Chart of Accounts
The chart of accounts is the shape of your books: a tree of accounts under the five roots — assets, liabilities, equity, income, expenses. Every posting in the system lands on a leaf of this tree.
Groups and leaves
Group accounts organize; leaf accounts hold postings. "Current Assets" is a group; "Cash in Hand — Main Branch" is a leaf. Reports subtotal by the tree, so a well-shaped tree is a well-shaped report. Each account carries a head code — the stable number reports and mappings refer to.
What you get on day one
A new business opens with a working chart: cash and bank structures, receivable/payable heads, sales and tax heads, food cost and expense categories. It is deliberately conventional — an accountant reads it without explanation.
Growing it
Add leaves as reality demands: a new expense category, a new bank account, a new revenue mapping. Habits that keep a chart healthy for years:
- Add under the right group — where an account sits determines where its balance appears in the P&L and balance sheet.
- Name for the reader — "Utilities — Electricity" beats "Misc Exp 3".
- Prefer mapping over leaves. If you're adding an account per customer or per staff member, stop — that's what the sub-ledgers are for.
Maintenance: merging and restructuring
Charts accumulate history: duplicate heads, a structure outgrown, leaves that should be one account. MahirRMS supports merging accounts (all postings of one head moved onto another, the duplicate retired) and larger restructures — these are support-assisted operations with full backups, because they rewrite where history points. If your trial balance reads like an archaeology dig, ask for a consolidation pass rather than living with it.
Deleting is not the tool. An account with history is never deleted — it's merged or retired. The ledger's job is to remember.