Within Infor SunSystems, the Account Allocation (ACA) feature serves as the primary engine for maintaining a clean, reconciled ledger. Whether you are matching invoices to payments or correcting post-entry errors, understanding ACA is vital for any systems user, accountant, or finance professional.
Read more:Here’s What You’re Missing Out If Still Using Infor SunSystems 5
What is Account Allocation (ACA), and what is it used for?
Account Allocation (ACA) is a powerful function in Infor SunSystems. At its core, ACA is a transaction matching tool. While it is most commonly used to match debit and credit transactions, its utility extends far beyond that.
Key capabilities include:
- Manage and reconcile their accounts
- Match debit and credit transactions
- Allocate payments
- Amend details on posted journals (like due dates or analysis codes)
- And correct entries
Typical use cases of ACA:
- Users can allocate or match a debtor/receivables payment transaction to its original invoice.
- Users can fully match a group of transactions, or, if needed, split a transaction to match only part of its value.
Account Allocations can determine whether a settlement discount has been taken and post the discount and any tax on the discount automatically. It can also generate and post any currency exchange differences caused by fluctuating exchange rates.
This helps keep your financial records accurate and up to date, so you always have a clear view of your business account balances.
Read more:Infor SunSystems Cloud: Your Questions Answered
Account Allocations vs Transaction Matching
Similar to Account Allocations, Transaction Matching (TRM) also allows users to allocate or match transactions on an account. However, TRM can go a step further by allowing users to automate the process based on predefined criteria.
Users can choose to post the allocations automatically or simply use them for reporting. They can also be reported on:
- Any transactions that meet a selection criterion and are still unmatched
- Unmatched transactions, including debits and credits
- All matched transactions
Account Allocations vs Corporate Allocations
At first glance, the two similar-sounding functions might cause confusion for first-time SunSystems users. Corporate Allocation (CA) is an extended module of Infor SunSystems, and its usage differs significantly from that of ACA. It allows users to distribute and redistribute costs across different entities using built-in intercompany capabilities.
The distributions/allocations can be based on static ratios, financial or statistical data, recorded in SunSystems, or ad hoc.
This function can be used to:
- Apportion costs, for example, in Activity-Based Costing
- Post amounts across business units, for example, intercompany transactions
- Uplift a budget using actual figures as the basis
- Calculate interest on account balances
Account allocation | Corporate allocation |
Match transactions Amend transaction details | Split or reassign expenses Automate the apportionment process |
What are “Allocation Markers”?
Infor SunSystems uses Allocation Markers to identify the specific processing requirement or status of a transaction. As a result, there are different marker types, or flags, available to indicate different levels of progress. For instance:
- Not Allocated: The default status for all new journal transactions.
- To be Allocated: When debits and credits are matched, the marker changes to ‘To be Allocated’ to indicate transactions are ready for posting.
- Allocated: Indicates matched transactions have been successfully posted and confirms the reconciliation is complete.
Watch video:How to use Force Marker in Account Allocation in SunSystems
The names of these allocation markers are predefined, but they can be changed if required.
How are transactions selected for allocation?
The first step in allocation is to identify the account and the transactions awaiting matching. This requires users to develop a set of selection criteria via the Criteria for Account Allocation form, which appears when users access the Account Allocations function.
Typically, transactions can be selected based on:
- Accounting period, transaction date, ledger entry type, journal source, transaction reference, transaction analysis code, and entry date
- The type of transaction value used: base currency, transaction currency, second base/reporting currency, fourth currency, and memorandum value
- The transaction currency code, transaction value, and debit or credit indicator
- The allocation marker, such as those that have been allocated
What transaction details can be amended using Account Allocation?
As previously mentioned, in addition to allocating transactions, ACA can also be used to amend details, specifically certain non-financial information, after the transaction has been posted.
This nifty tool is great for resolving errors like mismatched analysis codes or missing transaction descriptions. ACA also allows users to adjust payment term details, including the payment due date, discount dates, or discount percentages.
Below is a shortlist of what users can use ACA to alter:
- Transaction description
- Allocation marker
- Ledger transaction analysis codes
- Payment terms code
- Due date
- Discount 1 date and percentage
- Discount 2 date and percentage
- Interest date and percentage
- Late payment date and percentage
- First document details – date, prefix/number and document number
- Second document details – date, prefix/number and document number
- Payment reference
- Bank code
For a deeper dive and a more hands-on experience into Infor SunSystems’ Account Allocation feature, check out our on-demand training course via this link here.
Already using Infor SunSystems but has some queries about this powerful function and don’t want to bother our support team? No worries! We understand that sometimes we just need a quick, easy answer. You might want to check out our FAQs page for ACA-specific questions and answers, along with a bunch of other explanations written by our experts.
