Learn about the chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online

A waterfall chart shows how positive and negative values contribute to a final total through cascading levels. A stacked bar chart segments the bars into colored sections to show how different components make up a whole. An area chart displays quantitative data similarly to a line chart, but the area below the line is colored to represent volume or magnitude. Our mission is to empower readers with the most factual and reliable financial information possible to help them make informed decisions for their individual needs.

Stacked bar chart

Unlock the power of storytelling and transform your role in finance with our Business Partnering & Storytelling course. Learn how to make data speak and influence strategic decisions that matter. Choropleth maps use color gradients to represent data values across geographical regions, such debits and credits as countries or states. Sankey diagrams are flow diagrams that show the flow of data or resources between nodes, using the thickness of the connecting lines to represent the flow’s magnitude.

Create sub-accounts

Excel can create any chart you want directly from your data with just a few clicks. You have full control over the color, style, and placement of your charts. And, since the charts depend on your data from GP, they will always be up to date. But experience has shown that the most common format organizes information by individual account and assigns each account a code and description.

ChatGPT Canvas for finance & FP&A

Need to compare different categories, like expenses or budget allocations? The difficulty in creating network graphs comes from dealing with large amounts of data and ensuring the visualization remains readable. Colliers is a global real estate and investment management firm with over 18,000 professionals operating in 66 countries. Their Valuation & Advisory team provides valuation reports to a large number of financial institutions, private sector and government clients. Our team of reviewers are established professionals with decades of experience in areas of personal finance and hold the direct write off method many advanced degrees and certifications. The articles and research support materials available on this site are educational and are not intended to be investment or tax advice.

Add an account statement column to your COA to record which statement you’ll be using for each account, like cash flow, balance sheet, or income statement. For example, balance sheets are typically used for asset and liability accounts, while income statements are used for expense accounts. In this blog, we share our top tips on how to build beautiful financial charts and graphs in Excel, with an insight on how finance teams are currently creating professional graphs and charts today. Most new owners start with one or two broad categories, like sales and services, it may make sense to create seperate line items in your chart of accounts for different types of income.

1. The total cost line is the sum total of fixed cost ($3,000) and variable cost of $15 per unit, plotted for various quantities of units to be sold.
2. Bar charts are ideal for showing money amounts, such as revenue, expenses, or profits, across different categories.
3. The chart of accounts is a list of all the accounts that QuickBooks uses to track your financial data.

They clearly demonstrate changes and trends over a continuous period, whether it’s months, quarters, or years. They show trends over multiple years, making it easy to identify patterns and growth rates. The choice of graph depends on the data type, the information you want to convey, and the audience’s familiarity with the chart type.

Liability accounts usually have the word “payable” in their name—accounts payable, wages payable, invoices payable. “Unearned revenues” are another kind of liability account—usually cash payments that your company has received before services are delivered. They visually represent how the budget is divided among different categories, making it easy to see proportions. The best chart for financials depends on the specific data and the intended message.

Those could then be broken down further into, e.g., current assets ( ) and current liabilities ( ). The number of figures used depends on the size and complexity of a company and its transactions. Network graphs display relationships between entities through nodes and edges. They’re ideal for visualizing connections in large datasets, such as relationships between companies, investors, or assets. They’re useful for displaying financial data with what to do when an employee resigns multiple levels, such as the breakdown of a company’s revenue by product category and subcategory. These techniques help reveal hidden patterns, trends, and relationships in the data, making it easier to make data-driven decisions.