How dimensions work

Before you start creating and implementing dimensions, take a few moments to review how they work together.

Video: Dimensions - what they are and how they work

This video introduces dimensions and how they can help you gain insight into your organization's financials:

• What are dimensions and how do they work?

What happens when you implement dimensions?

After you implement the standard dimensions and create any new dimensions, Sage Intacct distributes your dimensions everywhere that you want to access them:

• Transactions: On the transaction entry pages, you can select the dimensions that you want to propagate to the general ledger. By selecting dimensions in transactions, such as AP supplier invoices or AR sales invoices, you organize operational and financial information to be sliced and diced any way that you need to gain insight into your business.
• Reports: Dimensions are a core component of reporting to help you meet the needs of your changing business. They let you instantly track performance by different business drivers as your strategies and operations change. By using dimensions in reporting, you can create almost limitless ways of viewing your information and capturing key metrics.

What happens when you deactivate a dimension value?

When you deactivate a dimension value, it does not appear in your dropdown lists. To change this, ensure that your user preference is set to Show all values. This helps prevent the creation of new transactions using that dimension value. Your dimension value still exists within Intacct. Deactivating a dimension value will not affect your financial reporting; the dimension value still rolls up to the top level of the hierarchy at the time the report is run.

Example: deactivate a location dimension

Your California location dimension has a Northern California and Southern California child dimension related with it.

Your Southern California location closes in June, so you deactivate the dimension value. Users can no longer create transactions against that dimension value. However, at the end of the year, you still need to see how you did at that location while it was open.

You can't run a report on Southern California because it’s deactivated, but you can run a report on California for the year. Intacct automatically rolls up all transactions including the Southern California location and displays in your California report.

What happens when you make a dimension member Active non-posting?

Some dimensions include an extra status option: Active non-posting.

Defining a dimension member with the Active non-posting status, that dimension can no longer be used for transactions. Setting this status prevents anyone from posting a transaction entry to that dimension.

It’s similar to the Inactive status but is easily selectable for reporting.

When the status becomes Active non-posting, it no longer appears in the transaction selection dropdown.

Dimensions that can use Active non-posting are:

• Department
• Location
• Class
• Customer
• Supplier
• Project (if subscribed)

Example

Suppose that you have a Department named Management that includes cost centers (departments) for Accounting, HR, Executives, IT, and Shared Costs.

Transactions are recorded into the correct cost center area, but for reporting purposes it makes sense to roll these other departments up to the Management department, showing a single combined management cost centers figure.

You want each department value to be part of the Management department, but you do not want anyone posting directly to the Management department. Set the Management department to Active, non-posting, and add the other departments as children.