Set up alternative GL accounts (QuickBooks Online)
Overview
Alternative general ledger (GL) accounts let you allocate income from different products, customers, and branches to different accounts in your QuickBooks Online chart of accounts.
Find out how to create, download, and assign alternative GL accounts.
In QuickBooks Online, your chart of accounts is a list of all the accounts in your general ledger. Keeping a well-organized chart of accounts helps you categorize transactions and build detailed financial reports.
But when you sync sales orders and credit notes from Cin7 Omni to Xero, they debit and credit your default sales account only (that is, the Sales account under Default Accounts in your Xero integration settings).
By using alternative general ledger (GL) accounts, you can allocate income from different products, customers, and branches to different accounts in QuickBooks Online. Each alternative GL account maps to an account in your chart of accounts, so that when you sync sales orders to QuickBooks Online, your income is allocated according to the alternative GL account effective for each line item.
Before setting up alternative GL accounts, set up your QuickBooks Online chart of accounts. Then create, download, and assign your alternative GL accounts.
Create and download alternative GL accounts
To create an alternative GL account, you must create a QuickBooks Online service and download it to Cin7 Omni – don’t create the alternative GL account in Cin7 Omni. Services download to Cin7 Omni as alternative GL accounts:
Log in to QuickBooks Online.
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Follow Intuit’s instructions to add a new service – you only need to fill in the fields Name and Income Account:
You must begin the Name with “Cin7 - ” (for example, Cin7 - Alternative GL Account 1).
You must not include quotes (') or double quotes (") in the Name.
You must set the Income Account to an income account.
Now download your service to Cin7 Omni as an alternative GL account:
Log in to Cin7 Omni as an administrator.
From the Accounting menu in the navigation, select your QuickBooks Online integration.
Open the tab Admin and then the subtab Accounts. If you can’t see your services (from now, alternative GL accounts), select the Refresh button.
Once you’ve downloaded your alternative GL account, you’re ready to assign it to a product, customer, or branch.
Assign alternative GL accounts
You can assign alternative GL accounts to products, customers, and branches.
So, when you’ve assigned different alternative GL accounts to the products, the customer, and the branch on a sales order, Cin7 Omni will prioritize each product’s over the customer’s, the customer’s over the branch’s, and the branch’s over the Default Accounts in the Settings of your QuickBooks Online integration.
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, select Products.
Select Settings.
Open the General tab.
Set Accounting to Yes.
Select Save.
Now you can assign an alternative GL account to a product:
From the navigation, select Products.
Select the product to open its page.
Under Accounting, set Sales Account to an alternative GL account.
Select Save and Close.
This setting shows in the Account column of the line item on each sales order, where it can be overridden.
Assign alternative GL accounts to customers
From the navigation, select CRM.
Select the customer to open their page.
Under Accounts, set Alternative GL Account to an alternative GL account.
Select Save and Back.
This setting shows under Contact on each sales order, where it can be overridden.
Assign alternative GL accounts to branches
From the navigation, select CRM.
Select the branch to open its page.
Under Branch Details, set Alternative GL Account / Cost Center to an alternative GL account.
Select Save and Back.