Accounts Payable and Multiple Companies

When you track multiple companies in DPS, vendors are set up at the enterprise level, but individual companies still manage their own vendor accounting information.

Because multiple companies in a single enterprise often use the same vendors, all non-accounting vendor information, including vendor names and addresses, is established at the enterprise level and shared by all companies. However, before an individual company posts transactions for a vendor, and includes that vendor in its accounts payable subledger, the company establishes its own accounting-related settings for the vendor. For example, each company can generate its own 1099 for a vendor that multiple companies use. You specify these settings in the Firms hub.

Each vendor invoice belongs to the company that was the active company when the invoice was entered and posted. However, a given vendor invoice might include line items expensed to projects belonging to other companies (for example, to account for a shipping bill that includes mailing expenses for multiple companies' projects).

To change the active company in the browser application, click the name of the current company on the toolbar and select a company from the drop-down list. To change the active company in the desktop application, select Utilities > Change Company and then select a company on the Company Selection dialog box.

Vendors Available to a Company

The vendors available to a company are determined by settings in the Firms hub:

• You must select the Approved for Use in Processing option on the Vendor tab and complete the corresponding fields that specify the vendor type, Federal ID, payment address, and so on.
• The vendor type must be available to the company. Each vendor type has accounts associated with it. Depending on which accounts are assigned to a company, only the vendor types associated with those accounts are available to a company. You set up vendor types in Settings > Cash Management > Accounts Payable.

Bank Codes Available to a Company

Accounts payable uses bank codes to identify the banks on which payments may be drawn. If a company is also using multiple currencies, the bank code also defines the currency in which payments must be drawn on that bank. You set up bank codes in Settings > Cash Management > Banks.

Liability Codes Available to a Company

Accounts payable vouchers use liability codes to define the implicit posting of the voucher amount to an account number and to a company. Accounts are assigned to a company. You set up liability codes on the Liability Accounts tab in Settings > Cash Management > Accounts Payable.

Maintain Separate Balance Sheets

When you enable the Multicompany application, DPS automatically selects the Maintain Separate Balance Sheets by Organization option in Settings > Organization > General in the desktop application.

Require Entry of Voucher Numbers

To control the assignment of voucher numbers, use the Require Entry of Voucher Numbers option on the Options tab in Settings > Cash Management > Accounts Payable.

• If this option is set to No, the voucher number field does not appear in the voucher data entry header. Instead, at the time of posting, DPS automatically assigns a number to the voucher.
• If this option is set to Yes, and you use multiple companies, you can specify a range of voucher numbers for the company in the Company section on the Options tab in Accounts Payable Settings.