If you’re using a traditional ERP system, you probably use a segmented chart of accounts, meaning that all reporting elements are part of the overall account, with a separator for each segment. This approach wastes a lot of time in creating different accounts; to track three sites, five cost centers, and five product lines, for example, you’d need 75 account code combinations. Adding a new site or cost center could lead to hundreds of additional accounts.
Luckily, it’s possible to make it so that the only thing you have to do is set up primary account codes. Even as your business changes, you wouldn’t have to add hard-coded segment combinations, you would merely “tag” transactions and operational data with dimension values. Tagging with dimension values – versus assigning transactions to hard-coded individual accounts – enables you to add business context to your data, and once you create a dimension type, you can use it for any transaction: GL, AR, AP, fixed assets, and more.
This is known as dimensional accounting, and it allows you to maintain each segment separately, which limits the overall maintenance of your GL accounts. You can also identify when a segment value is required in a GL account, so users entering data won’t accidentally miss tagging a transaction.
Dimensions fundamentally improve your reporting, making it easier for you to get fast answers to important business questions, such as project profitability or revenue by geography.
Dimensional accounting is also easy to use and saves time during every step of the process: setup, data entry, and reporting. It streamlines a cumbersome process that challenges many system administrators, making it so easy it can be done in minutes.
Dimensional accounting outshines traditional accounting in every setting, and you can do it with Sage Enterprise Management (Sage X3). To learn more about dimensional accounting and/or Sage Enterprise Management, or to view a demo of Sage Enterprise Management, please contact us today.