Creating Analytic Plans & Accounts

Designing Your Dimensions

Creating a Plan

1. Go to Accounting > Configuration > Analytic Plans → Create.
2. Name it after the dimension it represents (e.g. "Departments," "Projects," "Cost Centers").
3. Plans can be nested (a parent plan with sub-plans) for hierarchical reporting, though most businesses keep plans flat and simple.
4. Set Default Applicability to control whether this plan is optional or required on relevant transaction lines.

Creating Analytic Accounts

Within a plan, go to Accounting > Configuration > Analytic Accounts → Create. Each one is a specific value under its plan (e.g. "Marketing" under the Departments plan, "Website Redesign" under the Projects plan — Projects created in the Projects app actually generate their analytic account automatically).

Designing Your Plans

• Keep plans genuinely independent — "Department" and "Project" are separate dimensions because a single project can involve people from several departments, and a department can work across several projects. Don't merge them into one plan.
• Don't create more plans than you'll actually use for reporting — every additional required plan adds a field someone has to fill in on every transaction.
• Archive analytic accounts you no longer use rather than deleting them, to preserve historical reporting.