About your company after the upgrade to multi-entity

After your company is upgraded to a multi-entity company with a top level, you'll find the following upgrades to components of your company.

Company

By default, your new multi-entity company is configured for working at the top level. This makes the experience similar to working in a single entity company.

You can change the setting so that users work at the entity level.

Learn more about working at the top level or entity level.

Default entity

Intacct automatically assigns a default location and entity when working in a multi-entity company with a single entity. For example, if E100 is your only entity, if you create a new AP purchase invoice without selecting a location, Intacct automatically assigns E100 to the transaction upon saving.

Additional entities

Some Intacct companies have only a single entity, which represents one legal entity. For example, if your company conducts business in a single currency with one tax entity, you probably would have defined one entity for your Intacct company.

Consider defining more entities if your company has more than one legal entity or transacts in multiple currencies and tax jurisdictions.

Having a top level enables you to add entities to your company, which gives you greater flexibility for your growing business needs.

A company that started with a single entity and has later grown might be a good candidate for another entity.

It's simple to add a new entity to your company. Doing so can incur an extra charge.

Contact your Sage Intacct representative to consider your business needs in the context of adding an entity. Adding an entity incurs an additional cost.

Users

All users can access the top level by default. Working mostly at the top level is a best practice for many applications, and it's very similar to working in a single entity company.

Bank accounts will now exist at the top level with the newly created entity ID assigned.

Bank accounts

Sage Intacct will automatically assign the new entity ID to all cheque accounts and savings accounts, where location is now required.

Existing bank accounts will now reside at the top level with the newly created entity ID assigned.

Going forward, it's a best practice to add new bank accounts at the top level.

Transactions

All previous transactions with locations roll up to the newly defined entity. Previous transactions without a location are also assigned to the newly defined entity. If your company did not use locations before, a new location column appears in tables of records such as journal entries.

When adding a transaction, a blank location field will default the transaction to the entity. Defaulting the location field to the entity for a new transaction only works when you have a single entity in your multi-entity company.

If you later add another entity to your company, you'll need to specify an entity in the location field when creating a transaction. A company with more than one entity has no default location, and an empty location field will cause an error in the transaction.

Any transactions created without a location before the upgrade will be assigned a location of the new entity after the upgrade.

Pay AP purchase invoices by entity

Having an entity means you can now use multi-entity filters to select AP purchase invoices and pay them.

With your newly upgraded multi-entity company, you can filter for:

  • Top level AP purchase invoices
  • AP purchase invoices related to a specified entity
  • Entities with enough resources to pay AP purchase invoices in full
  • AP purchase invoices with multi-entity line items, if you add another entity

Reporting

You'll find reports work in much the same way in your upgraded multi-entity company as they did in your single entity company. The primary difference is that the entity is included in the report as a location, using the Location field.

If you're generating a report from the top level, you can: 

  • Enter a location for the report. The report will run on that location or entity.
  • Leave the location blank. The report will run for all entities.

Reports will look the same as before the upgrade if your company has a single currency.

Dimensions

The newly defined entity is added to the location dimension. Any transaction or record requiring a location can now be assigned the entity name for that location. Other dimensions remain the same.

Locations

Locations in a multi-entity shared company require a parent ID, which can be an entity ID or another location ID. Any existing locations without a parent ID are automatically assigned the parent ID of your newly created entity.

Continue to use whatever consistent naming convention you've been using for location IDs. A consistent naming convention enables you to differentiate entity IDs from location IDs. Distinct location IDs make it easier to code a transaction to a location or assign a parent ID to a given location.

Import files

Import file templates will have a field for locations. The CSV import template file will have a column called LOCATION_ID.

The column looks like this:

Field Name: LOCATION_ID

UI Field Name: Location

Type: Character

Length: 20

Default Value: None

Valid Values: Alphanumeric and underscore

Dependencies: Refers to a valid location

Required: No

Editable: Yes

Any transactions created without a location before the upgrade will be assigned a location of the new entity after the upgrade.

Additional information

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