Putting Analytic Accounts in Place

For the initial setup of good analytic accounts you should:

• set up the chart of accounts,
• create the different journals,
• link the analytic journals to your accounting journals.

Setting up the Chart of Accounts

Start by choosing the most suitable analytic representation for your company before entering it into OpenERP. To create the different analytic accounts, use the menu Accounting‣ Configuration ‣ Analytic Accounting ‣ Analytic Accounts and click the Create button. Note that the data you see when creating an analytic account will depend upon the business applications installed.

Setting up an Analytic Account

To create an analytic account, you have to complete the main fields:

• the Account Name,
• the Code/Reference: used as a shortcut for selecting the account,
• the Parent Analytic Account: use this field to define the hierarchy between the accounts.
• the Account Type: just like general accounts, the Viewtype is used for virtual accounts which are used only to create a hierarchical structure and for subtotals, and not to store accounting entries. The Normaltype will be used for analytic accounts containing entries.

If an analytic account (e.g. a project) is for a limited time, you can define a start and end date here.

The Maximum Time can be used for contracts with a fixed limit of hours to use.

Tip

Invoicing

You have several methods available to you in OpenERP for automated invoicing:

• Service companies usually use invoicing from purchase orders, analytic accounts or project management tasks.
• Manufacturing and trading companies more often use invoicing from deliveries or customer purchase orders.

For more information about invoicing from projects, we refer to the book (soon to be released) about Project and Services Management.

Once you have defined the different analytic accounts, you can view your chart through the menu Accounting ‣ Charts ‣ Chart of Analytic Accounts. You can display analytic accounts for one or more periods or for an entire financial year.

Analytic Chart of Accounts

Tip

Setting up an Analytic Account

The setup screen for an analytic account can vary according to the modules installed in your database. For example, you will see information about recharging services only if you have the module hr_timesheet_invoice installed.

Some of these modules add helpful management statistics to the analytic account. The most useful is probably the module account_analytic_analysis, which adds such information as indicators about your margins, invoicing amounts, and latest service dates and invoice dates.

Creating Journals

Once the analytic chart has been created for your company, you have to create the different journals. These journals enable you to categorise the different accounting entries by their type, such as:

• services,
• expense reimbursements,
• purchases of materials,
• miscellaneous expenditure,
• sales.

Note

Minimal Journals

At a minimum, you have to create one analytic journal for Sales and one for Purchases. If you do not create these two, OpenERP will not validate invoices linked to an analytic account, because it would not be able to create an analytic accounting entry automatically.

Creating an Analytic Journal

To define your analytic journals, use the menu Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Analytic Accounting ‣ Analytic Journals then click the Create button.

It is easy to create an analytic journal. Just give it a Journal Name, a Journal Code and a Type. The types available are:

• Sale, for sales to customers and for credit notes,
• Purchase, for purchases and expenses,
• Cash, for financial entries,
• Situation, to adjust accounts when starting an activity, or at the end of the financial year,
• General, for all other entries.

The analytic journal now has to be linked to your general journals to allow OpenERP to post the analytic entries. For example, if you enter an invoice for a customer, OpenERP will automatically search for the analytic journal of type Saleslinked to your Sales Journal. Go to Accounting‣ Configuration ‣ Financial Accounting ‣ Journals ‣ Journals and select for instance the Sales journal. In the Analytic Journal select the analytic sales journal.

Linking an Analytic Journal to a Journal

Working with Analytic Defaults

You can work with analytic default accounts in OpenERP by installing the account_analytic_default module. Notice that this module is also linked with the sale, stock and procurement modules.

The system will automatically select analytic accounts according to the following criteria:

• Product
• Partner
• User
• Company
• Date

You can configure these criteria using the menu Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Analytic Accounting ‣ Analytic Defaults and clicking the Create button. According to the criteria you define here, the correct analytic account will be proposed when creating an order or an invoice.

Specify Criteria to Automatically Select Analytic Account