Account Cloud Inc
Fund Accounting Basics

Chart of Accounts Basics

How Account Cloud Unity's nonprofit chart of accounts is structured, and why expenses are classified two ways.

Updated July 27, 2026

Unity ships with a chart of accounts built for nonprofit financial reporting, not a generic for-profit template relabeled. This article covers the structure you’ll see and why it’s laid out this way.

Account number ranges

Range Category
1000s Assets
2000s Liabilities
3000s Net Assets (Without / With Donor Restrictions)
4000s Revenue
5000s–7000s Expenses

The 3000s are the one range that differs most visibly from for-profit accounting — see Understanding Funds and Net Assets for how funds map into those two Net Assets classifications.

Expenses are classified two ways

Every expense in Unity carries two classifications at once:

  • Nature — what was actually purchased (salaries, rent, supplies, professional fees).
  • Function — why it was purchased: Program, Management & General, or Fundraising.

Both are required because your Statement of Functional Expenses — and Form 990 — report the same dollar of spending along both axes simultaneously. A single payroll run, for example, is split by function based on how each employee’s time was spent, not recorded once and forgotten.

Fiscal years aren’t assumed to be calendar years

Each organization sets its own fiscal year in Unity, and reporting periods are computed from that setting rather than assumed to run January–December. If your fiscal year starts in July, your “Q1” reports and year-end close dates follow that calendar automatically.

Next steps