Australian Not-for-Profit Chart of Accounts for Xero (GST + Grants)

Australian charity finance runs on a chain of endorsements, not on simply being a charity. Whether GST concessions apply, when you must register, and how fringe benefits are treated all depend on registration with the regulator and endorsement by the ATO. This is an Australian not-for-profit chart of accounts built for Xero, with income accounts coded for the way money actually arrives at a charity. It ships as a readable reference (CSV) and a Xero import CSV.

The three ways money arrives

A not-for-profit’s income side looks nothing like a trading business, so the chart gives it three distinct accounts:

• Donations and gifts received default to BAS Excluded, because a genuine gift is not consideration for a supply and carries no GST. Deductible gift recipient status, which governs the donor’s deduction, is a separate matter and does not put GST on the gift.
• Grant income defaults to GST on Income but lists BAS Excluded as the alternative, because GST applies only where the grant is consideration for a supply back to the funder. A pure funding grant is outside scope; a grant that buys a deliverable is not.
• Membership and program fees default to GST on Income, with GST Free Income and Input Taxed listed, because what the member receives decides the treatment.

Endorsement is the gateway

The reason the chart records detail rather than baking in concessions is that the concessions are not automatic. GST concessions are available only to a charity registered with the ACNC and endorsed by the ATO for those concessions. The first thing a charity bookkeeper confirms is endorsement status, because it changes how taxable transactions are treated. The chart simply gives a clean place to record each transaction so the endorsement-dependent treatment can be applied at return time.

The higher registration threshold

Not-for-profits register for GST at a higher point than businesses: turnover of A$150,000, against A$75,000 for an ordinary business. Below it, registration is optional, and a smaller organisation that stays unregistered accepts that it cannot claim GST credits. Whether you are registered changes whether the expense-side codes in this chart claim anything at all.

Program costs and non-commercial activity

On the cost side, fundraising and program costs default to GST on Expenses, but program and volunteer costs carry a note that the costs of purely non-commercial activities, where goods or services are supplied well below cost, may not carry a claimable credit. The FBT concessions (the exemption for public benevolent institutions and health promotion charities, or the rebate for other endorsed charities) sit outside the chart, because they depend on the registration subtype.

How to use it

1. Open the CSV: each account carries its class, a default Xero GST code, the alternatives, and a note.
2. In Xero, go to Accounting, then Chart of accounts, then Import, and upload into a demo organisation first.
3. Confirm your endorsement and registration status before relying on the expense-side credits.
4. Brief whoever codes income that donations, consideration-based grants, and pure funding are coded differently.

The processing load is supplier invoices and reimbursements, and capture sits underneath the concessional judgement:

• Hubdoc pulls recurring supplier invoices into the file.
• ExpenseFlow reads each invoice and receipt, applies the everyday GST treatment, attaches the source, and posts it into Xero, while flagging a cost coded to a grant-funded or non-commercial activity as possibly not fully claimable for you to confirm.
• Dext applies supplier rules for repeat vendors.

The chart does not determine your ACNC endorsement or apply the GST and FBT concessions; those depend on your registration type and stay with your treasurer or charity accountant. For the full picture, see the Australian not-for-profit expenses guide. On QuickBooks instead? See the Australian not-for-profit chart of accounts for QuickBooks.