Draft your Chart of Accounts with AI

BusinessSensor can propose a starter Chart of Accounts shaped to your business — the Bank / Cash / Income / Expense accounts a real bookkeeper for a Phone Retailer in Nigeria would open on day one, versus the very different list a Fine Dining Restaurant in Kenya would want.

You review the list, edit anything, drop what doesn't fit, then import. The import is safe to re-run — if you add more accounts by hand later and want another AI pass, it silently skips anything you already have.

Before you start

• You need Chart of Accounts access (ACCOUNT_MASTER).
• Set your Business Type on Setup → Organization — the more specific the better ("Phone Retail" beats "Retail"). See Pick your Business Type for the tips.
• Set your Country on the same page — the AI adjusts for country-typical accounts (VAT Payable, WHT Payable, PAYE Payable, and so on).
• Nothing is created until you click Import. You can safely try different Business Types before deciding.

Steps

1. Go to Chart of Accounts (left nav → Accounting → Chart of Accounts).
2. Click AI-suggest accounts in the header (top-right, next to New account).
3. Your Business Type + Country are pre-filled from Organization Profile. Change either here if you want a preview without saving to Organization.
4. Click Suggest accounts. The AI drafts 35 – 60 accounts across all the AccountTypes your tenant uses (Bank, Cash, CurrentAsset, CurrentLiability, Equity, Income, Cost-of-Goods, Expenses…).
5. Review the grid:
   • Rename any account (double-click a cell to edit).
   • Change AccountType via the type dropdown if the AI guessed wrong.
   • Re-code the account (change AccountCode).
   • Hover the Why column for a one-line rationale explaining why this account matters to your business type.
   • Rows shown at half opacity + "Existing" already exist on your CoA — they are pre-deselected. Tick them back in only if you want a second account with the same name (rare).
   • Delete any row you don't want (row-level Delete icon).
6. When you're happy, click Import N selected. You'll see a toast: "Import finished: N created · M skipped (already existed)".
7. Go back to Chart of Accounts — your new accounts are there. Any row that failed (usually because of a validation edge case you can fix manually) stays in the review grid for a retry.

Tips

• The AI proposes accounts across many types at once — don't panic at the 40-row list. Just untick anything that doesn't apply and import the rest. You can always re-run for a different type mix later.
• Prefer more specific account names ("Phone Sales", "Accessory Sales", "Repair Service Income") over generic ones ("Sales") — later reports read better when the labels tell the story.
• Cash-flow-style codes (Bank 1000s, CurrentAsset 1100s, Income 4000s, COGS 5000s, Expenses 6000s) are just conventions. Renumber to your house style if you have one.
• If your tenant already has a fully-populated CoA, this tool is still useful as a gap check: run it, ignore the "Existing" rows, and see what accounts you might be missing.

Common problems

"AI drafting isn't configured on this server (no OpenAI key)." The site is running without an OpenAI key. Contact your systems administrator — until it's set, this page can only show the empty state, but the regular New account button on Chart of Accounts still works.

The Suggest button is disabled. You need a Business Type. Type one in the picker on this page (any text is fine), or set one on Organization Profile so it defaults.

"Nothing to import" after clicking Import. Every row you had selected already existed. Untick the "Existing" filter mental default and choose fresh rows, or change the Business Type / Country to get a new list.

A row failed to import. The row's reason is captured in the toast and in the server log. Usually it's a value that violates one of the same rules the normal New account form enforces (an over-length name, an unknown AccountType). Fix the row in the grid and re-import, or create it manually.

I imported the wrong set. Nothing is destructive — but re-running won't help unless you delete the unwanted rows first. Use the standard Chart of Accounts list to delete what you don't want (system-generated + posted-to accounts are protected).

The AI mixed up two AccountTypes (proposed an expense as Income, etc.) Change the type in the AccountType column of the grid before importing. The list stays alphabetically grouped, so it's fast to spot mismatches.