Chart of accounts

Your chart of accounts is the list of categories your money gets sorted into — income, expenses, assets, liabilities. Every categorized transaction lands in one. It’s what turns a pile of activity into a profit and loss statement.

You start with a real one

LawnLedger ships a chart of accounts built for landscaping — not a generic template. Fuel, materials, subcontractors, equipment repair, and dump fees are already there, because you’re going to need them in week one.

For most businesses the default is enough forever. Add to it when you genuinely need to see something separately.

Adding an account

Open Books → Accounting, then Chart of accounts, then New account. You’ll choose:

• Type — income, expense, asset, liability, or equity. This decides which statement it appears on and cannot be casually changed later.
• Name — what you’ll pick from when categorizing. Keep it recognizable: “Dump fees” beats “Disposal — misc”.

When to add an account, and when not to

Add one when you want to see the number by itself. If you’re asking “how much am I spending on mulch specifically?”, a Mulch account answers it.

Don’t add one per vendor, per job, or per customer. Vendors are vendors, jobs are jobs, and both are already tracked. A chart of accounts with 200 entries is one nobody categorizes correctly.

Deactivating instead of deleting

An account with history can’t be deleted — the past transactions still need somewhere to live. Deactivate it instead: it disappears from the pick list and keeps its history.

Related

• Transactions and categorization
• Reconciliation