> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.layerfi.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Account Identifier

Account identifiers are unique identifiers for a specific ledger account within a business. They are used in both API inputs and outputs to specify a given ledger account.
They are typically used when [categorizing transactions](/api-reference/v1/categorize-bank-transaction) or [creating categorization rules](/api-reference/v1/categorization-rules/create-categorization-rule).

Account identifiers are polymorphic. There are multiple types of identifiers for different use cases which we discuss below.

## `AccountId`

The first use case is the intuitive `AccountId` type, which is a unique ID object for a ledger account. This kind of identifier is unique across all businesses and all ledger accounts.

### Request Body

<ParamField body="type" type="string">
  `AccountId` indicates we're using an AccountId identifier type.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="id" type="string">
  The unique identifier string for the ledger account.
</ParamField>

```json Account ID Example theme={null}
{
  "type": "AccountId",
  "id": "e95c8640-f87b-43bf-a9c6-cabc7ebfdec6"
}
```

Account IDs are useful when users create their own ledger accounts, which are not guaranteed to have stable names. To refer to these accounts will need to use the `AccountId` type.

## `StableName`

The second use case is the `StableName` type, which is a stable identifier for an account present in your chart of accounts template.
This kind of identifier is useful for identifying equivalent accounts across businesses, e.g., referring to the `ACCOUNTS_RECEIVABLE` account across different businesses, since those may have different `AccountId`s but will have the same `StableName`.

This is useful for situations where you are building a workflow for a specific account type, e.g. `ACCOUNTS_RECEIVABLE` and don't want to look up the unique account ID for each business.

### Limitations

While useful, there are two limitations to note with stable names:

1. End-users with access to the general ledger can create their own ledger accounts, which will not have stable names. To refer to these accounts will need to use the `AccountId` type.
2. Some templated account types are specific to industries. If you have customers with different Charts. If you try to use a stable name for an account which does not exist for a business, you will receive an error.

### Request Body

<ParamField body="type" type="string">
  `StableName` indicates we're using a StableName identifier type.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="stable_name" type="string">
  The stable identifier string for the ledger account.
</ParamField>

```json Stable Name Example theme={null}
{
  "type": "StableName",
  "stable_name": "CHARITABLE_CONTRIBUTIONS"
}
```

## References

* [Required vs. Optional Template Accounts](/api-reference/ledger/required-vs-optional-template-accounts)