Set up alternative GL accounts
Overview
Find out how to set up alternative general ledger (GL) accounts to categorize revenue and expenses from different products, customers and suppliers, or branches and allocate them to different accounts in Xero or QuickBooks Online.
Your chart of accounts is a list of every account in your general ledger.
It must be well-organized, with different accounts for different types of income and expenses, in order for you to categorize your transactions, build detailed financial reports, and comply with accounting standards.
In Cin7 Omni, you can create alternative general ledger (GL) accounts and assign them to products, customers and suppliers, and branches to categorize your inventory-related income and expenses.
You can also link your alternative GL accounts to accounts in your chart of accounts in Xero and QuickBooks Online. Then, when you sync your transactions to Xero or QuickBooks Online, your revenue and expenses will be automatically allocated to the right accounts. If you don’t use an accounting integration, we suggest signing up for Xero or signing up for QuickBooks Online.
Set up alternative GL accounts (Xero)
Find out how to set up alternative GL accounts with Xero.
Set up alternative GL accounts (QuickBooks Online)
Find out how to set up alternative GL accounts with QuickBooks Online.
Set up alternative GL accounts (no accounting integration)
We suggest signing up for Xero or signing up for QuickBooks Online. Then, while Omni and your alternative GL accounts track and categorize your inventory-related transactions, Xero or QuickBooks Online will track and categorize other transactions, like loans and overhead expenses.
Otherwise, if you don’t use Xero or QuickBooks Online, you can create your alternative GL accounts and assign them to your products, contacts, and branches, and then use Omni Insights for analysis.
Create an alternative GL accounts
First create an alternative GL account:
From the user menu, open Settings.
Under Accounting, open Alternative GL Accounts.
Select Add New.
Set Active to Yes.
Enter a number into Sort—this is the alternative GL accounts’s index in your list of alternative GL accounts on the previous page (you can leave it as is).
Enter a Name for your alternative GL accounts.
Enter the Account Code into Account Number.
Set Purchases or Sales to Purchases (if this alternative GL account is for expenses) or Sales (if this alternative GL account is for revenue).
Optionally, assign a COGS account (COGS Account), tracking option (Tracking Categories Name and Tracking Categories Option), and tax rate (Tax Rate Code and Tax Rate) too.
Select Insert.
Once you’ve created your alternative GL accounts, you can assign them to products, contacts, or branches (see below).
Assign alternative GL accounts to products
Before you first assign an alternative GL account to a product, you’ll need to enable the accounting settings for products:
From the navigation, open Products.
Open Settings.
Open the General tab.
Set Accounting to Yes.
Select Save.
Now you can assign alternative GL accounts to products:
From the navigation, open Products.
Open the product.
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Then, under Accounting:
If the alternative GL account is for sales of the product, set Sales Account to the alternative GL account.
If the alternative GL account is for purchases of the product, set Purchases Account to the alternative GL account.
Select Save and Close.
The product’s alternative GL account is shown in the Account column of the line item on each sales or purchase order order, where it can be overridden.
Assign alternative GL accounts to contacts
From the navigation, open the CRM.
Select the contact to open their page.
Under Accounts, set Alternative GL Account to the alternative GL account.
Select Save and Back.
The contact’s alternative GL account is shown under Contact on each sales or purchase order, where it can be overridden.
Assign alternative GL accounts to branches
From the navigation, open the CRM.
Select the branch to open its page.
Under Branch Details, set Alternative GL Account / Cost Center to the alternative GL account.
Select Save and Back.
Prioritization of alternative GL account
Because alternative GL accounts can be assigned to products, contacts, and branches, line items can inherit alternative GL accounts from the products, the contact, or the branch of a transaction.
Therefore, line items prioritize how they inherit alternative GL account:
A line item will inherit its product’s alternative GL account, if any.
A line item will inherit the contact’s alternative GL account if and only if the product has no alternative GL account.
A line item will inherit the branch’s alternative GL account if and only if neither the product nor the contact has an alternative GL account.
A line item will not inherit an alternative GL account if and only if neither the product, the contact, nor the branch has an alternative GL account—in which case, the line item will be allocated to the default account.