How to Intuit Enterprise Suite: Dimensionalization

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Dimensionalization

As businesses grow and become more complex, they diversify in various ways. One standard method of diversification is by location. Early on, a business may have just one or two locations near one another. They may grow throughout their ‘home’ state with multiple locations in multiple cities statewide. Next thing you know, they have locations in three or four adjoining states, and then there are many more locations in many more states. Before long, they divided several states into one region and became multi-regional. By now, you see this pattern of growth. Soon, they are multi-national having started doing business outside their home country with locations abroad. 

However, some businesses diversify in an entirely different pattern than through location expansion. While they may still have multiple locations, each location is specialized to a specific function. For example, they may have three 'manufacturing plants' in different states, and 'distribution warehouses' in six additional states. These typically serve two different sides of the accounting equation. Inbound logistics with 'cost of production' representing cost centers for manufacturing, so they tend to be closer to their suppliers. On the other side, 'inventory' and 'cost of goods sold' for the outbound logistics of warehouse sales distribution, so they tend to be closer or at least equidistant to their primary customers.  

Sometimes businesses grow complex enough to ‘departmentalize’ to track their business based on what a specific aspect of the business is doing, like plumbing, electrical, heat & air, lumber, home & garden… in other words, the typical ‘Big-box Home Store.’ Now think of that Big-box Home Store as part of a vast chain with multiple locations (even per City) across multiple states, in various regions of the USA, with each store having multiple departments all needing to be tracked to make revenues, costs, and expenses visible at every layer of the organization. That is multi-dimensionality.

Trying to do this the old-fashioned way with a hierarchical Chart of Accounts soon fails because the COA grows so that you can no longer “see the forest for the trees” or perhaps “the trees for the forest.” Single-use fields like designated ‘location, ‘department,’ or ‘class’ create complexity when you need multiple layers to define a transaction correctly. 

While some businesses use ‘tags’ to expand the level of detail, tags are often misused and misapplied and perhaps not applied at all, leaving the business without the information they were trying to obtain via a tagging system.

In contrast, multi-dimensional accounting permits an organization to define the essential categories by which they need financial information reflected that may have little to do with formal ‘financial accounting’ methodologies designed to prepare accounting standards-based reports. 

Intuit Enterprise Suite Dimensions

Dimensions allow you to categorize transactions across multiple levels for deeper business insights. However, to use dimensions properly, you must first determine the most critical aspects of your business to track, such as regions, departments, locations, revenue or cost centers, project types, and customer segments. If needed, you can establish a dimension hierarchy by creating multiple levels within a dimension for further granularity in reporting.

You can create up to twenty (20) custom dimensions with unlimited values in up to five (5) hierarchy levels. 

How to: Setup Dimensions in Intuit Enterprise Suite

Only Admins and certain limited access users in Intuit Enterprise Suite can create, edit, deactivate and reactivate dimensions.

Adding New Dimensions

  • Login to Intuit Enterprise Suite
  • From the Main Dashboard, go to Settings, then select Dimensions
  • Choose Create Dimensions
  • Add a new dimension by providing a Name for the category you want to track.

Adding a New ‘Sub-Dimension’

  • Within Dimension (settings), select Add a Sub-value for any existing Dimension.
  • For the first sub-value, add the Name of the sub-value
  • For additional sub-value levels, select Sub-value of and select the appropriate Dimension, then add the Name of that sub-value. (Note: You can ‘nest’ up to five Dimensional levels.)

Editing a Dimension

  • From the Main Dashboard, go to Settings, then select Dimensions.
  • Find the Dimension you wish to edit on the appropriate Dimension Card.
  • Use the Down Arrow to select the Dimension to Edit, then choose Edit.
  • Make changes as needed to the Name or Sub-value, then Save.

Deactivating a Dimension

  • From the Main Dashboard, go to Settings, then select Dimensions.
  • Find the Dimension you wish to deactivate on the appropriate Dimension Card.
  • Use the Down Arrow to select the Dimension to Deactivate, then choose Deactivate.
  • Select Save

Reactivating a Dimension

  • From the Main Dashboard, go to Settings, then select Dimensions.
  • Find the Dimension you wish to deactivate on the appropriate Dimension Card.
  • Use the Down Arrow to select the Dimension to Reactivate, then choose Make Active.
  • Select Save

Using Dimension on IES Transactions

Using one or more Dimensions on your transactions lets you see how different elements of your business perform on a dimensional basis that corresponds to the categories you determined were most important to track.

How to: Enter Dimensions in Transactions

  • Login to Intuit Enterprise Suite
  • From the Main Dashboard, select + New, then choose the transaction type you wish to enter.
  • Fill out the transaction as you typically would enter it.
  • Select the relevant Dimension(s) from the drop-down list(s) in the dimensional columns for each transaction line item (as shown in example below).
  • Be sure to Save or Send your transaction upon completion.

Reporting with Dimensions in IES

You can run reports that reflect one or more dimensions within Intuit Enterprise Suite.  You can also customize some IES reports to group information by dimensions.

How to: Run Reports by Dimension

You can see your entity's profitability by dimensions using the Profit and Loss by Dimensions report.

Profit and Loss Report by Dimensions

  • Login to Intuit Enterprise Suite
  • From the Left-hand Navigation Bar select Reports
  • Choose Reports
  • In Business overview, select Profit and Loss by Dimensions
  • Select Display
  • Choose the dimensions you want to use to segment your report. [This totals your report for each dimension, with eliminations and grand totals.]
  • Select Filter (optional)
  • Choose the dimension type, select one or multiple dimensions. [This groups your income, expenses, and net income by the selected dimension(s).]

Display Dimensional Transactions and Balances

  • At the top of a report select Columns
  • Search for and then select Transaction
  • Choose Line Items and find Dimensions
  • Select the dimension(s) you want to filter your report.

Murph's summary

The implementation of Dimensionalized Accounting within Intuit Enterprise Suite requires some pre-planning. Entities need to carefully identify their organizational requirements and design their dimensions in the most meaningful manner possible.  The fact that only Admin (and a select group of other) users have the authorization to create, edit and deactivate dimensions will help to place controls on this process.  

If you want to learn more about Intuit Enterprise Suite, and discuss its "dimensional accounting" features as a possible solution to the needs of one or more of your clients, reach out to an Intuit IES specialists.

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