% Choosing accounts

Some rules of thumb:

- It helps to use the standard [[FAQ#what-are-the-five-top-level-accounts|five top level accounts]]
  (assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses, in your preferred language).

- Add subaccounts as driven by your reporting needs. Otherwise keep account names simple.

- Expect your chart of accounts to evolve as needs change; keep tending it.

- If using english names: should it be revenues or income ? Whichever you prefer (revenues is slightly more technically correct).

- Lower case or capitalised ? 
  As you prefer. All lower case reduces typing/spelling effort.

- Spaces, no spaces, or hyphens for multi-word names ?
  Spaces look a little nicer but require extra quoting. (Seriously consider avoiding spaces in account names, you may be glad of it later.)

- Accounts, tags, or other fields for categorising ? Use accounts for your primary categorising as they are best supported.
  Consider using tags if you have cross-cutting categorising schemes.
  For adhoc/infrequent categorising, some matchable text in the description might be enough.

- Shallow or deep account hierarchy ? 
  If your tools are good at summarising deep hierarchies, don't be afraid of deep/detailed subaccounts.
  On the other hand don't add more detail than you really need.

Or, you may want to follow or start from an existing chart of accounts, perhaps legally required in your situation. 
Here are some ideas:

- [Beancount Cookbook: Account Naming Conventions](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tss0IEzEyAPuKSGeNsfNgb0BfiW2ZHyP5nCFBW1uWlk/view#heading=h.tu0f1kydrpgn)
- [Mint: Ways to Categorize Your Spending](https://www.mint.com/mint-categories)
- [Simplified version of double-entry bookkeeping for personal and business finance?](http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/47561/simplified-version-of-double-entry-bookkeeping-for-personal-and-business-finance)
- [UN COICOP](https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/unsdclassifications/COICOP_2018_-_pre-edited_white_cover_version_-_2018-12-26.pdf) -> VIII. Broad structure... - expense accounts
- https://www.reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounting/comments/wk6pjo/how_finegrained_are_your_coas
- https://www.reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounting/comments/ws0b5f/how_to_choose_chart_of_accounts/
- [very detailed chart of accounts for personal accounting](https://gist.github.com/the-solipsist/c67e956c95af8f798e5631de896ff514)

## Commercial Packages
Categories used in some commercial packages.

- [Mint](https://mint.intuit.com/mint-categories)
- [Quicken](https://www.quicken.com/blog/budget-categories) blog
