Chart of Accounts Templates

Setting Up Charts of Accounts in Prosaic

Before you invite clients or start reconciling data in Prosaic, it’s worth spending a little time setting up your chart of accounts templates the way you like to work.

Prosaic is built around chart templates that can be shared across many client entities. This gives you strong standardisation for automation and reporting, while still allowing flexibility at the individual entity level.

This article explains how chart templates work, how to customise them, and how Prosaic supports migrating charts from other systems when you’re ready.

🧩 Prosaic’s Chart Code Library

Prosaic includes a library of standard system chart codes, such as Interest Received, Motor Vehicle Expenses, Owner Drawings, and more.

These codes are based on the most commonly used account structures across MYOB Accountants Office, Xero Practice Manager, and similar systems. They form a consistent foundation that supports automation, AI-driven coding, and rules across your practice.

You can use these system codes to build templates for:

Sole traders
Companies
Trusts
Partnerships
Rental properties

All templates start from the same core library, making it easier to keep clients aligned over time.

🧾 Default Charts and Starting Points

By default, new entities are created using a Standard Business Chart, which closely follows the Xero demo company layout.

This provides a familiar starting point, but most practices will want to create their own templates that reflect how they already work. If you’ve previously used templates in Xero, MYOB, or Xero Practice Manager, you can replicate those structures in Prosaic using chart templates and mapped codes.

Prosaic also includes example templates based on common firm setups to help you get started quickly.

🛠 Creating and Managing Chart Templates

Chart templates are the master charts used across one or more client entities.

When building a template, you can:

Clone and edit any existing chart, choose from a common template (eg Company, Sole Trader) or build one from scratch using our master chart library
Choose which system codes to include and hide the ones you don’t need
Add subaccounts where more detail is required
Edit account names, descriptions, and default tax settings
Add mapped codes to align with external systems

Once created, a single template can be applied to many client entities.

🏬 Assigning Templates to Entities

When creating a new entity, you select which chart template to apply. This creates a chart of accounts specific to that entity, with its own balances and transaction history.

You can change the assigned template only until journals have been posted. Once transactions exist, the template is locked to protect the integrity of the entity’s ledger.

🔁 Editing Chart Templates <> Sync to Entity Charts

When a chart template is assigned to one or more entities, Prosaic maintains a live relationship between the template and those entities.

If you update the template — for example, by adding a new account or subaccount — those changes automatically flow through to all entities using that template. This means you can make structural changes once, rather than updating each client individually.

If a template account has already had journals posted against it, it can’t be deleted from the template. This protects data integrity across connected entities.

🏷 Entity-Level Chart Customisation

After a template is applied, you can still customise charts at the entity level without breaking the link back to the template.

At the entity level, you can:

Hide accounts that aren’t relevant for a specific client
Rename accounts for client-friendly reporting, while keeping the same underlying code
Add entity-only accounts for client-specific needs

Entity-only accounts don’t sync back to the template. As a best practice, we recommend using higher account codes (for example, 10,100+) for these accounts to reduce the risk of conflicts with future template updates. Prosaic automatically checks for conflicts when templates change.

🔢 Using Mapped Codes

Each account can optionally include a Mapped Code, which records the equivalent account code used in another system.

Mapped codes are useful if you want to:

Keep alignment with Xero, MYOB, or Accountants Office
Import trial balances or journals
Export summarised balances or cash movements back into another ledger
Maintain consistent cross-system reporting

Mapped codes are flexible and can be used in whatever way best fits your practice.

🔄 Migrating Charts from Existing Systems

Once you’re comfortable with how charts work in Prosaic, you can migrate or align charts from existing systems.

Today, this is typically done by:

Recreating your existing chart structure using chart templates
Using mapped codes to align accounts with Xero, MYOB, or other ledgers
Importing trial balances or journal data and mapping them into your Prosaic chart

In the future, Prosaic will introduce guided chart import and mapping tools, allowing you to import charts directly from systems like Xero or MYOB and step through a structured mapping process.

🚧 What’s Coming Next

Over time, Prosaic will continue to expand chart functionality, including:

Guided chart import and mapping from Xero and MYOB
API-based chart and template import
A growing library of ready-made templates for common entity types
Improved tools for managing template changes over time

For now, chart templates provide a strong balance of standardisation and flexibility — enabling automation and AI-driven workflows, while still supporting the nuances of individual clients.