The account sections are used to customize the presentation of financial reports by enabling you to group accounts and total the accounts in a group. You can dictate the groupings, heading names and total name labels within a major section of the report and cause an account’s dollar amount to be placed wherever you want. You can define grouping up to three levels down from the major section. Each account can be assigned to a specific account section.
The default for Account Sections is one section for each account type. The exception is the account type Equity, which on appropriate reports is broken down to Current Year Earnings and Retained (prior year) Earnings. Each account (i.e. Rent, Plumbing, Advertising) is assigned an account type which determines the major section of the report in which it will appear.
By adding Account Sections you can structure a report so the accounts get grouped and subtotaled within the default section. You can go down three levels. Thus you could take Expenses and break them down into Building, Common Area and General & Administrative. Then you could take G&A and break it down into Fees, Maintenance and Supplies. You could then take Maintenance and break it down into In-House and Outside Services.
The sequencing of the sub-groupings is based on the ledger code assigned to the Account Section.
This approach to determining the report layout gives maximum flexibility since any account can be anywhere on the report. There are no restrictions on its positioning.
See Defining Account Sections and the Example below for further explanation of how you can define account sections to format financial reports. There is an even more thorough example, with sample report printouts, in our How To document #237, available by clicking on Links, How To pdf documents.
You can set up defaults for financial reports to use Account Sections under Setup, Database Settings.
Each account section has an ID and Description. The ID can be any alphanumeric string, including spaces and special characters. The recommended ID scheme is an abbreviation of the Description.
Ledger Code
The ledger code is used for sorting purposes within the sections on a report. If no ledger codes is defined the sections are placed in ID sequence.
Section Header Description
Enter the description you want printed as the heading for the account section on the report.
Section Total Description
Enter the description you want printed on the total line on the report.
Main Section
Select from the account sections created the main section for this account section if it is a sub-section to one of them. For example, if the account section is Current Assets, the main section is probably Assets. If the account section is Rental Income, the main section is probably Income.
Sub Section
Select from the account sections created the sub section for this account section if it falls beneath a sub-account section.
Balance Sheet, Revenue and Expense, Cash Flow, Property and Tax Analysis
You can choose the detail/total option you want on each of the above reports. Choose one of the options below from the Find List.
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Details - the total for each account is given but the account sections are not totaled
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Total Details - the total for each account is given and each account section total is printed.
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Summary - the account line totals don’t print, just the total for the account section
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Associated Account Type
The account type chosen here will be used when a new account is created. When the account type is chosen, the account section information will be filled in.
Defining Account Sections
If no account sections are defined, all accounts fall under their major report section heading, determined by their account type.
A second level breakdown requires an account section like Utilities, G&A, etc. These account sections do not have Main or Sub account references filled in.
A third level breakdown requires an account section with a main account reference filled in.
The fourth level breakdown requires that an account section be defined with both the main and sub-account references filled in.
Example
Examples of each of the four levels of breakdown can be found in our How To document #237.
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