Chart of Accounts: Structural Design Failures

Chart of Accounts failures are rarely cosmetic. They distort how the business is interpreted, not just how reports look, creating downstream decision risk long before errors are visible.

This category documents how incorrect account design, poor naming logic, misclassified costs, and legacy structures break financial meaning over time. These posts show how direct costs get buried, balance sheet activity is misclassified, operational activity is absorbed into the wrong accounts, and reporting stops reflecting how the business actually functions.

Most cleanup projects fail here because transaction cleanup cannot compensate for structural misalignment. When the chart no longer mirrors operations, no amount of reconciliation or adjustment restores accuracy.

Each post isolates a specific Chart of Accounts failure pattern and demonstrates why structural correction must occur before meaningful cleanup, reporting, or advisory work can proceed.