When purchasing commodities, it is often necessary to split the cost across several accounting lines to distribute the charges to the appropriate budgets. When creating transactions with several commodity lines, the data entry procedure for entering the accounting lines for each of these commodities can become repetitive. The Accounting Distribution tab is designed to ease this process.
As a result of this feature, you have the ability to enter a single set of accounting lines, associating each of them with a cost percentage. Once you have entered the initial set of accounting lines, the system can automatically replicate these accounting lines for each of the commodities. Based on the percentages associated with each of the accounting lines, the system also automatically calculates the correct funding.
For example, a user needs to purchase several types of office supplies, the cost of which is to be split equally between the Accounting Department and the Finance Department. The purchase order is created with the following commodity information:
100 reams of Paper for a total cost of $50
20 boxes of Pens for a total cost of $20
10 boxes of Staples for a total cost of $5
On the Accounting Distribution tab, you create an accounting line for the Accounting Department and another accounting line for the Finance Department. The Distribution Percentage for each of these lines is set to 50%.
When you invoke the Distribute Accounting tab-level action, the system automatically generates accounting lines for each of the commodity lines, as follows:
100 Reams of Paper for a total cost of $50
Accounting Department $25.00
Finance Department $25.00
20 boxes of Pens for a total cost of $20
Accounting Department $10.00
Finance Department $10.00
10 boxes of Staples for a total cost of $5
Accounting Department $2.50
Finance Department $2.50
If you change the price or quantity on the commodity line of a transaction after accounting lines have been created, then you must click the Recalculate Accounting Line Amount link to redistribute the new commodity line amount to the accounting line(s). This functionality can be used on new and modification draft transactions.