Chart of Accounts

Your Chart of Accounts is the structure of your bookkeeping — the categories where every transaction lands. ERPNext seeds it from a Dutch template at install; you customise from there.

What you see

Chart of Accounts shows a tree:

Application of Funds (Assets)
   Current Assets
       Cash
       Bank
       Debiteuren (Accounts Receivable)
       BTW te Vorderen
       ...
   Fixed Assets
       ...
Sources of Funds (Liabilities + Equity)
   Current Liabilities
       Crediteuren (Accounts Payable)
       BTW te Betalen
       ...
   Equity
       Owner's Equity
       Retained Earnings
Income
   Sales
   Other Income
Expenses
   Operating Expenses
   ...

The Dutch template comes with BTW categories pre-configured (te Vorderen, te Betalen, hoge / lage / 0% tarief). For most companies, the seeded structure is fine as-is.

Adding an account

For a new bank account, expense category, or income type:

Chart of Accounts → New
Parent Account — which branch this lives under
Account Name — what it's called
Account Type — Bank / Receivable / Payable / Tax / Expense / Income / etc.
Is Group — Yes if this account will hold child accounts; No if it's an end-leaf where transactions post

Important account types

Type	What
Bank	Each bank account you hold
Cash	Petty cash
Receivable	Debiteuren — money customers owe you
Payable	Crediteuren — money you owe suppliers
Tax	BTW accounts (te vorderen / te betalen / suspended)
Stock	Inventory value accounts
Cost of Goods Sold	What it cost you to make the sales you've recorded

Read-only vs postable

Group accounts (like "Current Assets", "Sales") are read-only summaries — you can't post directly to them. Ledger accounts (the leaves of the tree) are where every transaction actually lands.

Renaming and reorganising

You can rename accounts and move them between parents. Already-posted transactions follow. But: don't change an account's Type after transactions are posted — it confuses reports.

Multiple Companies

Each Company has its own Chart of Accounts. They can share the same template but evolve separately as each Company's books require.