Overview 

GL Accounting Variables are used for reporting designations like divisions, departments, geographies, cost centers, profit centers, or business units. If set up, these variables would be used on source transactions, such as Billings, and Payables.  For example, if you elect to use a GL Account Variable to track departmental costs, you may set up GL Account Variable Type 1 to represent your Departments and set up values such as Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Services, etc. Then, when recording a Payable for the Sales department, you would populate GL Variable 1 as Sales for that particular Payable.  

Accounting Seed allows for four General Ledger Variables. The GL Variable field name can be changed to reflect what it represents with the Translation Workbench Salesforce tool. For example, this would allow for the GL Variable 1 field name to be replaced with “Department” on all your source entries (Billings, Payables, Journal Entries, etc.). For more information, refer to Changing Labels for GL Variables.

Note: If you attempt to create a GL Accounting Variable after your GL Accounting Variable limit is reached, a message displays to indicate that the maximum limit has been reached. In this case, please contact Accounting Seed Support to purchase additional GL Account Variables. Please note that GL Account Variables that are set to “Inactive” do not count towards the limit.

Add GL Accounting Variable to Account and/or Product record

Note: Product information or adding a product is only applicable if you have the Orders & Inventory package installed. 

After you create a new GL Accounting Variable, it can be added to an Account record for a Customer/Vendor, as well as added to a product. If you add a GL Variable(s) to an Account record, when creating a Billing or Payable, it will automatically display in the appropriate GL Variable field, such as GL Variable 1. A GL Variable on an Account record will always take precedence. Therefore, if the Account record has a GL Variable(s), on the creation of Billings and Payables, it will automatically display whether  there is no product on the line, the field is blank on the product, or even if this field is populated on the product. However, if the Account record does NOT include a GL Variable(s), and the product does, on the creation of Billings and Payables, the GL Variable(s) will automatically display from the product. 

Note: The GL Variable(s) on a Billing and Payable can always be modified to display a different one. 

Create a New GL Accounting Variable

1. Navigate to Accounting Home and click the Setup tab. Then, under the Ledger menu, click Accounting Variables.
2. Click New. The New Accounting Variable dialog box displays.
3. Enter an Accounting Variable Name and select GL Account Variable 1, 2, 3 or 4 or Time Card Variable 1 or 2.
4. Select the Active checkbox to indicate this is an active variable (allows for the variable to be selected in lookups).   
5. Click Save or Save & New to add another variable.