Standardized chart of Accounts

Reasons to apply an IFRS | US GAAP-based chart of accounts structure:

• Comparability & benchmarking: IFRS | US GAAP-aligned account structures make it easier to compare financials against industry peers, many of whom report under IFRS | US GAAP. Lenders, investors, and acquirers will find IFRS | US GAAP aligned accounts more familiar and immediately understandable.
• Debt covenants & banking relationships: many US based lenders require financial statements reflecting GAAP guidance. Internationally, lenders increasingly require IFRS aligned financial reports. Using accounts organized to produce these statements cleanly makes the process simpler.
• Future M&A or investment readiness: entities that plan to seek outside investment or sell the business, will often find that investors and potential buyers will conduct due diligence expecting IFRS | US GAAP financials. Retrofitting a non-standard chart of accounts to produce such statements is usually expensive and prone to errors.
• Tax-to-GAAP reconciliation: while no jurisdictions accept unadjusted IFRS financial statements for taxation purposes, the IFRS accounts often serve as the starting point for determining taxable income. Similarly, in the US even entities filing taxes on a cash or modified-cash basis, will find that GAAP-structured accounts makes it much easier to produce accrual financials when they cross the IRS’s threshold into accrual accounting.
• Accountant & auditor familiarity: accountants, controllers, auditors are trained on IFRS | US GAAP frameworks. A standard chart of accounts reduces onboarding time and errors when you bring in outside help. It thus significantly reduces the time needed to bring new staff up to speed and the costs of audits where a non-standard structure must first be evaluated and tested.
• Software compatibility: most accounting software aimed at a US or international audience (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, etc.) include generic charts of accounts loosely based on IFRS | US GAAP-style. Implementing a more robust structure into such framework relatively simple. Note: internationally, many local, national GAAP based accounting packages do not offer this flexibility and are structured using the prescribed, national chart of accounts. However, as noted below, the COA’s on this page are not intended for use in such jurisdictions.

A number of EU member states (e.g. France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, etc.) implement the EU Accounting Directive through procedural rules that define a COA. Internationally, similarly rigid accounting rules may also be found in, for example, Russia or OHADA member states. Some jurisdictions, such as Nigeria, use a blend requiring fixed COAs for non-private entities while offering privately owned entities more flexibility.

For example, the French accounting standard Art. 947-70 (view pdf) states: "… Les montants des ventes, des prestations de services, des produits afférents aux activités annexes sont enregistrés au crédit des comptes 701 "Ventes de produits finis", 702 "Ventes de produits intermédiaires", 703 "Ventes de produits résiduels", 704 "Travaux", 705 "Études", 706 "Prestations de services", 707 "Ventes de marchandises" et 708 "Produits des activités annexes"."

Deviating from the defined COA would thus not be permissible under French accounting law.

Plan Comptable Général
Required by French law

Before mapping this COA to a national COA please, confirm the process would conflict with national legislation.

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).

While the ASC does not provide similarly explicit guidance, the FASB-defined XBRL taxonomy includes PropertyPlantAndEquipmentAndFinanceLeaseRightOfUseAssetAfterAccumulatedDepreciationAndAmortizationAbstract.

This implies that an ROU associated with an underlying asset that is PP&E should be recognized as PP&E.

Since the guidance provided by the ASC (specifically 842-20-45-1 through 3) does not preclude presenting an ROU within PP&E, this account would be consistent with that guidance.

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.

Since ASC 842-20-45-1 and 2 do not preclude recognizing the right to use an intangible asset as an ROU within intangible assets (provided financial and operating ROUs are not mixed as outlined in ASC 842-20-45-3) it would not be incorrect to recognize those ROUs 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, ASC 350-60-15-1.a defines: a. Meet the definition of intangible assets as defined in the Codification ... d. Are secured through cryptography... The 2026 FASB-approved XBRL taxonomy (link) likewise places CryptoAssetFairValue on the balance sheet as a separate line item directly below intangible assets and above right-of-use assets.

For its part, the 2026 FASB-approved XBRL taxonomy (link) places both FinanceLeaseRightOfUseAsset and OperatingLeaseRightOfUseAsset following intangible asset and immediately following crypto assets. This suggests the FASB would prefer if ROAs were classified as intangible.

IFRS does not specifically discuss Crypto but 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.

In practice, however, expenses are occasionally both recognized and reported by function even though this leads to duplicate accounts such as Employee benefits: Production, Employee benefits: Sales, Employee benefits: Administration or Depreciation: Production equipment, Depreciation: Sales equipment, Depreciation: Office equipment.

While not disallowed, this approach is not recommended as it results in an untidfy G/L.

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 XBRL version has been updated with cross-references to the 2026 FASB issued XBRL taxonomy.

All remaining versions were updated to better reflect upcoming IFRS 18 even though the IASB has decided to not update the 2025 taxonomy.

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

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