The five buckets

An account is a labeled bucket you track a running total for - “Checking,” “Rent,” “Sales.” Your Chart of Accounts is the full list of them. Every account is one of five kinds:

• Assets - what you own or are owed. Cash, equipment, money customers still owe you.
• Liabilities - what you owe. A loan, a credit-card balance, an unpaid bill.
• Equity - what’s left for the owner: assets minus liabilities.
• Revenue - money you earn from the work: sales, fees, services.
• Expenses - money you spend to operate: rent, supplies, software.

That’s the whole framework. Assets and liabilities and equity describe where the business stands right now. Revenue and expenses describe what happened over a stretch of time. Those two questions are the two main reports, which is the next lesson.

Your chart starts blank. During setup you can let AI Import build it from your own statements, add accounts yourself, or start from a template. You can rename, add, or hide any of them later.