The decision you can't undo

Almost everything else in this application can be changed later. The chart of accounts cannot — not practically. Once transactions exist against a structure, changing the segment count or a segment length is a re-implementation, not a change request. The reason is what depends on it. Every journal line, every subledger accounting entry, every balance record, every report, every integration, every historical comparison. All of it is bound to the structure. The structure is the spine. So spend your time accordingly. If you spend two days configuring the chart of accounts and two hours designing it, you have it backwards. Design should take longer than build, and you have to sell that to the client explicitly — because if you do not, the plan will show configuration and no design at all. Three things people underestimate: how many cost centres the business will have in five years, whether they will…

In this module: Module 4 · Chart of Accounts and Ledger Design

1. 1What we're building
2. 2The decision you can't undo
3. 3Anatomy of a chart of accounts
4. 4Segment labels and qualifiers
5. 5Running the design workshop
6. 6Sizing segments: the arithmetic
7. 7Building value sets
8. 8Structure, instance, deployment
9. 9Loading account values
10. 10Account hierarchies and why reporting needs them
11. 11Building and publishing a hierarchy
12. 12Accounting calendars
13. 13Currency and conversion rate types
14. 14Primary, secondary, reporting: the decision tree
15. 15Building the primary ledger
16. 16Ledger options and completing the definition
17. 17Cross-validation and segment value security
18. 18What breaks
19. 19Lab briefing: Meridian Trading