The Chart of Accounts is the complete list of all the company’s accounts and balances. In QuickBooks Online, it represents and organizes the company's assets, liabilities, income, and expenses.
You can tell how much money your company has, how much money it owes, and how much money is coming in and out by looking at your chart of accounts.
Account Types
There are 2 main types of accounts in QuickBooks Online; a balance sheet account and an income and expense account.
Balance sheet accounts
Balance sheet accounts include the business's assets such as bank accounts and equipment, liabilities such as credit cards and bank loans, and equity, which represents the health of your business. Each balance sheet account has its own register to track the transactions involving the accounts and their own balances. These accounts also appear on your balance sheet report, which is one of the main financial reports.
Here are the standard balance sheet accounts:
- Accounts Payable A/P
- Accounts Receivable A/R
- Bank
- Credit Card
- Equity
- Asset, Current Asset, Fixed Asset
- Other Current Liability or Long Term Liability
Income and expense accounts
Income accounts track the source of your company's income while expense accounts track what your company is spending. Unlike balance sheet accounts, income and expense accounts do not have their own registers:
- Income/ Other Income
- Expense/ Other Expense
For most businesses, the standard Chart of Accounts provided during the initial QuickBooks Online account setup will meet your needs, but there may be times when you'll need to add to, edit, or delete accounts from your chart of accounts due to the changing requirements of your business.
Add an account
- Navigate to Transactions and select Chart of accounts (Take me there).
- Select New.
- Select the appropriate account type from the Account Type dropdown menu.
- Select the appropriate Detail Type from the dropdown menu.
- Fill in all remaining fields and select Save and Close.
Edit an account
- Navigate to Transactions and select Chart of accounts (Take me there).
- Locate the account you'd like to edit.
- Select the dropdown arrow next to Account history or Run report (depending on the account).
- Select Edit.
- Make all desired changes and select Save and Close.
Edit an account's history
- Navigate to Transactions and select Chart of accounts (Take me there).
- Locate the account you'd like to edit.
- Select Account history.
- Select the transaction you'd like to edit.
- From here you can make changes to all available fields and select either Delete, Edit, Cancel, or Save.