Category Accounting Data by Group: A Guide for Accountants Managing Multi-Entity Instances
Updated
The purpose behind this feature is to simplify account management and maintenance.
If you have different accounting data for the same category, your company simply need to activate this feature. It will allow you to duplicate categories into subcategories, according to groups, and to configure accounting data for each of them according to your needs.
The admin should then create the subcategories by group and therefore by cost accounts from the "admin" tab. .
Let's assume we have created two subcategories ("Dining France" and "Dining Spain") under the parent category "Dining" for the following two groups:
- Group 1: France: which includes users residing in France
- Group 2: Spain: which includes users residing in Spain
By unchecking the box "Activate the settings shown below for this subcategory" for the Spain group, it means that users residing in Spain will only see the default parent category ("Dining") and not the subcategory "Dining Spain." Enabling it for the France group means that users residing in France will only see the subcategory "Dining France" and not the parent category "Dining."
Group-specific configurations involved in the subcategories only apply to the following three tabs:
- Basic Settings
- Custom Fields
- Accounting
As for predefined categories, user groups, and merchants, they are applicable to the parent category (the default values of the "Dining" category in this example). You do not have the option to configure them separately, neither from the web nor through import.
Case study
A company with 2 subsidiaries (France and Spain) each with its own cost account. The administrator wants to configure the Meals category for these two subsidiaries.
In the first instance, the following two groups will need to be created:
- Group 1: France
- Group 2: Spain
Option 1 :
The Meals parent category,“Default values", does not have an assigned group
- Empty cost account
- Active
- Subcategory 1:
- Title: Meals France
- Assigned to group 1 “France”
- XXXX cost account
- Subcategory 2:
- Title: Meals Spain
- Assigned to group 2 “Spain”
- YYYY cost account
Option 2 :
The Meals parent category, “Default values", does not have an assigned group
- Empty cost account
- Deactivate
- Subcategory 1:
- Title: Meals France
- Assigned to group 1 “France”
- XXXX cost account
- Subcategory 2:
- Title: Meals Spain
- Assigned to group 2 “Spain”
- YYYY cost account
Option 3:
- The Meals parent category “Default values” is assigned to group 1 “France”
- Title: Meals France
- French cost account
- In this case, the parent category is considered a subcategory
- Subcategory 2:
- Title: Meals Spain
- Assigned to group 2 “Spain”
- YYYY cost account
This is what will happen in the following scenario for each of the above options:
Scenario | Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 |
Disable the "Meals France" subcategory assigned to group 2 “France” | Parent category activated, has no defined group, visible to all groups including the "France" group. However, the "Meals" expenses for "France" group employees will not have an export expense account. | "France" group employees do not see the "Meals" category at all | "France" group employees do not see the "Meals" category at all |
