Entities and locations

Entities

In a multi-entity shared company, entities represent a separate tax identification or a separately secured, fully balancing set of books. Entities typically represent divisions, franchises, affiliates, associations, locations, chapters, self-balancing funds or subsidiaries, with a shared chart of accounts.

A multi-entity shared company includes one or more entities under the top level. The company has a set of data lists that's shared among all entities. These shared data lists include users, chart of accounts, customers, suppliers, and employees. Administrators define the shared data lists once at the top level and use them throughout the entities in the company. Administrators use the top level to manage entities and their data.

Alternatively, administrators can restrict to working at the entity level only users and master data list members such as suppliers, customers, and employees. Administrators can even restrict users to working only in particular entities.

An example of a multi-entity shared company is a property management company. One entity represents the company's corporate headquarters and each managed property is represented by its own separate entity.

An entity can have any number of locations that roll up to that entity only.

Locations

A location is a dimension to which a transaction can be coded. Locations roll up to a single entity and share the tax ID of that entity.

For example, if entity E100 is in the US, locations 101 and 102 roll up to entity E100. Let's say location 110 is New York and location 120 is California.

Transactions coded to locations 110 and 120:

  • Roll up to entity E100.
  • Share the tax ID of the US entity E100.
  • Appear in reports that you run on transactions coded to New York or California by selecting those locations for the report.

Unlike entities, locations do not produce a set of balanced books. Because they roll up to a single entity, locations have no inter-entity transactions. Finally, users can be restricted to entities, but not to locations.

You can create an unlimited number of locations within an entity in your Intacct company at no additional cost. Just recall that these locations will all share the tax ID of the entity to which they belong.

Location dimensions in transactions and reporting

The location dimension used for transactions and reporting reflects both entity and location data. For example, suppose that a transaction has a location dimension of E100 California. This notation indicates an entity as the location dimension for that transaction with an entity ID of E100 and entity name California.

Suppose that another transaction has a location dimension of 101 San Jose. This notation indicates a location that rolls up to the E100 California entity.

Differentiating among entities and dimensions at a glance when using the location dimension is a good reason to establish an entity ID and naming convention.

Naming conventions

It's a best practice to set up a naming convention for your entity IDs. A clear naming convention makes it easy to find an entity name among location names, and simplifies the adding of entities in future.

A common naming convention is to prefix the letter E to a 3 or 4 digit numerical value. For example, your first entity ID is E100, the second entity ID is E200, and so on.

The entity ID is fixed when you define it, and cannot be changed. You can, however, change the entity name later if needed.

It's also recommended to have a naming convention for entities, usually based on their location. For instance, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento locations might all be part of the E100: California entity. In this example, the entity ID is E100, and the entity name is California.

Location hierarchy

You can create a hierarchy of locations, for example, with a location that has one or more child locations. The parent and child locations would still roll up to a single entity. For example, location 121 is Los Angeles, which is the child location of location 120 in California. Both parent and child locations roll up to USA entity 100.

Location hierarchy in an upgraded multi-entity company

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.

Location hierarchy changes

You can change the parent-child relationship between two locations only under the following conditions:

  • Your company has one entity.
  • Your company operates in one base currency.
  • There are no transactions coded to the child location whose parentage you want to change.

If these criteria are met, you can edit the parent of the child location.