Finance
Chart of accounts
A chart of accounts is the structured list of categories a business uses to record transactions, organised into income, expenses, assets, liabilities and equity. A consistent chart of accounts is what makes financial reports comparable across periods.
In plain terms: The list of buckets every transaction gets sorted into.
Why it matters
Start deliberately small. The instinct is fifty categories; the result is inconsistent coding and reports nobody reads. Categories can always be split later, but historic data cannot easily be re-sorted.
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