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Using sub-accounts: Good, Bad, or Ugly stories?

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Greg Wiklund
New Member
Posts: 5
New Member
9/4/2009 9:38 PM

    My Company is considering using sub accounts for a select group of accounts.  I swear that about four years ago, my boss told me he had talked to someone at Lawson who recommended against using the accounts in this fashion (to better break-out accounts).  Anyone have some stories (good and/or bad) about using sub-accounts?  An example of intended use is to have a "maintenance" account that has sub accounts for vehicles, store, a/c, etc.

    Thank you in advance

    Greg Wiklund
    Rent-A-Center, Inc
    Director, General Ledger

    Adam Jacobson
    Veteran Member
    Posts: 69
    Veteran Member
    9/7/2009 7:07 PM
      I've used sub accounts at many clients for years. Some straight forward instances include:
      1) A clients with lots of different bank accounts for restricted funds. These bank accounts came and went so a sub account made sense.
      2) Clients with many intercompany entries - sub accounts allowed us to keep things logically separated.
      3) Client that wanted to break there entire P&L by product type (longer discussion). It worked but it was a very particular instance.

      Having been around Lawson a long time, I've heard the same message. There's only one area where I think it can cause a problem (or could in the past). Before attributes and lists, one had to use account groups and sub account groups. Writing reports with these could be very difficult. With lists, this is no longer an issue. (and I'm a strong advocate of lists over account and sub account groups)

      Also, in AC when locking down certain posting combinations, your sub accounts may complicate set up .

      But overall, I haven't seen an issue. And I've probably worked on over 30-40 Lawson ledgers and spent countless days with report writer.
      John Henley
      Posts: 3353
      10/3/2009 10:09 PM
        One area where subaccounts can trip you up is when running reports, etc. and specifying/accepting a default range of "0 to 0", meaning you don't see any subaccounts.

        Thanks for using the LawsonGuru.com forums!
        John