Hi Sue,
From my experience in this area: Do use numeric only numbers and skip at
least 10 digits between charts so you can fit new charts in later. This
will be important even a few years later.
Multi-department is an area where we made a few mistakes back in 1998 when
we set our COA up. We had two distinct divisions and one of the divisions
had one department, so we proceeded to set up the number as
"Chart"-"Division"-"Department", or 8500-40-010 for Telephone Expense,
Battery Pack Division, Battery Charger Department (8500-15-000 would be Tele
Exp, Mechanical Division, department n/a). Back then, management was
adamant that expenses be allocated by a formula and religiously assigned to
appropriate Division / Department. As we implemented Vantage and struggled
with the allocations (struggled not from a system standpoint- more from a
bickering management standpoint) it became clear that the Big Kahuna didn't
really think of the divisions and departments as individual profit centers-
he didn't give a flip if charger department showed some arbitrary loss and
another showed an implausibly larger profit. The combined bottom line was/is
what he must answer to. Once the management team "got it", there was no
more back-and-forth over what percent of the server this division used when
we had to post the Dell lease bill.... I should have done a better job
understanding the Boss' expectations beyond bringing the project in on time
and on budget. Had I done this, I'd have told the mid-level managers to
pound sand, set the COA up differently and avoided the time waste involved
with the allocations. I now also wish I could easily ditch many of the
expense accounts specific to division - department I set up in the
beginning.
Now for this disclaimer- we are a smaller Company, abt 80 employess in two
locations. As to Multi-Site, the second location is simply set up as a
separate work-center, and what little inventory and material is there is
tracked by unique bin locations. Data Collection done by Term. Server,
partial T-1 connect. No need so far for us get more complicated. Your
results may vary.
Jim Martin
ElectriTek - AVT, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Iverson [mailto:siverson@...]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 9:20 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Chart of Accounts
The existing COA is too detailed and gives us information (and tons of
pages) that people don't want to look at.
We have three treating plants, one reload yard, two shaving operations,
one chemical company and then all the departments underneath them. We
want to track costs but not to the extent that most companies go. We
don't know if we should call all of the aforementioned "divisions" or
"departments" or "entities". Our CFO is in a quandry. He has never
worked for a multi-site operation before. We plan on getting some help
from Epicor but I was just hoping you can give us some "don'ts". A good
don't so far is to keep it completely numerical. Thank you for that.
Sue
This message including all attachments is the sole property of Electritek Inc. The dissemination, distribution, use or copying of this message or attachments is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of Electritek Inc.
From my experience in this area: Do use numeric only numbers and skip at
least 10 digits between charts so you can fit new charts in later. This
will be important even a few years later.
Multi-department is an area where we made a few mistakes back in 1998 when
we set our COA up. We had two distinct divisions and one of the divisions
had one department, so we proceeded to set up the number as
"Chart"-"Division"-"Department", or 8500-40-010 for Telephone Expense,
Battery Pack Division, Battery Charger Department (8500-15-000 would be Tele
Exp, Mechanical Division, department n/a). Back then, management was
adamant that expenses be allocated by a formula and religiously assigned to
appropriate Division / Department. As we implemented Vantage and struggled
with the allocations (struggled not from a system standpoint- more from a
bickering management standpoint) it became clear that the Big Kahuna didn't
really think of the divisions and departments as individual profit centers-
he didn't give a flip if charger department showed some arbitrary loss and
another showed an implausibly larger profit. The combined bottom line was/is
what he must answer to. Once the management team "got it", there was no
more back-and-forth over what percent of the server this division used when
we had to post the Dell lease bill.... I should have done a better job
understanding the Boss' expectations beyond bringing the project in on time
and on budget. Had I done this, I'd have told the mid-level managers to
pound sand, set the COA up differently and avoided the time waste involved
with the allocations. I now also wish I could easily ditch many of the
expense accounts specific to division - department I set up in the
beginning.
Now for this disclaimer- we are a smaller Company, abt 80 employess in two
locations. As to Multi-Site, the second location is simply set up as a
separate work-center, and what little inventory and material is there is
tracked by unique bin locations. Data Collection done by Term. Server,
partial T-1 connect. No need so far for us get more complicated. Your
results may vary.
Jim Martin
ElectriTek - AVT, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Iverson [mailto:siverson@...]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 9:20 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Chart of Accounts
The existing COA is too detailed and gives us information (and tons of
pages) that people don't want to look at.
We have three treating plants, one reload yard, two shaving operations,
one chemical company and then all the departments underneath them. We
want to track costs but not to the extent that most companies go. We
don't know if we should call all of the aforementioned "divisions" or
"departments" or "entities". Our CFO is in a quandry. He has never
worked for a multi-site operation before. We plan on getting some help
from Epicor but I was just hoping you can give us some "don'ts". A good
don't so far is to keep it completely numerical. Thank you for that.
Sue
This message including all attachments is the sole property of Electritek Inc. The dissemination, distribution, use or copying of this message or attachments is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of Electritek Inc.