A chart of accounts is the list of categories your business records money against. Every sale, bill and payment is coded to one of them, and the list decides which questions your profit and loss statement can answer. Accounts are numbered in series, usually 4000s for income, 5000s for cost of sales and 6000s for operating expenses, so reports sort in a predictable order.

Below: how the numbering works, a worked example you can read in full, and 15 free templates built for the way specific businesses make and spend money. A bar tracking one Beverage line cannot calculate pour cost. A promoter with a flat expense list cannot settle a show.

15Templates

775Accounts

3Levels deep

The hotel chart follows USALI, the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. The restaurant chart follows USAR. The rest describe what they are modeled on rather than claiming a standard. Every account carries a plain-English note on what belongs in it.

Download a template

Pick your business type and format. The file downloads immediately.

Creatures Rooftop, a rooftop bar and event space — Creatures RooftopRooftop bar and events. Runs vendor payments on Cleo Pay.

The problem

Why does a generic chart of accounts fail?

Most of these businesses run on the default chart their accounting software shipped with, or one a bookkeeper adapted from a retail store. It produces a clean-looking profit and loss statement that cannot answer the question the operator actually has.

01
One Beverage line
Liquor, beer and wine have sharply different margins, and draft beer behaves differently from packaged. Collapsed into one account, pour cost is not a number you can calculate, it is a number you guess.
02
One Food Cost line
A single delivery can carry produce, dairy, seafood and dry goods. Coded as a lump sum, a supplier price increase on proteins disappears into the average and stays there until someone reads a quarterly report.
03
No departments
A hotel without USALI departmental splits cannot say whether rooms or food and beverage carried the month, and cannot be compared against any other property, because everyone else reports departmentally.
04
Pass-through booked as revenue
An agency that runs client money through its own revenue line overstates its size, sometimes by a multiple. That distorts everything downstream, from commission math to what the business is worth.

RVLTN, a nightclub in Las Vegas — RVLTN, Las VegasNightclub. Door, bar and table revenue on three separate lines.

The templates

Which chart of accounts template do you need?

All 15 download as CSV or Excel, and every account is readable on its page before you take the file. Columns are account code, name, parent account, type, and a note on what belongs in the account.

General

1 templates

20 accounts · Any small service or product business
Starter set chart of accounts
It is small enough to actually maintain. Most owners abandon a chart of accounts because it arrived with two hundred accounts they did not need.
Read the chart CSV Excel

Hospitality

9 templates

46 accounts · Multi-venue hospitality groups
Hospitality chart of accounts
One chart that works across several venue formats, so a group can consolidate without every site inventing its own account names.
Read the chart CSV Excel
52 accounts · Restaurants, cafes and bistros
Restaurant chart of accounts
Food cost is split by purchasing category rather than landing in one bucket, so theoretical cost can be checked against actual.
Read the chart CSV Excel
54 accounts · Bars, taprooms and cocktail bars
Bar chart of accounts
Liquor, beer and wine are separate accounts, and draft is split from packaged, because a single Beverage line cannot produce a pour cost.
Read the chart CSV Excel
54 accounts · Nightclubs and late-night venues
Nightclub chart of accounts
Bottle service, door revenue, DJ fees, and promoter and host commissions each get their own line instead of being buried in operating expenses.
Read the chart CSV Excel
48 accounts · Coffee shops, cafes and roasters
Coffee shop chart of accounts
Coffee, dairy and packaging are separate cost lines, because drink margin moves on all three and a single Food Cost line hides which one moved.
Read the chart CSV Excel
50 accounts · Catering companies
Catering chart of accounts
Rentals and event staffing sit in cost of sales against the event that incurred them, so per-event margin is real rather than an allocation.
Read the chart CSV Excel
49 accounts · Food trucks and mobile kitchens
Food truck chart of accounts
Fuel, truck maintenance, commissary rent and event pitch fees are their own lines, so you can tell which events actually paid.
Read the chart CSV Excel
53 accounts · Breweries and distilleries
Brewery chart of accounts
Taproom, wholesale and direct sales are separate, and excise duty has its own line, because those three margins are nothing alike.
Read the chart CSV Excel
55 accounts · Hotels, inns and resorts
Hotel chart of accounts
Departments are separated the way USALI requires, so departmental profit is a real number and the property can be benchmarked against others.
Read the chart CSV Excel

Events & Venues

4 templates

51 accounts · Music venues and clubs
Music venue chart of accounts
Artist guarantees, production and bar revenue are carried against the show that produced them, so a night can be settled rather than estimated.
Read the chart CSV Excel
57 accounts · Concert and event promoters
Event promoter chart of accounts
Guarantees, the split point and promoter profit exist as real accounts, so a show can actually be settled rather than estimated.
Read the chart CSV Excel
50 accounts · Event production and AV companies
Event production chart of accounts
Sub-rentals, freelance crew and trucking sit in cost of sales against the job, so job margin survives contact with a busy season.
Read the chart CSV Excel
85 accounts · Talent and creator agencies
Talent agency chart of accounts
Client pass-through money sits in a liability account instead of revenue, so the agency stops overstating its own size.
Read the chart CSV Excel

Media

1 templates

51 accounts · Production companies and studios
Media production chart of accounts
Crew, talent and licensing are carried per project, so a profitable job and a loss-making one stop averaging into each other.
Read the chart CSV Excel

The Campbell, a bar inside Grand Central Terminal in New York — The Campbell, New YorkBar and private events. The restaurant chart is built for rooms like this.

Numbering

How does chart of accounts numbering work?

Accounts are numbered in series so that reports sort themselves and anyone can tell what an account is from its code alone. Parents take the round number and their children count up from it, which leaves room to add an account later without renumbering anything.

4000sIncomeFood sales, ticket sales, room revenue
5000sCost of salesFood purchases, artist fees, packaging
6000sOperating expensesRent, wages, software, insurance
8000sOther incomeInterest, grants, vendor rebates
9000sOther expensesDepreciation, penalties, late fees

So 5100 is a cost of sales parent and 5110 sits underneath it. Leaving gaps is the whole point: the eleventh food account slots in at 5110 without disturbing the ten above it. The longer version is in the guide to chart of accounts numbering.

A hotel lobby — HotelsThe hotel chart follows USALI, so departmental profit is a real number.

What it looks like

What does a chart of accounts look like?

Headings and their immediate children, from the restaurant template. Every account carries a description, and a third level of detail sits underneath most of these in the file.

Code	Account	Type	What belongs here
4000	Revenue	Income	Sales by revenue centre, following the USAR Sales (4000) series.
4010	Food Sales	Income	Kitchen, snack and bar food sales.
4020	Non-Alcoholic Beverage Sales	Income	Soft drinks, mocktails, coffee, energy drinks and bottled water.
4030	Alcohol Sales	Income	Beer, wine and spirits sold to guests. Keep separate from food for pour cost.
4040	Catering & Private Events	Income	Off-premise catering plus private dining and buyouts.
4050	Delivery & Takeout	Income	Orders taken to go, whether ordered in person or online.
4060	Merchandise Sales	Income	Branded apparel, glassware and retail packaged goods.
4070	Service Charges & Fees	Income	Mandatory service charges and administrative fees added to a bill.
5000	Cost of Sales	Cost of goods sold	Food and beverage cost split so food cost and pour cost can be read separately.
5010	Food Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Food bought for resale, including produce, protein, dairy and dry goods.
5020	Non-Alcoholic Beverage Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Soft drinks, juice, water, coffee and tea bought for resale.
5030	Liquor Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Spirits bought for resale.
5040	Beer Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Beer bought for resale, bottled, canned and draft.
5050	Wine Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Wine bought for resale, by the glass and by the bottle.
5060	Kitchen Labor	Cost of goods sold	Back of house wages for the hours that produced the food sold.
5070	Front of House Labor	Cost of goods sold	Service wages for the floor, host stand and runners.
5080	Packaging & Disposables	Cost of goods sold	Containers, bags, cutlery and disposables that leave with the order.
5090	Delivery Platform Commissions	Cost of goods sold	Commission retained by delivery marketplaces on their orders.
5100	Merchandise Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Branded goods bought for resale.
6000	Operating Expenses	Expense	USAR Operating Expenses (7000).
6010	Management & Office Salaries	Expense	Salaries for management and administration.
6020	Payroll Taxes & Benefits	Expense	Employer payroll taxes and the cost of employee benefits.
6030	Rent & Occupancy	Expense	Rent plus the occupancy costs that come with the building.
6040	Utilities	Expense	Electricity, gas, water and waste for the premises.
6050	Repairs & Maintenance	Expense	Repairs and upkeep of the building, plant and fixtures.
6060	Software & Subscriptions	Expense	Recurring software licences and subscriptions.

26 more accounts are in the download, including the third level of detail under each heading.

The full restaurant chart, with every account and the third level of detail, is on the restaurant page.

A Project 91 concert in New York — Project 91, New YorkEvent production. Settles shows against the promoter chart.

Why we made these

A chart of accounts is a set of instructions for coding invoices

The chart is only worth what the data flowing into it is worth, and in these businesses that data arrives as vendor invoices. A restaurant taking deliveries from a dozen suppliers a week is looking at hundreds of line items that each need to land in the right account. That is the work these templates create, and it is the work Cleo Pay does.

The template gives youWhat still has to happen every week

Separate accounts for meat, seafood, produce and dairy

Someone reads each delivery invoice and splits it across those accounts, line by line, instead of coding the total to Food Cost.

Draft beer split from packaged beer

Keg purchases have to be told apart from cases on the same distributor invoice, every time that invoice arrives.

USALI departmental structure

Every vendor bill gets assigned to the department that consumed it, or the departmental profit figures are fiction.

A liability account for client pass-through

Money moving on behalf of a client has to be recognized as pass-through at the moment it is recorded, not corrected at year end.

Cleo Pay reads vendor invoices line by line, codes each line to the account it belongs in, routes the bill for approval, pays it, and posts the result back to QuickBooks Online. The chart you just downloaded is the map. Coding every invoice to it is the part that takes hours a week, and it is the part we take over.

→
QuickBooks accounts payable
How bills, approvals and payments sync back to QuickBooks Online.
→
Why your restaurant P&L is lying to you
The longer argument for line-item invoice categorization, with sources.

A food vendor serving at a festival — Festivals and mobile foodPitch fees and event staffing sit against the day that earned them.

Questions

Chart of accounts questions

What is a chart of accounts?

A chart of accounts is the list of categories your business sorts money into: revenue, cost of goods sold, operating expenses, assets, liabilities and equity. Every transaction in your accounting system is assigned to one of them. It is what turns a pile of invoices and deposits into a profit and loss statement you can read.

Do I have to give you my email to download these?

No. Every template downloads directly, in CSV or Excel, with no form. There is an optional email field after the download if you want help applying the chart inside QuickBooks, but the file is yours either way.

Which format should I take, CSV or Excel?

Take the CSV if you are importing into accounting software, since QuickBooks, Xero and most others read CSV directly. Take the Excel file if you want to read the chart, edit it, or share it with your accountant before importing anything.

Can I import these straight into QuickBooks Online?

The CSV carries the account code, name, parent account, type and a plain-English description of what belongs in each account. QuickBooks Online's account import expects its own column headers and its own Detail Type values, so you will need to map the columns during import rather than uploading the file untouched. If you would rather not do that by hand, Cleo can apply the chart for you and keep the accounts you already use.

Do these follow a real accounting standard?

Two of them do, and they say so. The hotel template follows USALI, the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, 12th revised edition, which took effect on 1 January 2026. The restaurant template follows USAR, the Uniform System of Accounts for Restaurants. The bar and nightclub templates are built on restaurant accounting practice rather than a separate published standard. No published standard chart of accounts exists for event promoters or talent agencies, so those two are modeled on venue performance reporting and settlement practice, and on commission and pass-through accounting, respectively.

Can I change the accounts?

Yes, and most operators should. Delete the departments you do not run and add the ones you do. The account codes are numbered with gaps so you can insert your own without renumbering everything. One caution: several account names are worded the way a specific standard words them, so if you are following USALI or USAR, renaming those accounts will make your numbers harder to benchmark against other properties.

How detailed should a chart of accounts be?

Detailed enough to answer the question you actually ask each month, and no more. A bar that wants to manage pour cost needs liquor, beer and wine separated, and draft split from packaged, because the margins differ sharply. That same bar probably does not need four kinds of office supplies. Every account you add is an account somebody has to code invoices into, so the cost of detail is real.

See your own invoices coded to this chart

Send us a stack of real vendor invoices. We will run them through Cleo, code each line to the chart you just downloaded, and show you the result in QuickBooks.

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