Automate dimension count posting overview

Statistical accounts are often used to track the number of dimension members. For example, it’s common to track the number of active customers. This information can be reported on by itself, or used to compute metrics such as the recurring revenue per customer.

You can:

  • Automate counts for any enabled dimension. As you add or remove dimension members, the count is automatically updated.
  • Set up rules that define what you want to count. For example, in addition to tracking the number of active customers, you might set up a separate statistical account for tracking different customer types.

About dimension counts

There are many reasons for automating the dimension count. It saves time and effort, especially when you are tracking many dimensions, and can increase insight into your business.

Manual vs automated posting

Your company might already use multiple spreadsheets to track count changes for things like new, lost, and long-time customers and employees. Dimension count updates these counts automatically, reducing the need for manual spreadsheets that are time-consuming and sometimes error-prone.

You can still post changes manually, such as when establishing a base count. Automating the count eliminates data-entry work by reducing the steps needed to update the count accurately and immediately.

Use in metrics

Finely tuned metrics increase insight into your business and provide greater detail when making business decisions. By providing a way to automate counts, dimension count give you flexibility to ensure that your metrics are appropriate and accurate.

To increase the granularity of business metrics, analysis, or reporting, different posting rules update different statistic counts. You can use the values in computational reports and performance cards to increase the insight into how your company is doing.

Dimension counts use a separate dimension group for each dimension rule that you create. There's no limit to the number of things that can be tracked automatically.

Setup overview

A dimension must be enabled in order for dimension counts to work. For example, to use the Locations dimension count, the Location dimension must be active. If you don't see a particular dimension count, verify that the dimension is enabled in Dimension settings.

The dimension count setup process requires admin privileges and involves setting up a statistical account for each dimension count and then defining the rules for posting. Creating a dimension count rule is a 1-time process. After that, dimension count changes are automatic and do not need any further action.

For example, you might create a rule to update the count of active customers based in Vermont who have a high credit limit. Anytime a customer moves into that group, the dimension count rule creates a statistical journal entry to increase the count. If a customer moves out of the group, the same dimension count rule creates an entry to decrease the count.

Best practice: If you've already set up a dimension count rule, don't disable the dimension. Disabling the dimension can cause unexpected behavior.

For step-by-step setup instructions, refer to Set up dimension count.

How does automated posting work?

  1. Initially you create statistical accounts and dimension groups for dimension count to use.
  2. Establish the initial base value of the count, such as the customer count as of the date you begin automated posting.
  3. Now, as you create the dimension count rules, Intacct automatically maintains increases and decreases by posting journal entries to the statistical journal.

Create dimension groups and statistical accounts > Establish a base count > Create dimension count rules > Automatic posting and count begins.

Establish a base count

When you enable dimension count, only new updates are included in statistical account updates. The existing dimension objects aren’t included, even if they would match the dimension count criteria.

Enter a manual journal entry to the statistical account to establish a beginning balance as a starting point. This step is optional, but if you don't establish a base count the count starts at zero and only new changes will be recorded. There will be no historical starting point.

Often, the company could be maintaining a spreadsheet with the information you want to track. After a base count is included, you might be able to get rid of these spreadsheets and let Sage Intacct track and count for you.

For details on manual journal entries, refer to Statistical journal entries.

How does Intacct update the count?

With dimension count, entries are automatically posted when you create and save a new object or delete an object that matches the rule, based on the system date. You can't create an automated post for a previous period.

For example, if you created a customer record on December 2, the customer count is increased for the date of December 2, the date that the record was created. Because the count update is automated, the transaction date is not configurable in the dimension count rules.

Continuing the example, suppose that this customer signed the deal on November 26. In this case, you want the customer count to be posted and counted for the month of November. Even though the customer record wasn't created until December, Intacct would post the record for December. You can't edit any of the system-posted record counts. This preserves the business rule audit trail. However, you can manually adjust the count to November by both increasing the count with November 26 and decreasing the count with December 2 accordingly.

As you create new dimension count rules, newly created objects that match the rules are posted to the journal and added to the statistical account. Existing objects that match the dimension count rules are not added, only new objects. Deleting a rule doesn't remove the object from the statistical account count but new count changes are not updated automatically.

View count changes

View the updated count from the statistical journal transactions list.

Subscription

General Ledger

Regional availability

All regions

User type Business, Employee, Project Manager, and Warehouse
Permissions

  • Statistical Accounts: List and View

  • General Ledger: Run
  1. Go to General Ledger > All > Accounts. Select Statistical accounts. Intacct displays a list of your statistical accounts.
  2. Select the name of the statistical account that you want to see.

  3. You can see the count of increases and decreases change as you have added or deleted an object matching the dimension count rule.

  4. To refine the report, select Customize. Select the date range and any other item for the report that you want to change or include. The report is updated to show the changes.
  5. Save, print, or take any other available action for your report.

Edit a dimension record

When you make a change to a record that's used by dimension count, the appropriate journal entry will be updated then. Record changes are made the same way that you change any other record for that dimension.

For example, suppose you have a supplier who is included in the dimension group for California suppliers and is part of a dimension count rule. If this supplier moved to another state, you would change the supplier record to reflect the new address. When you change the record, the appropriate changes are made by dimension count: the count of California suppliers will be decreased by 1. If there's a dimension group/rule for the new state, that count would be increased by 1.

There's one exception to this.

For multi-entity companies, the Employee record requires a Location. This tells Intacct which entity that the employee belongs with. If you change location of an employee from 1 entity to another, the record is changed correctly. But because the dimension count gets the location from the employee record, dimension count handles the change a bit differently, and that affects how the count is changed.

Best practice: To ensure that the count is correct for both the original and the new location, many companies find that the following steps are helpful.

  1. Make the employee inactive to remove the count from the original location.
  2. While the employee is still inactive, change the employee Location.
  3. Set the employee record back to active.

Alternatively, you can make statistical journal entries manually to reduce the original employee by location count by 1 and add the employee by location count by 1.

Dimension count examples

Here are examples of the many possible uses for dimension count.

Automate the count of new customers that you acquired for a period, how many existing customers stayed, and how many customers left. Count by total customers or filter further, such as by location or salesperson.

Suppose you started out with 365 customers for a period. Over the period you added 10 new customers, but lost 3. Rather than just reporting that you now have 372 customers, dimension count automates the count, making it available for reports.

It's easy to track just how many customers you have. However, dimension count makes it easy to track by customers of a certain type or industry automatically. You can track customers by anything, from direct and retail Sales, by ZIP or post code range, state or territory, or country. Knowing how many customers of different types can help your company make business decisions.

One of the most important assets a company has is its employees. You need to know:

  • how many employees the company has in a certain period
  • how many are new
  • how many have left
  • how long the average employee stays with the company

You can break it down even further. See which locations or departments have higher or lower attrition rates at a glance. Dimension count can automate that information for inclusion in reports.