Learning about the Chart of Accounts

Your Chart of Accounts is simply the list of accounts that your organization uses to track funds and financial activity. It's called a "Chart of Accounts" by accounting convention but it isn't really a "chart" in the typical sense, so you might prefer to think of it as a "List of Accounts." 

Already know what a Chart of Accounts is?? Check out this article on working with the Chart of Accounts

What are the different account types?

In nonprofit accounting, you will have five basic types of accounts:

• ASSET
  • Things that you own that have quantifiable value, like cash, investments, real estate, or equipment. Assets also include less tangible things like money that people owe you (i.e. accounts receivable) and sometimes can even include wholly intangible things like intellectual property. 
• LIABILITY
  • Money that you owe to others, such as accounts payable (i.e. bills that haven't been paid yet) or a balance on a credit card. 
• NET ASSET
  • Net assets are what's leftover when you subtract your liabilities from your assets. They represent the "bottom line" of an organization's financial position. If you have $100 in assets and $75 in liabilities, then you have $25 in net assets.
• INCOME
  • Income accounts track financial activity related to your organization's sources of revenue or income (such as donations or sales). Unlike the three types described above (which describe your financial position at a given moment in time), income accounts describe things that happen (i.e. financial transactions/events) that cause changes to your financial position. 
• EXPENSE
  • Expense accounts track financial activity related to your organization's spending and what it costs to do your work and deliver your programs and services. 

Although the five account types listed above cover all of the standard accounting scenarios, in MonkeyPod, you may occasionally encounter a sixth account type as well:

• VIRTUAL - Virtual accounts don't have any real meaning in an accounting sense. They will never show up on your financial statements or tax returns. You can't even record transactions to them directly. But virtual accounts are sometimes useful for special transactions that MonkeyPod needs to track even though they don't impact your official books. For example, if you import a donor's donation history from before you started bookkeeping in MonkeyPod, we might use virtual accounts to ensure those donations don't distort your official financial records.

What is a subtype?

Each account also has a "subtype" that describes it a bit more specifically. For example, an income account will have either the "Contributed" subtype (for sources of contributed revenue like donations or grants), the "Earned" subtype (for sources of earned revenue like ticket sales or contract fees), or the "Other" subtype (for things like investment income and other non-operating sources).

Where do I find my Chart of Accounts?

Your MonkeyPod comes loaded with the Chart of Accounts recommended by the National Council of Nonprofits for small nonprofit organizations, so go ahead and take a look by going to My MonkeyPod and then under MonkeyPod Setup click on Chart of Accounts.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is the chart of accounts under My MonkeyPod the same as the chart of accounts under Finance?
   1. Yes! We wanted to provide a way for people to find the chart of accounts from multiple places.