IFRS Chart of Accounts

A COA may be incorporated into reporting structure in many ways. Nevertheless, Excel remains the lingua franca of accounting.

On the other hand, some ERP implementation professionals require data structured as CSV or TSV. To accommodate this requirement, read this.

Pro view includes additional scripts illustrating how to generate a dynamic hierarchical COA from an Excel source file. It also includes scripts to map the output to balance sheet and P&L in IFRS or US GAAP format (also in Excel).

As outlined in IFRS 16.47.a.i, an ROU should be classified like the underlying asset if that asset were owned (unless the ROU is presented separately). Thus, the right to use, for example, a building, would be presented in PP&E while the right to use a patent would be intangible (below).

Thus an ROU associated with an underlying asset that is an item of PP&E, it should be recognized as PP&E.

Note: provided the right‑of‑use asset is recognised on the balance sheet, the guidance is flexible about how it is presented. For example, a leased building may be presented within the “Buildings” line item rather than on a separate “right‑of‑use asset” line, as long as the notes explain that the amount relates to a leased (right‑of‑use) building rather than an owned building. From an internal accounting perspective, the building could thus be posted either to the Buildings account with a metadata flag indicating that it is an ROU or to the ROU account with metadata describing the underlying asset as a building.

A right to use an asset is a contractual right. Thus, the right-to-use asset (ROU) is, strictly speaking, always intangible. Nevertheless, as outlined in IFRS 16.47.a.i, an ROU should be classified (unless it is presented separately) in the same way as the underlying asset if it were owned. Thus, an ROU of a building would be presented in PP&E (above) while an ROU of a patent would be presented here.

Note: provided the right‑of‑use asset is recognised on the balance sheet, the guidance is flexible about how it is presented. For example, a leased patent may be presented within the “Patents” group or as a standalone "Patent" rather than as a separate “right‑to‑use patent” item, as long as the notes explain that the amount relates to a leased (right‑of‑use) asset rather than an owned asset. From an internal accounting perspective, a patent could thus be posted either to the Patents account, with a metadata flag indicating that it is an ROU, or to an ROU account, with metadata describing the underlying asset as a patent.

While crypto assets have more in common with financial assets than intangible assets, the IFRIC (June 2019 agenda decision) concluded that typical cryptocurrencies meet the definition of an intangible asset under IAS 38, unless they are held for sale in the ordinary course of business, in which case IAS 2 (inventories) applies.

For accounting purposes, expenses should be recognized by nature and their function treated as a reporting attribute.

While uncommon in most jurisdictions, in the US, UK or Canada the practice of both recognizing and reporting expenses by function was used even though it led to duplicate accounts such as Employee benefits: Production, Employee benefits: Sales, Employee benefits: Administration or Depreciation: Production equipment, Depreciation: Sales equipment, Depreciation: Office equipment.

The transition to IFRS has made this practice every rare anywhere except the US, where it has also begun to disappear as a reaction to ASC 220-40-50-6.

Nevertheless, as it is not explicitly disallowed, this approach could theoretically be used. As such, it has to be included in this COA as a possible option even though it will almost certainly not ever be used in a real-world setting.

Note: both nature of expense and function of expense classification cannot, obviously, be used for recognition purposes at the same time as this would lead to expense double counting.

The IFRS COAs were updated to better reflect upcoming IFRS 18 guidance.

The IASB decided to not update the 2025 XBRL taxonomy for 2026.

The COA published on this page may be republished provided the following citation is provided:

Source: https://www.ifrs-gaap.com/chart-accounts.