You should customise your chart of accounts to be able to organise and show the financial information that you need. You can do this quite easily in Xero and here’s how.

Adding an Account

1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Organisation > Click “Chart of Accounts”
2. Click “+ Add Account” button on top left.
3. Click the box near “Account Type” and choose the account type. Don’t know what on earth what these account types means - go to What does assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses mean.
4. Click the code field and put a unique code you want to represent that account. Ps. Code are just short hand versions of something. E.g. 090 = Bank account whatever, OMO = Old Man Out, TTFN = Ta ta for now (who knew right?)
5. Put in the name of your account e.g. if this account is to measure sales from massage services put down: Sales - Massage Services
6. Put a description in. This is for the future when you have bookkeepers and so they know where to code what to. For Example, “Use this code when an invoice when a message service has been sold”
7. Check the tax settings and choose one that suitable.
8. The checkbox next to “Show on Dashboard Watchlist” means that when you log in you’ll see that account and its balance on your dashboard. Select it if you want this. I usually use it when I want to keep an eye on a particular account, e.g. postage costs.
9. The checkbox next to “Show in Expense Claims” means that if you check that box, people making an expense claim (e.g. employees wanting reimbursement) can allocate to that account. Check if needed.
10. The checkbox next to “Enable Payments to This Account” means that in your bank reconciliation you can put payments directly to that account. Then save & you’re done.

Editing an Account

1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Organisation > Click “Chart of Accounts”
2. Find the account you want to edit by scrolling down the list of accounts. Click on the account you want to edit and pop up form will appear and you just edit it as you wish.

Deleting an Account

1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Organisation > Click “Chart of Accounts”
2. You’ll see a list of accounts. Check the check box next to the account that you wish to delete. Then click the delete button (red text). Some accounts can’t be deleted but you can archive them.
3. Click the green ok button and you’re done.

Archiving an Account

1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Organisation > Click “Chart of Accounts”
2. You’ll see a list of accounts. Check the check box next to the account that you wish to archive. Then click the archive button (blue text).
3. Click the green ok button and you’re done.