# Introduction - Accounts Chart

The accounts chart is the list of buckets every transaction in SorviAI Finance eventually lands in.

**Video: How the accounts chart is organised, and what every document posts into.** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7obR7gayOI

Every invoice line, bill, payment and adjustment posts to one. It is the backbone of your reporting, and it is worth ten minutes of thought before you have a thousand transactions sitting in it.

![The Accounts Chart screen listing forty-three accounts with columns for Account Name, Account Code, Type, Documents, Parent Account Name and Include in VAT Return. Sub-accounts such as Checking Account and Savings Account are indented under Bank Accounts, and a padlock marks the accounts the system owns. A filter above the table is set to Active Accounts.](https://www.neuracrm.com/help/accounts-chart/accounts-chart-list.png)

*Codes order the chart, the parent column nests it, and the padlock marks what you cannot remove.*

## How deep to go

The most common mistake is too many accounts. Every extra account is a decision someone has to make correctly on every transaction, forever. If you will never make a different decision because of a split, do not split it.

**Fewer accounts** (Recommended starting point)

- Yes: Faster and more consistent coding
- Yes: Readable reports
- Yes: Easy to split later if you need to
- No: Less detail without running a breakdown

**Many accounts** (Usually regretted)

- Yes: Fine-grained detail on the face of the report
- No: More miscoding, so the detail is unreliable
- No: Reports nobody reads to the end
- No: Merging accounts later is painful

> **Tip:**
>
> **Use the reports, not the chart, for detail**
>
> Wanting to know spend per supplier is not a reason for an account per supplier. Sales by Customer and Purchases by Vendor already answer that from one account each.

## System accounts

Some accounts are wired into how the product posts, and they cannot be deleted. You can usually rename them, but what they do is fixed.

| Account | Posted to by |
| --- | --- |
| Accounts Receivable | Every invoice and customer payment |
| Accounts Payable | Every bill and vendor payment |
| Tax control | Tax on every transaction, and tax payments |
| Inventory | Purchase receives, shipments and adjustments |
| Exchange gain or loss | Realised and unrealised currency differences |
| Opening balance equity | Balances brought in when you started |

> **Warning:**
>
> **Do not post journals to control accounts**
>
> A manual journal into receivables or payables makes your ledger disagree with your ageing reports, with nothing to explain the gap. Use the customer or vendor document instead.