Distribution

Accounting Data Entry can be automated and/or controlled by defining distribution patterns for a triggering account combination e.g. purchases from a given supplier can only be allocated to certain expenditure accounts i.e. an invoice from the Gas Company must be expensed to Utilities.

See:
Accuracy Control over Distributions
Creating a New Distribution Pattern
Distributing Fixed Charges
Stepping through the Distribution
Using Suggested Distributions

Creating A New Distribution Pattern

Enter an actual or a dummy document
into the Accounting Data Entry window. If a dummy entry is used, delete it after the distribution pattern is saved.

Select the line item
in the Entered documents browser to activate the Document lines browser.

Select Tools - Distribution - New
This will display the Distribution window. The  workspace in the top portion will be blank (until a data record has been loaded from the Document lines browser) and all document transaction lines will have been loaded from the Document lines browser of the Accounting Data Entry window into the Document lines browser of the Distribution window. The template view is used to develop the proto-type transaction.

The Distribution window looks similar to the Accounting Data Entry window with these substitutions

• the running totals area is used to display the explanation of selected triggers;
• the Entered documents browser is replaced with an Inspector (two views: Parameters and Field locking).

Define the Parameters

• Amount
  Is the distribution Amount or Percent based? If Percent based, you can allocate certain expenditures All at once according to pre-determined ratios e.g. Janitorial Services could be allocated to various departments according to a percentage of the square footage occupied by it to the the total square footage being cleaned. When selecting Percent, the values shown in the Amount field are interpreted as percentages.
• Trigger
  Specify the account combination that triggers the Distribution; It usually includes the Subledger. The GL Prefix is disabled in the Inspector since the Account - Chart used in our example does not make use of the Prefix.
• Condition the data fields for each Document line
  Select the first Document record and load it into the workspace. Remove data from fields that are usually entered with "new data" (e.g. Date, Reference, Amount, and possibly Description) during Data Entry.

  In some situations you may wish to have some distribution lines with a fixed amount and others with zero e.g. your telephone bill may contain a fixed monthly charges for Yellow Page advertising and Basic Phone Service: you can set the distribution lines for Advertising  and Basic Phone Service with the fixed amounts but leave other distributions such as Long Distance Charges at zero as these will vary from period to period.

The Field locking view displays all fields applicable to the template, each one with a switch; to lock a field set the switch to On. Lock fields that should become non-editable during data entry e.g. the Description field may inherit (because of Input action: Suggest or Repeat) its data from the initial entry to Accounts Payable and, by locking the field, disallow editing during the automatic distribution process.

After completing the conditioning of the record, click the Set line button and repeat the process for the next record, if any.

• Discard any proto-type document lines
  which do not pertain to the Distribution e.g. the offsetting line to accounts payable. To do so, select the record, in the Document lines browser, to be deleted and select the Document > Delete line menu item. After the total Document definition is completed, the Document lines browser will look something like this:

In our example, we have a standard distribution for Vendor #2 "Pa Bell" of three different expense items, two of which have fixed amounts

• Save the Distribution
  select Tools > Distribution > Save

Using Suggested Distributions
Once a Distribution pattern has been defined and saved, it will "kick in" automatically once the "trigger" is recognized during data entry. On completing the Document line that contains the trigger, the Select Distribution panel is displayed.

The top portion is a scrollable "inventory" of defined Distribution patterns using the same trigger (which may be just a single occurrence).  In our example we provided for three distinct distributions from the same vendor (GL 3030, Sub 20): Email, Fax, and Phone. The bottom of the Select Distribution panel shows:

• a Show lines switch (select to see the Suggested Distribution lines and their columns):
• Use (each line is initially activated with a tick mark);
• Prefix (if applicable) and GL Account;
• Subledger (distributions can be made to GL Accounts that utilize Subledgers);
• Amount (amounts that are greater than zero indicate that this is a fixed distribution);

and three buttons:

• Ignore = bypass the suggested distribution
• All at once = for distributions by Percent (button is disabled when the distribution is by Amount)
• 1 by 1 = press here to load and complete the "ticked" Distribution lines, one by one.

The Distribution definition as an accuracy control tool
Some definitions are established to define all distributions that are possible (legitimate) for a given supplier and possibly the related products and services acquired.  Other definitions are set up on a must use basis; however, this is not system enforced. This can be controlled in one of two ways (e.g. your  phone company may issue separate invoices for voice, fax, and email  - as we provided for in our example):

1. set up a single definition for the telephone company and specify all possible distribution accounts. On receiving an invoice and processing it, click off those Suggested Distribution lines that do not apply to the invoice being processed and press the 1 by 1 button to start the distribution process; or,
2. set up a separate definition for each type of phone company  invoice with identical triggers (i.e. Prefix-GL-Subledger) but different Name and suitable Description on saving the Distribution definition. You can still select the distributions that don't apply e.g.  in our example provision was made for Telephone Long Distance GL Account 8032, you may wish to bypass it if there are no charges:

Stepping through the Distribution
During data entry, when the Select Distribution panel is displayed, select the applicable distribution (if more than one option is shown e.g. Phone), set Use switches (if applicable) and press the 1 by 1 button to start the distribution process. In our example above, we set the Use switch to Off for GL 1 302.

Pressing the1 by1 button will display Accounting Data Entry window:

• the fields will contain all data applicable to GL Account 1 701 and as dictated by the Input action originally defined for the various fields of the template and the Distribution instructions i.e. in this example the Amount field's value will be 235.00;
• edit the record, if necessary, usually the Description field e.g. replace Invoice with Pa Bell;
• click on the New-Line button - this will refresh the template with the data applicable to GL Account 1 812;
• click on the New-Line button - this will refresh the template and, if the Running total is 0.00, Save the entered document (our Source definition is set for Done when ... Running total is zero).

In our example, we started with an entry to Vendor #2 in the amount of -425.00 and excluded GL Number 1 812 from Use. After stepping through the Distribution for GL Numbers 1 701 and 1 812, the Running total was -152.50. After completing the record for GL 1 812, the template was refreshed with the following result:

• the Amount field is set with a value of 152.50 being the amount needed to achieve zero-balance; and
• the GL Number is set to 1 812 because this field's Input action was defined as Suggest - consequently it suggests the value of the same field of the previous record.

• you must now decide how to allocate this residual amount and finalize data entry. Once the document is fully  entered, the Documents lines browser will be refreshed and the Entered documents Status changed from Suspended to Completed.

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