Sèdjro Gbaguidi’s group has a company in Cotonou, one in Parakou and one in Natitingou, and the group’s own books carry the costs they share, such as the trucks that carry goods north. Mahougnon Tossou, the group’s accountant, can tell the total of the transport costs, but not which site spent what. Sèdjro asks: “Which of my sites makes money?” To answer, Mahougnon has to give every cost and every sale a place by site, not only a place in the chart of accounts. The same steps apply to any business that wants results by project, department or activity, such as a builder with several building sites. Allocating lines and reading the results is covered in Allocate lines and read analytic reports.

​
Who works where

The analytic structure belongs to one set of books. People reach it from two places. A member of the organization opens the book from the organization space, which is where Mahougnon works. An accountant who keeps the books of a client works from the client space, on the book of the client they act for. The steps are the same in both; this page links the organization space.

​
Create an axis for the question you ask

An axis is one way of cutting the business. Mahougnon creates an axis “Site” with Add an analytic axis, and later a second axis “Activity” for retail and wholesale. Each axis has a short code and a label. He sees the axes with List analytic axes and opens one with View an analytic axis.

​
Add the sections of each axis

Sections are the values of an axis. On “Site”, Mahougnon adds “Cotonou”, “Parakou” and “Natitingou” with Add an analytic section. Sections can be nested: under “Parakou” he could add a warehouse and a shop. A section that has children becomes a group, and amounts go to the children, never to the group. He renames or archives a section with Edit an analytic section.

​
Let rules allocate new entries

He creates an allocation rule with Add an allocation rule: “entries in the Parakou journal go to the section Parakou on the axis Site”. A rule names one axis and one section, and at least one thing to match: an account number prefix, the source of the entry, or a journal. A priority decides which rule wins when several match. From then on, each new entry posted in the book is checked against the rules. Entries posted before the rule existed are not touched; Mahougnon handles those by hand.

​
Change or remove the structure

Mahougnon edits an axis with Edit an analytic axis and a rule with Edit an allocation rule. To clean up, he uses Delete an allocation rule, Delete an analytic section or Delete an analytic axis. A structure in use cannot be deleted; he archives it instead.

​
The rules

  • The accounting module must be included in the plan of the organization. The same actions exist in the organization space and in the client space.
  • To add an axis, the book must already have at least one journal.
  • An axis code is required, at most 32 characters, and unique in the book. Archived axes still count. A section code is unique within its axis. Labels are required, 255 characters at most.
  • A code, and the axis or parent of a section, cannot be changed afterwards. Only the label, the status and the mandatory flag (axis) or postable flag (section) can. New axes and sections are active; a section is postable unless you say otherwise. The mandatory flag of an axis is only recorded: no posting or allocation is refused because a line has no section on that axis.
  • A parent section can take children only if it holds no allocation and is not the target of an active rule. Once it has children, it can no longer receive allocations.
  • An axis cannot be archived while an active rule uses it. A section cannot be archived or made non-postable while an active rule allocates to it.
  • A rule needs at least one of an account prefix, a source type or a journal of the book, and a priority of 0 or more. Its section must be active, postable and without children, on the same active axis. The axis of a rule cannot be changed.
  • When several rules of the same axis match a line, the first in priority order wins (lower number first). One section receives the whole line: splits are made by hand. A rule whose section can no longer receive allocations is skipped, and rules never block a posting.
  • Rules apply to lines of posted entries on cost and income accounts (classes 6, 7 and 8 by default), not to the entry that closes the fiscal year. A reversal copies the split of the original instead of running the rules again.
  • An axis or a section cannot be deleted once an allocation uses it, nor while a rule, active or archived, points to it. A section is also kept while it has children. Deleting an axis deletes its sections with it. Deleting a rule leaves the allocations it already made.
  • A deletion is permanent.

​
All the actions of this topic