Video: What is the Chart of Accounts?

QuickBooks for Mac didn’t invent the Chart of Accounts, but we can help you use it to get more insight into your business. Here’s a brief introduction to your Chart of Accounts.

Video script:

The Chart of Accounts is a complete list of a business’s accounts and their balances. You use it to track how much money your company has and owes, as well as how much money is coming in and going out. All of your QuickBooks transactions are associated with an account, and all your accounts are listed in your Chart of Accounts.

One misconception that new QuickBooks users sometimes have is that their Chart of Accounts lists only their bank accounts. It’s true that your Chart of Accounts lists your bank accounts, however; it contains other types of accounts as well. Some examples of this include: credit card, liability, and income and expense accounts.

When you first create your company file, QuickBooks sets up a standard set of accounts based on the industry you’re in, but there may be times when you’ll need to add, edit, or delete accounts from your Chart of Accounts due to the changing requirements of your business. You can modify the accounts QuickBooks set up for you in the Chart of Accounts.

Here’s how:

  • Using the buttons at the bottom of the window, you can add new accounts, create sub-accounts, and edit existing accounts.
  • Print your list of accounts by navigating to File, and Print Accounts List.
  • To view all the transactions associated with an account, double-click on the account or click the button at the bottom of the window to see its register.
  • You can re-order the accounts in the list by clicking on the Action menu and checking Enable Custom Ordering. When Enable Custom Ordering is unchecked, the list uses the default ordering of account names.
  • Then, you can drag and drop account names where you want them to appear in the list. Keep in mind that accounts must stay together with their account type. For instance, this Checking account can be re-ordered within the Bank accounts, but it must stay with other Bank accounts.
  • Click the arrow beside an account to view its sub-accounts. You can also choose Flat View from the Action menu to view all the accounts with their sub-accounts.
  • Use the View menu to change the view to show only active or inactive accounts.

You can also post your own question to the QuickBooks for Mac community.