Default Account Settings

The default accounts you select for receivables impact your records and distributions. It's important you evaluate each setting closely before determining default accounts.

Note: Clients and billing items use these default accounts when none are defined on their records.

To help streamline the receivables process and general ledger reconciliation, select at least one default account for receivables. These accounts default on the credit side for payments and debit side for charges and credits.

Warning: Don't switch between defaulting single and multiple accounts. If changes are needed, post all receivables first.

  • Single account — Adds the same account for all charges, credits, and payments, including applied and unapplied payments (unless you select a different default account for Unapplied payments).

    If the account you select is in a fund that balances by net asset class, use a single net asset class value for all receivables. We recommend Unrestricted Net Assets for the class default because using more than one may result in unbalanced financial statements. Also, don't change the class once you select it and activity begins. If changes are needed, post all receivables first.

    Note: When you default a single account, you can't select a different account on records. Debit distributions don't display for charges and credit distributions don't display for payments.

  • Multiple accounts — Adds new default accounts based on the fund segment from a charge. You'll also select the account code and department to use for these new accounts. For example, designate account **-2000-00 as the default account. Asterisks represent the fund from data entry that you can't change, 2000 represents the account code, and 00 represents the department. When you add an invoice that credits account 01-5200-00, the debit account is 01-2000-00 based on this setting.

    Note: To make sure debits and credits in different funds remain balanced, add interfund entries before adding charges, credits, and payments. You can't save distributions for non-balancing accounts when an interfund entry doesn't exist for them.

The default account you select for revenue automatically appears on new charge records for the credit side when the billing item doesn't include a default account.

This provides consistency for charges and streamlines reconciliation by making sure each charge includes distributions.

The default account you select for unapplied payments automatically appears on new payments.

This helps confirm that unapplied payments are in a separate account from the default account you select for charges, credits, and applied payments. It also improves reconciliation and helps determine the balance for unapplied payments.