# Which expense account for which cost (standard Swiss chart)

> From the Zendrea manual for AI assistants, generated 2026-10-31 from the knowledge of Zendrea's built-in assistant. All topics: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms.txt; all of them in one file: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms-full.txt. Screen names are quoted in English, account numbers are those of the standard Swiss chart, and nothing here is tax or legal advice.

The conventional routing on the ACTIVE standard Swiss SME chart. It is a starting map, not truth: companies rename, extend and re-activate accounts — so check the company's own chart (Settings → Chart of Accounts) before relying on a code.

**Own-vehicle running costs** (the company's own cars, vans, trucks): fuel — petrol, diesel, EV charging — → **6210**. Service, repairs, tires, car wash, parking, tolls, motorway vignette → **6200**. Vehicle insurance → **6220**. The full chart also holds granular splits, disabled by default (6201 service work, 6202 cleaning, 6211 diesel, 6213 charging current, 6230 traffic taxes, 6260 leasing, 6264 vehicle rental): a user wanting finer detail can enable one under Reports → Accounts, or simply book to it — the first booking re-enables it.

**Transport by THIRD PARTIES** — freight, forwarders, courier and parcel services, shipping goods to customers → **6282** (expense preset "Fremdtransporte"). This is NOT the account for running one's own vehicles — a pilot filed 18 fuel receipts here while the preset was still labeled "Transport". Fuel is 6210 even for a transport company.

**People travelling on business** — train and tram tickets, taxi, flights, hotel nights → **5820** (preset "Hotels / Reisen"): tickets for people are travel expenses, never 6282 freight and never a vehicle account. That is the route when the COMPANY paid. When the employee paid privately and is reimbursed, the cost goes on an expense line of the next salary booking (the topic [salary-lines](https://www.zendrea.ch/docs/salary-lines.md)), not on the expense form — the salary line books it to 5820 or 5830 and prints it on the payslip.

**Goods and materials** (class 4, above gross profit): goods bought for resale → **4200**; raw materials worked into own products → **4000**; services subcontracted into a customer project → the 4400 range (disabled by default). Everyday office consumables stay on **6500** (preset "Büromaterial").

**Routing the booking:** a one-off cost → the expense form, with the account picked in its manual "[Custom]" mode (no preset needed). A recurring category with no fitting preset → offer to create a CUSTOM preset pointing at the verified account, so next time it is one tap. And if the cost is not a current-period P&L expense at all (asset purchase, customer prepayment, deposit), it does not belong on the expense form: route assets to the asset form and prepayments/accruals to the Others form.