Templates
Xero chart of accounts template, allied health
A chart of accounts template is a file with one row per account: a code, a name, a type, a tax rate and a description. For an allied health practice the rows are the work rather than the format. This page publishes the whole starting file, revenue by payer and settlement by rail, with the Xero rate and the reason on every row.
Key facts
- What the file is
- One row per account, each carrying a code, a name, a type, a tax rate and a description, and an invoice line points at the account by that code6
- How many rows the starting file holds
- Thirty one: eighteen revenue rows, ten settlement holding rows, and three that are not revenue at all1
- How the codes are blocked out
- Revenue from 400, settlement from 100, with the liability and expense rows sitting outside both blocks1
- How many Xero rates the file uses
- Four on the coded rows: GST Free Income, GST on Income, BAS Excluded and GST on Expenses. The shortfall row takes its rate from the invoice line it reverses1
- Revenue rows that default to the taxable rate
- Five of the eighteen: 409, 420, 421, 422 and 4601
- The test behind the GST free default
- A service on the ATO's list, performed by a recognised professional in that field, as appropriate treatment of the person receiving the supply4
- What Cliniko tells a practice to create for payments
- A current asset account, taxed BAS Excluded, with payments to the account enabled2
- How large a chart Xero expects to perform
- Xero puts 699 accounts as the number to stay under. A thirty one row starting file leaves a practice a long way inside that, so the limit on a chart is who has to code to it7
- Where a new account is added
- In the Accounting menu, select Chart of accounts, then click Add Account7
- Rows that carry a question rather than a settled default
- Seventeen of the thirty one, each naming what the practice's own BAS agent confirms first1
What a chart of accounts template actually is
In Xero a chart of accounts is a list, and a template for one is a file with a row per entry. Each row holds the number the account is keyed on, the name that shows on reports, the type that decides which report it shows on, the tax rate the lines default to, and a description. That is the whole shape, and it is not the hard part.
The hard part is deciding what the rows say. An allied health practice sells the same hour to a patient, a scheme, an insurer and an employer, at rates that differ and with tax treatments that differ. The money then arrives days later in deposits that carry several patients at once. A file written for a business with one payer and one bank line has no row that can express either of those.
The columns the file carries
A Xero account holds a code, a name, a type, a tax rate and a description, plus flags for whether payments can be made to the account and whether it appears in expense claims. An invoice line points at its account by the code. Those flags matter later, on the settlement side.
The description column is the one worth filling. A row with a reason beside it survives a handover. A row without one gets overridden by whoever is closest to the invoice, and six months later nobody can say why the account exists.
The numbering is a choice, made once
The numbering is the practice's own choice, so a practice can pick any blocks it likes. What the blocks have to do is stay apart, and stay clear of the numbers the organisation already holds. This file puts revenue in the four hundreds and settlement in the one hundreds, and leaves the liability and expense rows outside both.
| Codes | What the block holds | Rows |
|---|---|---|
| 400 to 460 | Revenue, one row per payer and one per service category that behaves the same way whoever pays | 18 |
| 100 to 109 | Settlement holding accounts, one row per rail that makes a bank line of its own | 10 |
| 245 | Customer deposits and credits held, a liability | 1 |
| 604 | Merchant and claiming fees, an expense | 1 |
| 605 | Funder shortfalls and write-offs, an expense | 1 |
A collision is likely from the first day, not only in an organisation that already trades. A new Australian Xero organisation ships with a default chart that puts Sales in the two hundreds and runs its operating expenses through the four hundred block, so several of the revenue codes in this file land on default expense accounts, such as advertising, bank fees, cleaning, entertainment and freight, before the practice has billed anything. Xero will not let an account that already carries transactions change its type, so pick the number before the first invoice rather than after. The clearing block, the customer deposits liability and the two expense rows are normally clear of the defaults. The default list was not read from a Xero page for this write up, so check the organisation's own chart of accounts screen first.
The tax rate belongs on every row, not on the invoice
Four Xero rates cover the coded rows in this file, and the shortfall row takes its rate from the invoice line it reverses. Setting the rate on the account, rather than choosing it per invoice line, is what stops a Tuesday afternoon of billing from quietly changing what the activity statement says.
| Xero rate | Xero code | Where it sits in this file |
|---|---|---|
| GST Free Income | EXEMPTOUTPUT | The default on the clinical revenue rows, on the listed health service test |
| GST on Income | OUTPUT | The default on 5 revenue rows: 409, 420, 421, 422, 460 |
| BAS Excluded | BASEXCLUDED | Every settlement holding row, and the customer deposits liability row on receipt |
| GST on Expenses | INPUT | The merchant and claiming fees row |
Getting one wrong costs real money in one direction and creates a debt in the other. Health income coded as taxable means the practice remits tax it did not charge. Taxable income coded the other way understates the statement, and the shortfall is hard to collect from a payer after the invoice has been paid. Xero tax rates for health income works through each rate on its own.
Why most rows default to GST Free Income
The clinical rows default to GST Free Income because the ATO test has three parts holding at once: the service is one of those on its list, the person doing it is a recognised professional in that field, and the work counts as appropriate treatment of the person receiving the supply. Drop any one part and the default no longer holds.
Five revenue rows default the other way, each failing a different part. Employee assistance work fails on who receives the supply, because the employer engaged the practitioner. Reports and supervision are not treatment of a patient. Products are goods rather than a service. Room rental is the practice supplying a room. The full argument for each sits on the allied health chart of accounts.
The rows a generic file skips
A generic template stops at revenue and expenses. What it leaves out is the holding row: the account a claim sits in between the day a funder approves it and the day the money reaches the bank. Without one, a deposit covering a day of patients has to be split by hand against every invoice inside it, each time one lands.
The starting file opens one holding row per settlement rail, not one per funder, because the rail is what makes the bank line. Each of those rows posts at BAS Excluded: the tax question was settled on the revenue row that earned the money, and asking it twice double counts the sale.
A balance sitting in one of those rows is money a funder has approved and the bank has not delivered. It should return to nil when the run lands, which makes an aged balance a useful signal rather than a mystery. Setting one up in Xero is a short job.
Bank account or current asset, the one fork worth thinking about
The two practice systems that publish setup instructions both land in the same place, and it is not where this file lands.
Select Current Asset in the Account Type drop-down menu. Select BAS Excluded in the Tax field.2
The settlement account was created in Xero as a current asset account that was BAS excluded and able to take payments.3
This file makes those rows bank type instead, and the reason is the document set rather than the report. Both choices take a payment against an invoice. The difference is what else can be posted alongside it.
- Current asset with payments enabled: a payment lands against the invoice, and the balance is moved out later by a manual journal.
- Bank type: a payment lands, the rail's fee posts as a spend money line, and the sweep to the operating account posts as a bank transfer, so one deposit can be entered as a single balanced set.
- Either way the row is taxed BAS Excluded, so the choice changes the mechanics rather than the activity statement.
A practice reconciling by hand can work with either. A practice posting fee legs and sweeps against the row will find bank type does more of the work.
What to settle before the rows go in
The file is a set of defaults. Five decisions change which rows a practice keeps, and all five are cheaper to make before the import than after the first invoice.
- Which of the practice's own services sit on the ATO listed service list, because that decides whether the GST free defaults hold at all.
- Which payers the practice actually bills, so unused payer rows come out rather than sitting empty on the profit and loss.
- Which rails make a bank line of their own, because that is the count of holding rows, not the count of funders.
- Whether practitioner and location take both Xero tracking slots, which is what forces the payer into the account code rather than a third slot.
- Whether the practice takes money before the service is delivered, which decides whether the deposits liability row is needed on day one.
Tracking categories covers the fourth of those, and it is the decision that shapes the chart most. The canonical template spends both of Xero's two active tracking slots on practitioner and location, which is why the payer sits in the account code instead.
What the file leaves open
Seventeen of the thirty one rows carry a question for the practice's own BAS agent rather than a settled default, and the questions are written into the file beside the rows they belong to. That is deliberate: a starting chart is a set of defaults, and the ones that rest on a practice's own facts say so.
Four questions stay open in the source material itself. Whether supervision of a provisionally registered practitioner is taxable. Whether report writing funded inside an NDIS plan follows the plan or the report. How time billed for a therapy assistant is treated. What happens to a gift voucher between sale and redemption. The file records each as open rather than picking a side.
What Ledger Map does with the file
This is the file the product applies, not a picture of one. A practice starts from these rows, works through the questions they raise, and approves a standing map before anything syncs. Each invoice line then resolves to its account and its rate through that map, and a line the map cannot resolve becomes a question with both candidate postings shown side by side.
On the settlement side, each deposit is posted as one balanced document set against the rail's own row, with the claims underneath it, leaving one exact match for a person to accept in the bank feed. How it works shows the map and the approval step.
Questions
Does Xero have a chart of accounts template for allied health?
Not one written for health income, in anything read for this page. A generic file gives the account groups and stops. It does not know that most clinical revenue defaults to GST Free Income while a handful of rows default the other way, and it carries no settlement side at all. The file on this page is the one Ledger Map applies, published in full.
What account type should a settlement or clearing account be in Xero?
Cliniko and SimpleClinic both describe a current asset, taxed BAS Excluded, with payments to the account enabled. This file makes those rows bank type instead, because a fee line and a sweep both want a bank account behind them. Either works for reconciling by hand, and the choice changes the mechanics rather than the activity statement.
What tax rate goes on health income in Xero?
Four rates cover the coded rows. Clinical revenue rows default to GST Free Income on the listed service test. Five revenue rows default to GST on Income. The settlement holding rows and the customer deposits row post at BAS Excluded. The merchant and claiming fee row sits at GST on Expenses. The funder shortfall row is the exception: it takes its rate from the invoice line it reverses.
Can I import this into a Xero organisation that already has data?
Yes, one block at a time, and check the numbers first. An invoice line points at its account by the code, so a number another account already holds has to be changed before the row goes in, and Xero will not let an account carrying transactions change its type. The revenue block is where a clash is most likely, because Xero's default Australian chart uses the four hundreds for operating expenses. Adding the settlement rows first is usually the quickest win, because they are the ones nothing else in the chart is doing.
Is thirty one accounts too many for a small practice?
It is a starting point rather than a target, and it is nowhere near a technical limit: Xero puts 699 accounts as the number to stay under for performance. A practice with three payers does not need eleven payer rows, and a practice banking card payments straight to its operating account can drop a holding row. The rows to keep are the ones that answer a question somebody actually asks at month end, because the real cost of a long chart is how many people have to code to it.
Read next
- TemplatesAllied health chart of accounts, by funder
- Xero how toSet up a clearing account in Xero
- GST answersGST Free Income or BAS Excluded in Xero
- Xero how toXero tracking categories for a clinic
- TemplatesMultidisciplinary clinic chart of accounts
- FundersHow Medicare bulk bill payments land in Xero
- HubTemplates
Sources
Open questions
- No search results snapshot exists for the templates family, so the current top five for this query and its People also ask set are unrecorded. The questions answered here come from the decisions the source material leaves to the reader rather than from search data.
- Xero Central's import a chart of accounts article returned an empty body to a fetch on 3 Sep 2026, and the Xero Developer docs page for accounts returned a title with no body. The import article is cited unverified and no fact here rests on it. The fields an account carries were read instead from Xero's own published API specification, so the columns described are those fields rather than a header row read from an import file.
- Xero's own default numbering for a new organisation is not stated on the add or edit an account article read on 4 Sep 2026, and the import article could not be read. The clash this page warns about is drawn from the numbering the guides report rather than from Xero's own list, so read the organisation's chart of accounts screen before importing. The code blocks here are the canonical template's own choice, stated as a choice.
- Whether a settlement row is better as a bank account or a current asset is a real fork rather than an error. Two practice systems document current asset; the canonical template uses bank type and gives its reason. Both readings are set out and neither is presented as the answer.
- Seventeen rows carry a question for the practice's own BAS agent, including which services sit on the ATO listed service list and whether a written service agreement exists for each NDIS client. Those are practice facts and are not settled here.
- Supervision of a provisionally registered practitioner, NDIS report writing, therapy assistant time and gift vouchers are left unresolved by the research behind the templates and are not resolved here.
- No file is offered for download from this page. The chart is published as text a reader can copy into their own import file.
- Reconciling in Xero using a settlement account
SimpleClinic. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 6 Jan 2021.
secondary
- GST and health, other health services
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- GST and health, recipient of the supply
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- Xero Accounting API specification, the Account element and its line items
Xero. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary
Review
Last reviewed 4 Sep 2026 by Shane
General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.
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