UK Charity Chart of Accounts for QuickBooks with VAT Codes (Free)

A charity on QuickBooks Online needs a chart that admits how different charity finance is from a normal business: money comes partly as grants given freely and partly as trading income, the organisation has no owner, and most of it cannot recover VAT the way a taxable company does. The default QuickBooks chart assumes none of that. This is a UK charity chart of accounts for QuickBooks Online, in QuickBooks’ own VAT code names, as a readable CSV mapping plus an import CSV for the structure.

Two steps, because the import has no tax column

QuickBooks Online’s chart-of-accounts import only carries Account Number, Account Name, Type, and Detail Type. There is no field for VAT. So you import the account structure from the CSV, then bulk-assign the default VAT codes from the readable mapping across the chart of accounts. For a charity the mapping step is where the non-business income and the reliefs get coded correctly, which is the part a generic setup skips.

Funds in place of owner equity

The equity section is rebuilt around funds. A charity has no proprietor taking drawings, so the chart drops owner equity and drawings and adds unrestricted funds and restricted funds. Unrestricted funds are general money for any charitable purpose; restricted funds are tied by the donor to a specific use. If you want to track fund balances in detail in QuickBooks, pair these accounts with classes or locations for the restricted activity, so each fund’s movements are reportable.

Non-business income, coded honestly

The governing question for any charity transaction is what activity it supports. The chart keeps grants and donations as a separate income account mapped to No VAT, because freely given funding is non-business income, outside the scope of VAT, not a supply for consideration. Charitable trading income is a business supply, so it maps to 20.0% S with 0.0% Z and Exempt as the alternatives for the supplies that qualify. Coding income to the right account is what lets the recovery position and the registration test be worked out at all.

Reliefs that beat a reclaim

Because many charities cannot recover input VAT, a relief that stops VAT being charged is worth more than a reclaim. The chart maps advertising and marketing to 0.0% Z, because advertising to an eligible charity can be zero-rated on an eligibility declaration to the supplier, with 20.0% S and the reverse charge available for overseas platforms and non-qualifying spend. The declaration is the evidence the relief rests on, so it belongs in the file with the invoice.

Programme costs and the apportionment it cannot do

The chart adds charitable programme costs and fundraising costs, with programme costs marked non-business so their input VAT is not assumed recoverable. Most charities are partly exempt and must apportion overheads across taxable, exempt, and non-business use. QuickBooks holds clean inputs once the income and cost accounts are coded this way; the apportionment itself is a specialist calculation the chart does not attempt.

How to use it

1. Open the CSV and adapt the account names to the charity, noting the code mapped to each.
2. In QuickBooks Online go to Settings, then Import data, then Chart of Accounts, and upload the CSV for the structure.
3. On the import wizard confirm the Type and Detail Type for each account.
4. After import, bulk-assign the VAT codes from the mapping, and set up classes for restricted funds if you report fund balances.

The recurring work is a high volume of invoices across mixed activities, where documentation matters as much as data entry:

• Dext reads VAT and supplier from photographed invoices.
• ExpenseFlow reads each receipt and supplier invoice, keeps the source image with the transaction including zero-rating declarations, flags overseas invoices carrying no UK VAT, and flags non-business-coded costs as not assumable as fully recoverable, then posts each into QuickBooks Online against the right account.
• Hubdoc pulls recurring supplier bills into the file.

For business versus non-business, partial exemption, and the reliefs, see the UK charity expenses guide. On Xero instead? See the UK charity chart of accounts for Xero. For the codes, see the UK VAT codes in QuickBooks reference.