Visma.net ERP

Example of a subaccount definition

Consider an example that is explored in other articles in this section. North Serpent Company, with stores in the mountainous areas of California and Nevada, sells skis and snowboards and offers rental services. Each sale transaction of a ski or a snowboard is recorded to sales account 40000, but later, at the period closing, management would like to know the total sales on skis in Nevada store and the total sales on snowboards in California store, as well as the total rental of snowboards in California store and the total rental of skis in Nevada store. Thus, we can split the sales account into eight more specific accounts, for example, as shown below:

40100: Ski sales in the Nevada store
40200: Snowboard sales in the Nevada store
40300: Ski rentals in the Nevada store
40400: Snowboard rentals in the Nevada store
40500: Ski sales in the California store
40600: Snowboard sales in the California store
40700: Ski rentals in the California store
40800: Snowboard rentals in the California store

To enter a transaction, a user has to remember all the accounts, but it is easy to mistype the account. The following section explores some ways Visma.net ERP makes this process easier and less error-prone.

Subaccount identifiers

In Visma.net ERP, accounts and subaccounts are referred to by their identifiers.
Generally, account identifiers must follow the regulations used in your country.
Because subaccounts are mostly used for internal management purposes, greater flexibility is allowed for their design.

Identifiers can be segmented. Segmented identifiers with meaningful, recognizable segment values, because they are easier to enter, reduce the input error rate.
For the North Serpent Company, you could define a three-segment subaccount in the following way:

First segment: Company division - NV (Nevada) and CA (California)
Second segment: Profit centre - RENT (rentals) and SALE (sales)
Third segment: Product type - SK (skis) and SB (snowboards)

All sales and rental transactions can then be posted to the sales account 40000 with the following subaccounts:

NV-SALE-SK: To enter sales amounts on skis in Nevada
NV-SALE-SB: To enter sales amounts on snowboards in Nevada
NV-RENT-SK: To enter amounts received on ski rentals in Nevada
NV-RENT-SB: To enter amounts received on snowboard rentals in Nevada
CA-SALE-SK: To enter sales amounts on skis in California
CA-SALE-SB: To enter sales amounts on snowboards in California
CA-RENT-SK: To enter amounts received on ski rentals in California
CA-RENT-SB: To enter amounts received on snowboard rentals in California

Later, the documents and records can be filtered by any combination of subaccount segment values to produce the requested balances.
Subaccounts simplify data analysis as follows:

If you do not specify any subaccount, you will see the balances of natural accounts, reflecting the overall company performance.
If you select a particular subaccount, you will see the result of specific transactions.

Parent topic:
Manage subaccounts - overview

Related concepts
About account IDs
Overview of budgets