How does “The benchmark and the standard” work on the Chart of Accounts Harmonisation page?

You can work with no standard at all — the chart compares on the group's own consensus. Seeding one from the organisation whose chart is closest to right (usually the main trading company) pins a canonical benchmark: number blocks, slots with a name, code and type, and a registry of the names each slot recognises, all editable afterwards and written nowhere in Xero. A slot's compare policy decides how hard the chart holds organisations to it; a row marked company-only is never flagged. Adopt shared pins rows most organisations already share under one number onto the standard in one go. Where: Chart of Accounts Harmonisation (/accounts/accounts-harmonisation).