A well known technique to provide Division and Department reporting is to use GL Analysis Codes.
These analysis codes are called differently in each accounting product
- Categories or Jobs (in MYOB)
- Tracking Codes (in Xero)
- Class / Locations (in QuickBooks Online)
- Sub-Accounts in Acumatica
This requires you to have allocated every transaction or line of a transaction to a Division / Department, and that is a lot of data entry and can result in errors.
Using Business Intelligence for Cloud we provide an alternative method that we call GL Custom Lists where you Tag each GL account to belong to a Department or Division.
Then in BI4Cloud easily report on monthly Actuals v Budgets by Division. This is a great option for States or a small number of Divisions.
For a complete review of the various options available to account for Divisions :
- MYOB users see Accounting for Divisions or Cost Centres Using MYOB.
- XERO users see Xero : Tracking Code Report and Budgets
- QuickBooks users see QuickBooks Online: Location and Class Reporting
Using GL Custom List Labels / GL Tags
Login to BI as the main BI Account Admin User so that you see the Admin screen or if already logged in go to the Company page.
1. Click on the Cool Stuff button
(Available in the Enterprise 5 user and above version of BI4Cloud. See Below for Initial Setup of Cool Stuff)
2. Click on GL Custom Lists
3. Select the Company (if you have multiple Companies linked up)
4. Give the GL custom List a name e.g. Division, Branch, State
5. Allocate each P&L account to a Division, State, etc.
Select the GL accounts you wish to allocate to a Division using the Search/Filter field.
For example enter "4-" to select all GL account starting with "4-".
6. Assign Values to each GL Account then Click Exit to Save
Run Monthly Divisional Budget Reports
10. Login to BI - Let's start a New Favourite report using the Advanced option:
- Click on the Advanced Cog
- Setup a Pivot Type Report
- Choosing the GL Profit & Loss Report Mapping
- Analyse by GL Account Level2 - to set Rows
- Then by State (or whatever you called your GL Custom List) - to set Columns
- Then by Account - to set the drill down sequence to go down GL account next
- Pivot on ALL (H) - to see All Dimensions Actual, Budget & Variance or just choose Actual if you don't have budgets.
- Group by Account Group or Account Type to subtotal at Income, Expense etc
- Click Go to run the report
- Save to Save this as a new Favourite report to use over and over.
- That's it, no need to allocate every transaction to a Job, Category or Tracking Code again.
- Remember if you add new P&L accounts into MYOB or XERO you will need to go back to Cool Stuff and allocate the new GL account to the relevant Custom List ( State etc).
Other Options to Report - Compare YTD v MTD - Actual v Budget P&L by Cost Centre
Other Options - Monthly Pivot - Actual v Budget P&L by Cost Centre
Other Options - Cost Centre Pivot (as Columns) - Actual v Budget P&L by Month
Visualisations can also work well - Track Weekly Sales by Division
Initial Setup
This Feature is available for users on enterprise 5 ( Cool Stuff) or above. We allow you to allocate each P&L account to up to 3 different Custom Lists in BI and store this outside of your MYOB or XERO file. To turn this feature on:
1. Organisation Page
Login to BI as the main BI Account Admin User and go to the Organisation Page.
2. Set Advanced Database to Yes & Save Changes
3. Refresh your Data
