# Chart of accounts - How does yours look? **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [March 7, 2024, 9:16am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51 "2024-03-07T09:16:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![munksgaard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@munksgaard](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/munksgaard)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 9:16am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/1 "2024-03-07T09:16:13Z")
After having used ledger for a few years, I recently decided to start again from scratch using hledger. This gave me an opportunity to revisit the accounts I have specified for my private journal and it got me thinking: What do other PTAers’ chart of accounts look like? What kinds of categorization have others found useful? And so, I am wondering if people would be willing to share what accounts they’re using for their private accounting and perhaps add a bit of rationale as to why they chose to organize things the way they did. I realize that full chart-of-accounts may 1) be very big and 2) include sensitive information for some users, so feel free to leave stuff out where it makes sense. If it makes sense, I’d also be interested in seeing just a sub-section of your accounts setup that you’re particularly happy with. I’ll start off. First of all, I should note that I am Danish and some of the categorizations I’ve made might only make sense if you live in Denmark. I’ve made a quick attempt at translating my account names to English. Second, as I said, I’ve only just restarted my attempts at journalling my family’s finances, so I haven’t had a lot of time to polish my accounts. Here goes (`hledger accounts --tree`): ```plaintext income gifts other salary ... expenses misc public transport news streaming internet cell phone other subscriptions games books decor house gifts personal care car gas insurance tax service parking loan interest other house mortgage tax insurance power gas water maintenance loan interest family ... enjoyments ... insurance ... housekeeping groceries take-away misc clothes assets car house bank ... investments ... liabilities loans car mortgage creditcards equity opening balance ``` All in all, pretty standard stuff. I’ve chosen to have my car and house as separate commodities which I can value in my price database. This allows me to model appreciation/depreciation by changing the prices over time. ---
**Author:** ![f-a](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/f-a/32/32_2.png) [@f-a](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/f-a)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 10:11am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/2 "2024-03-07T10:11:53Z")
> [@munksgaard](#): > > ```auto > car > gas > insurance > tax > service > parking > loan > interest > other > > ``` This is more detailed than my chart of accounts for sure! But that makes sense if you want to have _useful_ data to make future decisions (another car? which car? which engine? etc.). I see you keep your car in your `asset` category too, which is reasonable if depreciations are correctly set. I tend to have broad buckets (House/Fun/Personal/Healthcare/Transport/Utility bills) and if the need arises go a little bit deeper to see where the money is going. Paths of least resistance to using `hledger` and all that. ---
**Author:** ![tario](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/tario/32/9_2.png) [@tario](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/tario)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 11:20am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/3 "2024-03-07T11:20:29Z")
I’m using beancount and I have different setups for different “books”. e.g. for my personal I have a different split vs our household or my wife. This is more or less what the most complex case looks like. For me especially the split of the assets is very useful. For the expenses I started combining more and more and only leave it split where it’s useful for me (I’ll probably combine more of the car stuff at some point) ```auto Assets Liquidity Institute Account Investment Institute Account or Security ProMemoria Institute Account Receivable Withholding Tax Person Others TangibleAssets Car House Equity StartBalance ReservesHouse Income Interest Capitalgain Salary Company Name Expenses Car Deprecation Fuel Repairs BankingFees Health Doctors Insurance Household PublicTransport Travel Tax Entertainment Living NewConstructions ExtraCharges (Water, Electricity, ...) Repairs Insurance MortageInterest ``` ---
**Author:** ![shlewislee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@shlewislee](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/shlewislee)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 1:09pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/4 "2024-03-07T13:09:10Z")
```auto assets bank BANKNAME BANKNAME reserve ; bank specific name for savings account cash receivable personal sale ; second hand stuff gift cards cashlike SERVICENAME ; Company-specific points that is defacto cash depreciation ... electronics liabilities creditcard samsung ; Yes. That Samsung. installment pending payment installment misc confirmed equity opening/closing balances revenues financial interest misc incomes ... expenses housekeeping supplies utilities subscribtion entertainment personal supplies misc depreciation financial interest installment food delivery restaurant cafe snacks grocery transportation public transit intercity taxi ``` Some ommited because privacy but this is almost everything I have for now. It keeps growing but I try to keep things minimal. Any suggestions or questions?? ---
**Author:** ![adept](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/adept/32/36_2.png) [@adept](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/adept)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 11:08pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/5 "2024-03-07T23:08:08Z")
> [@tario](#): > > For me especially the split of the assets is very useful I can second this. It makes reporting “net worth” much easier, for example ---
**Author:** ![simonmic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/simonmic/32/1_2.png) [@simonmic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/simonmic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 6:01am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/7 "2024-03-08T06:01:43Z")
My top 3 levels look something like this (my deepest accounts are level 8): ```auto JS assets bank brokerage online receivable liabilities payable tax equity conversion start unrecognisedrevenue revenues cd dividends interest cc foss expenses banking books/periodicals dues education legal/accounting equipment online phone research salary software supplies tax sm assets bank cash online receivable prepaid pending liabilities ef household payable equity conversion start revenues gifts interest misc unknown income salary expenses accountingloss banking entertainment food gifts health home personalcare personaldevelopment recreation transport travel unknown ``` I recently removed spaces from the multi-word names; I might switch them to hyphens instead. More details, from [hledgermatic - hledger](https://hledger.org/hledgermatic.html#business-accounts:) > As a sole proprietor, I like to track my business and my personal life as two separate entities. > Legally we are one entity, and there are frequent transactions between them, so it’s convenient to keep them in the same journal. > But I use a top-level entity prefix to keep the accounts clearly separated. > I use two letters for these (less typing, less visual noise and keeps them aligned in reports). > So my account declarations look like this: > > ```journal > ; business 1 > account JS:assets ; type:A > account JS:liabilities ; type:L > account JS:equity ; type:E > account JS:revenues ; type:R > account JS:expenses ; type:X > account JS:assets:bank ; type:C > account JS:assets:cash ; type:C > account JS:equity:conversion ; type:V > account JS:assets:bank:wf:bchecking > account JS:assets:bank:wf:bsavings > # etc... > > ; personal > account sm:assets ; type:A > account sm:liabilities ; type:L > account sm:equity ; type:E > account sm:revenues ; type:R, taxable personal revenues > account sm:income ; type:R, already-taxed "salary" from JS, non-taxable income > account sm:expenses ; type:X > account sm:assets:bank ; type:C > account sm:assets:cash ; type:C > account sm:equity:conversion ; type:V > account sm:assets:bank:wf:pchecking > account sm:assets:bank:wf:psavings > # etc... > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![wolfish17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@wolfish17](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/wolfish17)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 1:22pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/8 "2024-04-03T13:22:25Z")
The entity prefix scheme is very appealing to me. I am relatively new to ledger/hledger (~1 year) and saw the entity prefixing somewhere in the docs but was afraid to try it for fear something unknown would bite me. I could also see prefixes being useful for fully owned subsidiaries. I am now using hledger for five entities which are not all sole proprietorships, but they are all related and I'm the only one involved in the bookkeeping. I am have one file per entity per year using close --retain and close --migrate. I could imagine that prefixes might cause issues with these close/open operations? Did you experience any unexpected issues using prefixes? ---
**Author:** ![simonmic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/simonmic/32/1_2.png) [@simonmic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/simonmic)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/9 "2024-04-03T15:09:34Z")
@wolfish17 , the prefixes don't cause any issues for file closing/opening. The only issue is that hledger can't automatically detect their type so they need type: declarations as above. ---
**Author:** ![captaincurrie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@captaincurrie](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/captaincurrie)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/10 "2024-04-03T15:22:31Z")
I split assets into two general categories ``` assets:illiquid assets:liquid ``` This makes seeing how much money i have available trivial ``` ledger bal assets:liquid liabilities ``` ---
**Author:** ![badrihippo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8baadc/32.png) [@badrihippo](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/badrihippo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 5:55am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/11 "2024-06-27T05:55:09Z")
> [@simonmic](#): > > As a sole proprietor, I like to track my business and my personal life as two separate entities. > Legally we are one entity, and there are frequent transactions between them, so it’s convenient to keep them in the same journal. > But I use a top-level entity prefix to keep the accounts clearly separated. > I use two letters for these (less typing, less visual noise and keeps them aligned in reports). This sounds like what I need too! But are your personal and business bank accounts physically separate? Right now I only have one set of accounts for everything so that makes things a bit more complicated. I'm new to PTA (and accounting in general) as of last week (!) so still figuring this out 😅 will share my accounts once they've settled down ---
**Author:** ![simonmic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/simonmic/32/1_2.png) [@simonmic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/simonmic)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 8:52am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/12 "2024-06-27T08:52:17Z")
Yes mine are reasonably separate, eg JS:assets:bank:wf:bchecking and sm:assets:bank:wf:pchecking are two checking accounts at the same bank. Tracking "separate entities" within a single real world account is possible of course, using subaccounts; it'll be a bit more complicated and discipline-requiring I imagine. It could be a good exercise, though I wouldn't call it ideal for clarity long term. ---
**Author:** ![badrihippo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8baadc/32.png) [@badrihippo](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/badrihippo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2024, 6:47am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/13 "2024-06-29T06:47:17Z")
Hmm, let me try making separate personal and business accounts only for revenue and expenses, but keeping the assets common. That's how it is in real life (I'm a working professional but working directly, not through a proprietorship or company, so revenue and expenses are what I'll need to draw up eg. for taxation purposes) ---
**Author:** ![Plumbum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/46a35a/32.png) [@Plumbum](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/Plumbum)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/14 "2024-07-14T15:12:48Z")
I live between China and the US, which makes my finances kind of a headache. Direct deposit in China is bank-dependent—when you switch employers, you have to open a bank account with the employer's bank in order to receive your salary. So, my asset accounts are messier than I like. My accounts are typically not nested more than two levels deep. I like how things keeps things simple. Queries aren't any more difficult. I think it looks cleaner, too. For me, "clean" is a motivating factor. Here's my account tree:\[1\] > **Accounts tree** > > ```ledger > Accounts Receivable > CBank CD:2023-04-06 > US Job > Assets > Alipay > BJBank > Wife's Bank > CD > 2022-03 > 2023-01 > Funds > Wife's Other Bank > CD > ICBC > Schwab > Transfers > WeChat > American Bank Checking > American Bank Savings > American Bank Transfers > Equity > Opening Balances > Expenses > Bills and Utilities > Business Services > Cash > Education > Entertainment > Fees and Charges > Food and Dining > Gifts and Donations > Health and Fitness > Housing > Miscellaneous > Shopping > Transportation > Income > Chinese Social Insurance Fund Withdrawal > Dividends > Gifts > IRS Tax Return > State Tax Return > Interest > US Job > PRC Tax Return > Refunded Business Service > Chinese Job > Tutoring > Hailey > Jenny > U.S. Federal COVID Assistance > Old Chinese Job > American Bank Rewards > Liabilities > American Bank Credit Card > > ``` I'm pretty satisfied with my expense accounts. The limitation of a flat structure has helped me classify expenses. Looking at least year's expenses, though, I found shopping, food & dining, and health & fitness made up a full ⅔ of my expenses, so they probably merit splitting into more categories for closer analysis. For one, food and dining includes convenience store purchases, groceries, and restaurants. This made sense at the time because for my job, I traveled all around the city every day, so lunch at a restaurant was a regular thing. Now, with my stable job and an infant at home, restaurant expenses are a rare thing. Refactoring couple be in order here. Shopping includes everything I buy at grocery stores if those purchases aren't edible. It also includes online purchases, regardless of the purpose of the purchase. In contrast with Simon's using top-level accounts to differentiate between the different parts of his finances, I use `Country:` tags on my income postings to generate reports for tax purposes, etc. This works well for me, but I'm not a business owner, so I don't have to keep things separate that way. I'm glad to answer any questions, and hope what I've shared is helpful! * * * 1. I confess I haven't kept up with the books for about six months—I've been in China and it's just not fun to handle the tracking. ---
**Author:** ![Quasic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/quasic/32/370_2.png) [@Quasic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/Quasic)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 7:06pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/15 "2024-12-22T19:06:15Z")
My charts of accounts are currently in a different, yet similar, format, but I am thinking of migrating. I currently have several different separate charts of accounts for different entities, each in its own controlling account for things like linking. Entity names are short abbreviations, 1-4 characters. I have a personal chart, a test chart for development, some standard charts for testcases/benchmarks, and some for family. I hope to add my own business chart soon, maybe. The standard charts are from my high-school textbook. The test chart is fuzzy and chaotic on purpose, to test limits of design. I also use temporary charts at times. My personal hierarchy is based on a simple service proprietorship, with more general categories. I didn't study personal accounting, only proprietorships, partnerships and corporations, so this might be weird, but I was intending to grow. Haha. It's similar to this: ```auto Assets Petty Cash [Each wallet, safe, coin holder, whatever, has an account] Banks [Bank accounts] Accounts Receivable [Accounts that typically owe me] Supplies [Specific asset accounts] Liabilities Accounts Payable [Accounts I typically owe] [Tracking accounts for goals] Equity Capital Income Summary Revenue Sales Interest Income Gifts received Misc. Revenue Expenses Gifts given General [A couple charities have their own accounts] Supplies used Utilities [includes phone&Internet] Medical Exp. [Tax deductible] Health exp. [Not tax deductible] Fees, fines, tax Misc. Exp. Short&Over [Other expenses] ``` Accounts Rec./Pay. are often a gray area with friends/family and I sometimes move an account between those groups. There are also Unknown accounts I left out. Comments are welcome. ---
**Author:** ![simonmic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/simonmic/32/1_2.png) [@simonmic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/simonmic)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 7:27pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/16 "2024-12-22T19:27:01Z")
> [@simonmic](#): > > But I use a top-level entity prefix to keep the accounts clearly separated. > ... > > ``` > ; business 1 > account JS:assets ; type:A > account JS:liabilities ; type:L > account JS:equity ; type:E > account JS:revenues ; type:R > account JS:expenses ; type:X > ; personal > account sm:assets ; type:A > account sm:liabilities ; type:L > account sm:equity ; type:E > ... > > ``` [ **2024-12 update:** I should say that increasingly, I make use of temporary --alias options to move the entity prefix down to second level and capitalise the top level, producing account names like ``` Assets:JS:... Assets:sm:... Liabilities:JS:... Liabilities:sm:... Equity:JS:... Equity:sm:... Revenues:JS:... Revenues:sm:... Expenses:JS:... Expenses:sm:... ``` This is mainly for compatibility with other tools like beancount, fava and paisa. But it's not a bad view for my everyday reporting too, and still in principle partitioned so if I ever wanted to separate business and personal accounting completely, I could. So I'm probably going to try it as default view shortly (with some more permanent `alias` directives), and if I like it might ultimately do a big search and replace in journal files.] [ **2026 update:** I did move it to second level permanently. Much better. Also I don't need to capitalise, hledger does it automatically if exporting to Beancount. ``` assets:js:... assets:sm:... liabilities:js:... liabilities:sm:... equity:js:... equity:sm:... revenues:js:... revenues:sm:... expenses:js:... expenses:sm:... ``` ] ---
**Author:** ![Quasic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/quasic/32/370_2.png) [@Quasic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/Quasic)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 7:38pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/17 "2024-12-22T19:38:16Z")
That's interesting. It might be a better approach for my migration, too, then. ---
**Author:** ![tlrand](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/tlrand/32/394_2.png) [@tlrand](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/tlrand)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2026, 1:15pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/18 "2026-08-15T13:15:59Z")
I like moving the entity prefix down to the second level. It reads really well and makes more semantic sense to me at least. My wife has a sole proprietorship, micro business. It would be much easier to account for that business in our primary journal rather than creating a second one. If I am using the `Assets:Biz:Bank` form, does this mean I would have to do the same for our personal finance? Or can that be implied? In other words would I need to use: `Assets:Family:Bank ` or for the family transactions (which are 95% of the flow), could I just use: `Assets:Bank` ? I just discovered Hledger and am really impressed. What a great platform and community! ---
**Author:** ![igbanam](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/igbanam/32/172_2.png) [@igbanam](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/igbanam)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2026, 11:51am UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/19 "2026-08-17T11:51:04Z")
Yeah… I do that to properly separate funds into their respective envelopes. Because of my situation — assets in multiple countries, some personal, some business — mine looks like this ```auto type:cc:mechanism:physical:virtual ``` where… - `type` are the account types we know and love: A, L, E, X, et al - `cc` is the two-digit country code e.g. `us` - `mechanism` is how the asset is stored i.e. bank, investment, receivable, and so on - `physical` is a logical envelop — most times a subset of `mechanism`; like the name of the bank — i.e. `chase` (i.e. `bank:chase`) - `virtual` is how I subdivide funds within a physical envelop An example would be `assets:us:bank:chase:mine`. Expenses follow a slightly different format — expenses and other types, really. Those follow ```auto type:cc:entity:env-1:env-2:... ``` an example is `expenses:us:mine:groceries:miscellaneous` The principle behind this split is "I hold assets for [said] entities; but entities spend." Your principle may be different, and may need another chart. ---
**Author:** ![tlrand](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.plaintextaccounting.org/tlrand/32/394_2.png) [@tlrand](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/tlrand)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2026, 5:41pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/chart-of-accounts-how-does-yours-look/51/20 "2026-08-18T17:41:55Z")
Thanks for that explanation. It really helped. I ended up going with tags, as they were enough to handle the side-hustle level of complexity.