Intacct’s Multi-Book Architecture
Did you know Intacct has a multi-book architecture? In our contract blog you may have caught a glimpse into how the Contracts module takes full advantage of this feature by using separate books for ASC605 and ASC606 to meet the required compliance reporting. However, did you know the application of Intacct’s multi-book architecture has a much wider span? Today, we’ll take a look at applications of this flexible feature in Intacct.
When to Use a User Defined Book
- We use a user defined book when a need for flexible reporting exists. For example, in some reports we may want to include user defined book entries for our audience, while others should exclude them.
- Added visibility and foresight to allow for better planning.
Examples of User Defined Books Applications
Commitments in Purchasing:
Have you wished for the ability to easily see outstanding purchases prior to receiving a vendor’s invoice? Wouldn’t having visibility into purchases that have been made but have not yet invoiced by a vendor allow for better planning?
By posting Purchase Orders to a user defined book, you can build financial reports that provided a deeper level of foresight. Imagine being able to see 100 feet in front of you, instead of just 10. This is exactly the type of visibility commitment books provide a business giving them the ability to anticipate expenses and plan accordingly.
An example of a financial report which contains a column for: Accrual, Commitments, and Total
Month End Allocations:
Would you like the flexibility to see reports either with or without your month-end allocations depending on the intended audience? Rather than extend your chart of accounts to keep these entries separate, you could deploy a user defined book for posting these entries to. Then, on the columns of each report you can choose whether to include the allocations book.
A screenshot depicting how to add the Allocations User Defined Book, ALLB, to a column of a financial report
Sales Contracts in Order Entry:
Perhaps your main revenue source is contract based. You’d like to be able to see opportunities that have been closed but not yet recognized as revenue. By posting sales orders to user defined books we’re able to forecast revenue similarly to encumbrances in purchasing.
Private Entries:
If you are not planning to use user defined books in any other way, now or in the future, you may use user defined books for private entries. Perhaps you’d like some users, but certainly not all, to see detailed salary information. Typically, this is not recommended in Intacct, but if you never plan to use user defined books otherwise you can post these entries here. Then, a permission exists to allow for viewing these entries or preventing this.
What’s Next?
As this post has portrayed with its varied examples, Intacct’s user defined books truly make it a cornerstone of flexible reporting. User Defined Books can be used both to meet the audience’s desired level of information as well as provide additional foresight into a business’s operations. Interested in learning more about how you might be able to take advantage of user defined books? Reach out to our CLA Sage Intacct team. And, if you’d like to be notified when new blogs are posted, subscribe!
Kathy Jastrzebski is a manager with CLA’s Intacct team. CLA is an Intacct Premier Partner with a partnership that spans over 20 years and more than 1,000 successful implementations. Kathy brings five years of accounting experience along with seven years of Sage Intacct implementation experience. Along with her accounting experience, she has a passion for leveraging technology to lead finance teams worldwide through system implementations with a mission of increasing department efficiency through business process improvements.
Kathy,
Nice article. Can you call me?