Choosing your COA strategy: simple for speed, detailed for depth

The two-step approach

Step 1: Screen with a simple COA. When a deal first comes in and you need to quickly assess whether it's worth pursuing, run it with a general COA — broad categories like Admin, R&M, Contract Services, Payroll, Utilities, Marketing. Archer's pre-trained mappings are most accurate at this level, so you'll have minimal adjustments. You get a clean T12 summary, comp benchmarks, and enough data to decide if this deal merits deeper analysis.

Step 2: Deep-dive with a detailed COA. If the deal passes your initial screen, re-run the T12 mapping with a more granular COA — breaking out elevator, landscaping, pool, security within Contract Services; electric, gas, water, sewer within Utilities; and so on. This takes more manual review but gives you the line-item visibility needed for serious underwriting.

How to switch between COA configurations

On the web app, go to Settings (click your name, top right), then Chart of Accounts. You can create multiple COA configurations — one general, one detailed — and select which one to use each time you run an underwrite.

When you switch COAs and re-run, you can do it directly from Excel: hit Refresh Data on the Archer ribbon, select the detailed COA from the dropdown, and the T12 re-maps to the new structure.

How granular should your detailed COA be?

Always break out:

• Utilities (electric, gas, water/sewer, trash) — different recovery rates for each
• Contract services (landscaping, security, elevator, pool) — large variances between properties
• Payroll vs. non-payroll — fundamentally different cost drivers

Break out when relevant to your strategy:

• Turn costs vs. R&M (if you're doing value-add renovations)
• Specific insurance line items (if insurance is a significant cost driver in your market)
• Property management vs. other admin (if you self-manage)

Keep grouped:

• Marketing sub-items (advertising, locator fees, printing) — usually managed as one budget
• G&A sub-items (office supplies, telephone, postage) — rarely material individually
• Below-the-line items — just need an "Exclude" category

The bottom line

You don't have to decide on Day 1. Start with Archer's standard COA (simple), get comfortable with the parsing and underwriting workflow, and then build your detailed COA as you learn which line items actually matter for your underwriting process. You can always add granularity later — you can't easily subtract it.