We know that when Xero partners have clients to set up in Xero, the one-size-fits-all chart of accounts isn’t always ideal. Now you can onboard faster and more accurately with the new chart of accounts templates in Xero HQ. This means you can now spend more time advising your clients during this difficult period.

The templates in Xero HQ speed up chart of accounts creation, free up time, and help reduce errors. They’re now available in South Africa.

Pre-defined templates cover main business types

When you go into ‘Chart of Accounts’ under the ‘Practice’ tab in Xero HQ, you’ll see a read-only library of templates. These are specialised by business type. Click on a template and you’ll see the chart of accounts within it.

We worked with Xero partner consultants to validate the templates and accounts within each business type. For instance, in South Africa, the templates are for a company, trust, partnership and sole trader – all either VAT or No VAT.

Codes are pre-mapped to Xero reports

Importantly, the templates are pre-mapped to Xero report codes so you can be confident that standard Xero reports will be correct straight away. If you do need to add or remove accounts  or report codes from an individual client’s chart of accounts, that remains easy to do from within their Xero account settings.

How to access chart of accounts templates

You can choose a chart of accounts template when you onboard clients in Xero. After adding the client to Xero HQ, click ‘Connect to Xero’. You can then select a template from the drop-down list when you’re filling in the client’s details. If you are unsure what to use, there’s a link beside the drop-down list to the chart of accounts library so you can easily review the accounts in each template.

Please note that you can’t overwrite an existing client’s chart of accounts with a new template. Also, if you set up a client outside of Xero HQ, you won’t have the option to choose a template.

In the future, you’ll be able to add and customise your own templates – we’ll keep you posted on those features as well. For more details about the templates, see this Xero Central article.

‍