Field descriptions: GL Accounts

You see this field if you do not use subaccounts. Enter the primary account number.

This number must be a specific length, which is set on the Accounting tab of the Company Information page. For example, if your system uses account numbers that are 4 characters long, you can create an account number of 1024, but not 10245.

The account number length might differ between companies.

This number cannot be changed after the account is saved, unless you allow changes to account numbers and you have permission to make such changes.

You see these fields if you use subaccounts. Enter the primary account number as described above, and enter any subaccount numbers that you want (subaccounts are optional).

As with primary account numbers, subaccount numbers must be a specific length, which is set on the Accounting tab of the Company Information page.

For example, your system uses primary account numbers that are 4 characters long and subaccount numbers that are 3 characters long. You can create account numbers such as 1024-100 or 1024-100-300-400.

Subaccount box sizes do not change based on the number of characters they can hold. On the page, they appear large enough for 3 characters, but they accept more if your subaccount length is longer than 3.

Each box is a different subaccount.

Account numbers cannot be changed after the account is saved, unless you allow changes to account numbers and you have permission to make such changes. For more information, see Change GL account numbers.

The Category field is available only for companies that were created with a QuickStart template or selected one later. Categories are permanently preassigned to account groups, which are used in pre-designed financial reports and graphs.

If enabled, select a category for the account. Based on the category selection, the account automatically prefills Account type, Normal balance, and Period end closing type.

For example, assign the Petty Cash account to the category Cash and Cash Equivalents. That category is assigned to the Cash and Cash Equivalents account group and appears on financial reports and graphs that contain this account group. If you do not want this account to be in your financials, delete the text in this field so that it's blank.

Categories are part of the QuickStart template, and are included in the chart of accounts import template. Use the template to import chart of account information, including the categories assigned to your accounts.

You can't create new categories.

For more information, see QuickStart overview.

Select an account type:

• Balance sheet account

  Snapshot of the current state of a company's assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific time.

• Income statement account

  Sometimes called Profit and Loss statements, these are cumulative for the selected period.

When you create an account, you specify whether the normal balance, from an accounting standpoint, is a debit or credit. For example, expense accounts are normally a debit. Sales accounts are normally a credit. If you were to run a Trial Balance report, the normal balance of the account is what determines whether the account is a credit or debit.

Specify whether the account is a closing or non-closing account. This determines whether activity in the account is included in your close-into account, which you select in the Close into account field.

On reports, your Close-into account shows period end totals calculated through a virtual close. For more information about how period end totals are calculated due to a virtual close, see Close books.

Income statement accounts should be closing accounts.

Balance sheet accounts should be non-closing accounts.

For income statement accounts, enter the account into which they close. Depending on your organization type, you'll typically use one of the following as your Close Into Account:

• Retained Earnings. Use this if your organization is a for-profit company.
• Net Assets. Use this if your organization is not for profit.

Sage Intacct zeroes closing accounts into your close-into account at year-end, but does not create closing entries. Instead, period end totals are calculated when you run reports.

To set up this account so that it can be used to override the default AP or AR General Ledger account, select the type of GL account that it can override:

• Payables account: adds the account to the filtered list of AP GL accounts available as override accounts for AP purchase invoice and adjustment transactions, and transactions involving a specific supplier.
• Receivables account: adds the account to the filtered list of AR GL accounts available as override accounts for AR sales invoice and adjustment transactions and transactions involving a specific customer.

You can set up any account as an available override account, but typically you use AR or AP accounts.

As you enter transactions, you can select the same alternative GL account for all line items, or select alternative accounts individually per line item. In Supplier and Customer pages, you can select 1 alternative GL account to use for balancing all transactions involving the supplier or customer.

If you override the default account for a transaction, the override account you used can never be deleted or have its status set to Inactive. Also, the account will always remain available as an override account.

Tax return code and M-3 return code

If you use 3rd-party applications to prepare client tax returns, enter the tax code in the Tax return code box to map tax codes to the tax forms you'll use. Whether you fill out 1 or both of these tax code boxes depends on which item or items your tax software requires. For example, you use GoSystem Tax, and you want to map tax return codes to a tax form, such as Form 1120, complete the Tax return code box. Similarly, to map M-3 return codes to your M-3 form, you must complete the M-3 return code box.

Accounts can be active or inactive.

Inactive accounts are not used in calculating allocations, and they do not appear in list pages, dropdown lists, or pick lists. (You can still list inactive accounts by selecting the Include inactive checkbox.)

Select this checkbox to designate this account as a regularization account.

To comply with regional reporting requirements, you can now set up regularization accounts. A regularization account is an account that can be classified as either an asset or a liability on the balance sheet.

The account classification depends on the account balance at the time that the financial report is run. If the account's balance does not match its normal balance, the account is eligible to be reclassified.

To learn more, see About regularization accounts.

For regularization accounts, select a reclassification account.

When a regularization account is reclassified, its balance is moved to this reclassification account.

If the regularization account is an asset, the reclassification account should be a liability account. Conversely, liability accounts should be reclassified as asset accounts.

To learn more, see About regularization accounts.

This field is available only if Regularization account is selected.

Select this checkbox to enable GL account reconciliations for this account.

GL account reconciliations is an accounting reconciliation process in which you match debits and credits using unique lettering codes. To learn more, see GL account reconciliations.

The checkbox is available only if you selected Balance sheet in the Account type field.

Select the document sequence to use when matching transactions for this account.

If you do not select a sequence here, the GL account reconciliations sequence selected in Configure General Ledger is used instead. If there's no GL account reconciliations sequence selected in Configure General Ledger, you must select one here.

This field is available if Enable GL account reconciliations for this account is selected.