I recommend keeping the COA simple, clean, and aligned to financial statements by using clear numeric ranges for main accounts, for example:
- 100000–199999 Assets (Cash, AR, Inventory, Fixed Assets, etc.)
- 200000–299999 Liabilities (AP, Accruals, Debt, etc.)
- 300000–399999 Equity
- 400000–499999 Revenue
- 500000–599999 COGS
- 600000–699999 Operating Expenses
- 700000–799999 Other Income/Expense
The main account should represent the nature of the account (e.g., Salaries, Rent, Cash).
Organizational or functional views (Sales, Finance, Location, Business Unit, etc.) should be handled through financial dimensions, not by creating separate main accounts like “Salaries – Sales” and “Salaries – Finance”.
If you decide to continue with a dotted COA structure, then it is important to:
- Review accounts where segments are missing numbers after the dot,
- Make them consistent in length/format (e.g., 10 digits total or a consistent segment structure), and
- Ensure each account is placed within the correct account range that matches its account category (Assets, Liabilities, Revenue, etc.).
While D365 can technically support dotted account numbers, in practice they often cause integration and data handling issues (e.g., Excel, ETL tools, middleware treating “.” as a decimal or separator). For long-term stability, reporting consistency, and easier integrations, it is better to use simple numeric main accounts (e.g., 6 digits) and rely on dimensions for additional detail.
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Regards,
Syed Haris Shah
