One of the first steps to maintaining a useful set of books is creating your Chart Of Accounts.

Every business has the same Chart Of Accounts.

The Chart Of Accounts is typically organized by Balance Sheet and Income Statement Accounts.

In my Chart Of Accounts Tutorial, I referred to the Chart Of Accounts as the "red headed stepchild" because it often doesn't get the respect it deserves.

The Chart Of Accounts is a listing of all the accounts maintained in the General Journal.

Sub-Accounts are often used to divide or break a main account into further "mini-accounts

The accounts maintained in the General Ledger and the Chart Of Accounts are not the same.

Little thought or effort is required in order to set up a good Chart of Accounts.

The purpose of a Chart Of Accounts is to establish a framework for classifying, recording, and reporting on your business transactions.

A Chart Of Accounts must have coded numbers assigned in order to be used to record transactions.

The information available for a business's financial reports does not depend at all on the Chart Of Accounts.

A mnemonic code conveys no meaning to the user from the code itself.

A hierarchial coding system resembles an upside down tree.

Block Codes using number ranges is probably one of the least used coding methods when setting up a Chart Of Accounts.

Setting up and assigning your codes to the accounts is one of the most critical steps in setting up a Chart Of Accounts.

A Chart Of Accounts can range from very simple to quite complex.

A faceted code is one that is made up of group or category codes each of which identifies a specific unit of information.