Branches are a core setting in Online Advantage and are pivotal for Reporting and General Ledger postings throughout the system.
Branches typically represent specific ‘cost centres’ of a business where the separation of Financial reporting requirements such as Assets, Liabilities, Sales and Profitability is required.
Branch Codes are mandatory fields and at least one Branch code must be established.
Where multiple Branch codes are established the categorisation of data can be seen throughout the Online Advantage modules. Following are some examples:
- General Ledger – Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Reporting by Branch. (But also available at a Consolidated Level)
- Cash Management – Banks can be linked to branches for Cash GL reporting by Branch
- Accounts Receivable – Customer Aged Balances by Branch
- Accounts Payable – Supplier Aged Balances by Branch
- Fixed Assets – Fixed Asset Ledgers by branch
- Inventory – Inventory Valuations accumulated at Branch Level
- Sales Analysis – reporting by Branch
Most General Ledger queries can be made at a Branch level including ‘Profit and Loss’ and ‘Balance Sheet’ reporting. This means that branches are normally set up where accountability for the “financials” is an important measure and has been allocated to a person or management team.
To get an appreciation of the branch structure of the GL reporting available suggest you review this GL Reports post.
Each branch is defined by a Branch ‘code’. These are used to allocate the value of sales, purchases, expenses and inventory among various branches of your business. The branch code is also used as the leading character/s of the Inventory systems Stock Location (warehouse) code. For example, if you set your Branch Code to 2, each of your locations within Branch 2 must be prefixed by the Branch code e.g. 21, 22 etc.
When you set up your Branches, you should establish a “default” Branch (for example, Branch code “9”) to which you can allocate transactions of a type that cannot be properly assigned to a specific Branch (nationwide admin expenses for example).
Each user can be allocated to a branch and can also be restricted to only transacting on a limited set of branches. This allocated branch for a user is used as a ‘default’ branch where branch entry is required in data entry functions and transactions.
For system postings to General Ledger, you need to set up a default branch in the system Control Pointers.
Note: The length of the Branch code is pre-defined in the system setup as part of the Accounting Formats. As with any data entry, be mindful of the type and complexity of your branch codes as they are entered frequently throughout the system, in particular during any postings to the GL.
Examples
Branches could be geographical centres like Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane and Cairns. If this is too much detail, they might be set up to represent provinces or states like Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, SA, WA etc.
Alternatively, branches could be a separation by business unit such as Wholesale Sales, Retail Sales, Manufacturing, Service etc. although this type of structure is more often defined using the Division.
Minimum Requirements
- At least one branch must be established on the system.
- You do not need to assign users to a particular branch.
- A default branch must be set up in the General Ledger Control Pointers.
Pre-requisites
Before setting up branches the Accounting Format must be defined.
Changing Established Data
You can change the descriptive detail of a branch at any time and add new branches.
There is no facility to transfer the branch ‘code’ to a new code.
Panel Options
- Standard panel features
- Maintenance
- Views
- Audit – lists data changes made over time to the branch currently being viewed
- Where used – lists the customers, suppliers and reps assigned to the branch currently being viewed
- Reports
- List Branches