Does anyone have a link or a brief summary they can provide me of what exactly this is. I am a total newbie to GP just trying to understand. Thanks in advance!
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the question is already answered but I will chime in with
be careful of people who want to do project accounting in the gl.
you don't need a segment to identify machines in R&M or people in travel expense. Analytical Accounting can do that, or the distribution reference field if you are willing to report on free form text.
you may not need a segment for divisional or segment reporting management reporter can do that by building trees.
So often as a consultant I saw people with proposed charts of account that were enormous and complex.
The company I currently work for originally wanted 7 segments! I talked them down to 4.
ian
Account Framework is a system setting established when installing GP initially. Account Framework determines the maximum number of account segments and their maximum segment lengths. You can have up to 10 segment and up to 66 characters in your accounts string. I always set Account Framework to a maximum of 10 and 66 characters to allow for future growth. Otherwise, it can be painful to change later.
Account Format is at the Company level and is where you define what you want your account structure to look like for that company. You can have a varying number of segments and segment lengths from company to company within a GP instance. Of course, if you need to consolidate results from multiple companies, it's best to stay with the same account format for every company, although Management Reporter can consolidate disparate account formats.
Thanks again Richard. Joshua that is a great break down of how it works. Thanks!
GP allows you to define segments upon setup for the system. Each segment may have up to 66 characters I believe. Each segment is named to mean something for your company. For example, one account setup I've done is this:
AA-BBBBB-CCCC-DDD
Where A = a division of the company
B = the natural number for the account
C = a product number
D = a department
So a GL account number would be:
10-11000-0000-000 which would represent division 10's Accounts Receivable account with no product or department assigned.
20-52000-1000-070 would represent division 20's Cost of Revenue account for product 1000 with a department of 070
The main reason to segment your account numbers is to make reporting easier. For example, in Management Reporter, you will use the segment numbers to pull various reports.
For example, I will use a report that shows me gross margin for a specific product or group of products by division. I can set up what is called a tree in Management Reporter to produce a margin report by divisions and products.
Another reason is Smart List and SSRS reporting inside of GP. These allow me to create filters that look for accounts that have a specific segment filter. For example, let's say that I have 20,000 revenue accounts across all my divisions, products, and departments. I would certainly not want to set those GL numbers that I want to check in a report. Instead, I can create a filter that allow me to view all "Natural Numbers" between 40000 and 49999 with a "Product Number" that equals 1000 for "Division" that equals 10.
The trick to it is to keep it as simple as possible that allows the maximum desired reporting capabilities for your company.
The account framework is the foundation of your GL account segment structure. This can vary per company. Let's say you use something like XXX-XXXX-XXX where the first segment is your location, the second segment is the natural acccount and the third segment is department. Now when I install GP for the first time I always set the default segment structure to something larger than what is needed. This way in the future you can always add new segments without third party software. The segment structure is then used in your financial reports to allow you to run reports based on locations, department or whatever other breakdown that is applicable to your company. You may only have one segment or up to ten. It all depends on your company's needs.
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