Chart of Accounts Maintenance Checklist

Export the full COA from QBO, Xero, or NetSuite to CSV with account number, name, type, detail type, sub-account parent, and balance. Save a dated copy to the workpaper folder so changes during this run are reversible.

Run a transaction-detail-by-account report for the trailing 12 months. Accounts with zero activity and zero balance are merge or deactivate candidates. Accounts with activity but zero ending balance need a reason check before deactivation.

Identify near-duplicates ('Office Supplies' vs 'Office Expense', 'Meals' vs 'Meals & Entertainment'). Build a merge map: source account, target account, reason. QBO merge is irreversible — confirm history is acceptable in the surviving account before executing.

Departments, locations, and projects belong on classes, locations, or tags — not in the account name ('Travel - Sales', 'Travel - Engineering'). Move dimensional reporting off the COA to keep the trial balance scannable.

Walk every account and confirm it is correctly typed as Asset, Liability, Equity, Revenue, COGS, Expense, Other Income, or Other Expense. Common errors: credit-card liability typed as expense, deposits-held typed as revenue, sales-tax payable typed as expense.

QBO detail types drive cash-flow statement classification and tax-line mapping. A loan typed as 'Other Current Liability - Other' instead of 'Notes Payable' breaks the indirect cash flow. Fix detail types before close.

Use the standard block ranges: 1xxx assets, 2xxx liabilities, 3xxx equity, 4xxx revenue, 5xxx COGS, 6xxx-7xxx operating expense, 8xxx other income, 9xxx other expense. Renumber outliers and fill gaps consistently so reports sort cleanly.

Every balance-sheet account should tie to an external statement or roll-forward schedule: bank/credit-card recs, A/R aging, A/P aging, fixed-asset register, loan amortization, prepaid schedule, accrual schedule. Accounts without a tie-out are the highest audit risk.

Pull every transaction in 'Ask My Accountant', 'Uncategorized Income', and 'Uncategorized Expense'. Reclass each to its proper account; document the reason in the memo. Then update the bank-feed rule that sent it there so the same line doesn't reappear next month.

In QBO, only Primary Admin and Company Admin should add or edit accounts. In NetSuite, restrict the Account record permission to controller-level roles. Staff who need to categorize transactions don't need rights to create new GL accounts.

Record date, account number, change type (add / rename / merge / deactivate), reason, and approver for every change made during this run. The register is your audit response when the next reviewer asks why account 6420 disappeared mid-year.

Light quarterly review (60 minutes): suspense balance, new accounts added, any merges in flight. Full annual review at year-end before tax-line mapping. Put both on the practice-management calendar in Karbon or Canopy.