For each combination of business and product posting groups, you can assign a different set of G/L accounts. With this flexibility, you can post the sale of the same item to different sales accounts in the G/L based on the customers being assigned to different business posting groups. For example, you could differentiate the sales accounts that should be affected for international versus domestic sales.  You may also use the same G/L account for different combinations, enabling you to use posting group filters for reporting purposes.

When using specific posting groups, it is recommended that direct posting be turned off for the related G/L account to ensure that the subsidiary ledger always ties to the general ledger.

Tax Posting Groups

In order to complete posting group setup, you must set up your chart of accounts.

General Posting Group Setup

Setup for general posting groups is performed in the General Posting Setup window. This is a matrix-style window in which you can assign G/L accounts to different general business and general product posting group combinations. For each combination, you can assign G/L accounts for different business scenarios, such as sales, purchases, and COGS. In this way, you can ensure that the proper accounts are impacted when the specific general business/general product posting groups combination occurs on a transaction. For example, if you set up different general business posting groups for domestic versus international customers, you could differentiate the sales accounts that should be affected for both types of sales. 

The following are some recommendations for completing general posting setup:

• General posting setup accounts are generally income and expense accounts.
  
• A separate general posting setup line should be created for every combination of general business and general product posting group that may occur.
  
• In addition, for every general product posting group, you must also create a general posting setup line with a blank general business posting group. This is necessary for making journal entries and processing other activity that is unrelated to a customer or vendor. Only the inventory adjustment account should be filled in on these lines.
  
• Only fill in the G/L accounts where you expect transactions to occur. For example, do not enter an account in the Sales Prepayment Account field if you will not be processing prepayments. This can help identify and prevent errors in data entry.
  
• Generally, the Purch. Account and Direct Cost Applied Account fields are linked to the same G/L account for a wash-in/out effect. Alternatively, these can be set up as unique accounts next to each other for visibility.
  
• You should only fill in the sales and purchase payment discount fields if the Adjust for Payment Disc. check box in the General Ledger Setup window has been selected. 

It is possible to copy an existing general posting setup line to a new line by selecting the relevant line and then choosing the Copy action in the ribbon. You can then specify the general business and general posting group combination to which you want to copy the line’s settings, as well as whether you want to copy all accounts, or selected ones. This is useful if you have multiple general business/product posting groups with similar accounts, as you can copy existing setup to these other lines, then perform the necessary tweaks or changes.

You must have already set up the target general posting setup line(s) before you can copy existing data to them.

For customer, vendor, bank account, and fixed asset posting groups, the assignment of G/L accounts occurs in the same window in which the posting groups themselves are created. For example, in the Customer Posting Groups window, you would create each customer posting group you want to use, then assign G/L accounts to that posting group on the same line. The process of assigning G/L accounts to customer, vendor, bank account, and fixed asset posting groups is essentially the same, although the type of activity for which you can assign general ledger accounts is of course dependent on the posting group (for example, you would define receivables accounts for customer posting groups and payables accounts for vendor posting groups).