Chart of Accounts Management

Owned by Adam Davis
Last updated: Mar 01, 2024
3 min read

The Chart of Accounts is the heart of Apliqo FPM. The Chart of accounts is made up of parts:

  • Management Trial Balance (C3_MGMTTB) is all of the Balance Sheet accounts including the accounts that are used for the Profit and Loss statement. The Profit and Loss statement sits under Current Year Earnings which is part of Equity. The Management Trial Balance must contain all of the natural accounts for the organisation.

    The account movements in the General Ledger are changed from the accounting Debit (+) and Credit (-) signage used for the Accounting Trial Balance, to a signage that is used for management reporting. In the General Ledger, Assets, Liabilities and Equities are all reported as positive numbers. A negative weight in the Management Trial Balance rollup is added so that Total Assets = Total Liabilities + Equity = 0. When building the Balance Sheet rollup, you must include this negative weight for the proper reporting of the financial results in the General Ledger. For profit and loss accounts, Revenues are shown as positive numbers and Expenses are shown as negative numbers. This is opposite to the accounting sign but is more intuitive management reporting. The reversal of the sign from the Trail Balance to the Management Trial Balance is dependent on the Total Assets on the C3_TOTASSETS fixed account.

    The Management Trial Balance is the bases of the Planning Chart of Account. Is important that the chart reflect how the organisation wants to plan.

  • Statistical Accounts are additional metrics that the organisation use for management reporting. These metrics do not form part of the Management Trial Balance.

  • Total GL Accounts is a flat rollup of all the natural accounts. The Total GL Accounts rollup generated by Apliqo FPM and is used for the reconciliation of the Trial Balance. It is also used to identify the natural accounts that are not part of the Management Trial Balance.

  • Fixed Accounts are system accounts that are mapped accounts in the Management Trial Balance. Some fixed accounts must be mapped to the Management Trial Balance in order for Apliqo FPM to function.

  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are calculated accounts based on Fixed Accounts. You can add your KPIs based on the accounts and metrics in the CoA.

  • Cash Flow: The indirect cash flow statement derived from the Management Trial Balance.

  • Reporting Rollup contains the organisations Management Trial Balance, Statical Accounts and Cash Flow. If required for management reporting additional rollups of accounts can be defined. These additional rollups will appear under the Reporting Rollups consolidation.

There are two separate Chart of Accounts maintained in Apliqo FPM.

  • The Operational Chart of Account (FIN OCoA) is used for management reporting. This chart offers the maximum level of detail of the organisation’s financial and statistical data. It is used in the General Ledger cube with the Company and Business Segment dimensions.

  • The Planning Chart of Account (FIN PCoA) is used for financial planning. The Planning CoA can be at the same level or higher than that of the Operational CoA. It used in the various Planning cubes with Company and Business Segment Planning dimensions.

The maintenance both the Operational and Planning CoA takes place in the Administration > Chart of Account page. Changes in the Chart of Account are made to a Staging Operational CoA and Staging Planning CoA. The changes are applied to the Actual Operational CoA (FIN OCoA) or the Actual Planning CoA (FIN PCoA) when the staged dimension is synced to actual dimension.

The Chart of Account can be manually maintained, or fully or partially automated. How the CoA is maintained will depend on how the Chart of Account is sourced from the organisation. If the CoA is to be sourced directly from the ERP, then it is possible to fully automate the maintenance of the CoA. If the list of natural accounts is derived from the trial balance, and the accounts can be added to the CoA when the process is loading the Trial Balance. Then the FPM Administrator will have to manually place those accounts into the Management Trial Balance and continue the processing of the Trial Balance to the General Ledger. In practice a combination of manual and automation is necessary to maintain the CoA. At implementation clear procedures are established to maintain the CoA.