CA/CPA at the start of each financial year, before the first entries of the year are posted.
Related bookkeeping tools
Frequently asked questions
The master list of every account your business records money against — assets, liabilities, equity, income and expenses. Every journal entry posts to accounts from this list.
A common convention: 1000s for assets, 2000s liabilities, 3000s equity, 4000s income, 5000s expenses. Numbering leaves gaps so you can slot new accounts in later.
Yes — the Journal Entry, General Ledger and Trial Balance tools on this site read this same chart automatically, all inside your browser.
Enough to answer the questions you actually ask, and no more. Many small shops, restaurants and clinics manage with roughly 20 to 40 accounts. The general template here starts with 18, and the industry templates carry between 21 and 24. Add an account only when you need that number on its own, such as Packaging Material for a retail store; too many accounts slow down every entry.
There is no edit button for an existing account. Delete it and add it again with the code and name your accountant uses. Codes are free text, and the list sorts them numerically. Do this before you post journal entries, because postings to a deleted account lose their link to it and show as a deleted account in the journal.
The chart of accounts is the list of accounts, each with a code, a name and a type. The general ledger is the record of what has been posted to each of those accounts, with a running balance. On this site you build the list here, post transactions in the Journal Entry tool, and the General Ledger tool shows each account's postings.
No. Loading a template replaces only the account list, and only after you confirm. Your journal entries stay as they are. Postings to accounts the new template also has, such as Cash in Hand or Sales Revenue, stay linked. Postings to accounts you added yourself, or to ones the template drops, such as Inventory in the Services template, show as a deleted account. Template accounts are matched by code, so postings to one template's 1210 account show under the next template's 1210.