Multiple posting groups
A posting group is the set of rules that turns transactions into general-ledger entries. Multiple posting groups let one tenant run more than one such set over the same chart of accounts.
Without this, every account of a given type posts the same way. With it, two books of business on the same product can post to different GL accounts while sharing one chart.
What a posting group holds
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Account type | The product this group posts for |
| Posting rules | One per transaction type: which GL account is debited, which is credited |
| FX revaluation rules | How foreign-currency positions revalue |
| FX profit-and-loss accounts | Where revaluation gains and losses land |
| Retained earnings account | Where the year-end roll lands. Must be typed Equity |
| Cost centre transfer account | The contra leg a cost centre transfer posts against |
A posting rule keys on the transaction type and, where a tenant needs it, the currency. A rule may also elect to post the tax amount rather than the gross amount, which is how a fee’s VAT split reaches its own GL account.
Which group an account uses
You choose the posting group in the opening wizard, and the account’s books open on it. The wizard asks only when there is a choice:
| Groups serving the account type | What you see |
|---|---|
| None | No posting group field. The account opens with no books. |
| One | The field is hidden and filled for you. |
| Several | You choose one before the account can open its books. |
An account the system provisions for you — a disbursement, salvage or suspense account — takes the group its purpose books through, so none lands without one.
The posting group is not one of the account’s properties. It is a fact about the account’s books, so it is asked for beside the cost centre rather than among the product’s own fields, and it is read where the books are.
To see which group an account posts through, open the account and select Balances under Accounting. The header above the trial balance names the posting group, and the cost centre beside it. The Details panel does not repeat them.
To see whether a product reaches the general ledger at all, open Settings > Account types, select the type, and read Posting groups. It names every group that serves the type, or tells you the type is off the books.
You can change the group while the account is still a draft and nothing has posted. Once the first entry lands, the group is fixed for the life of the account.
Worked example
A bank runs personal loans for its own book and for a joint venture, and the auditors need the two apart in the GL.
| Own book | Joint venture | |
|---|---|---|
| Account type | PersonalLoan | PersonalLoan |
| Posting group | retail-own |
retail-jv |
| Interest accrual credits | 41000 Interest Income — Retail | 41500 Interest Income — JV |
| Fee income credits | 42000 Fee Income — Retail | 42500 Fee Income — JV |
Both accounts run the same product configuration, the same rates and the same operations. A clerk opening one sees no difference. The month-end trial balance splits the two lines without a manual journal, and no account type had to be duplicated to get there.
The cost centre transfer account
Moving an account to another cost centre moves the balances the account owns, and the income it has earned since the effective date. Each row leaves the old centre and arrives at the new one as a pair of single-centre journal entries, and each of those entries needs a second leg. That leg is the posting group’s cost centre transfer account.
Set it on the posting group, alongside retained earnings. Any balance-sheet account in the chart will do; the account is a conduit, not a balance. Retained earnings is different — it must be typed Equity, because a move decides what to carry across from the account type, and retained earnings typed as an asset would be carried as one. Summed over a completed transfer it nets to zero on both centres, so a non-zero balance on the transfer account means a transfer did not finish — that is what the account is there to tell you.
A book that runs one cost centre never transfers and never needs one, so the setting is optional. But an operator who tries to change an account’s cost centre while its posting group names no transfer account is refused, by name: the message says which posting group to go and set. Set it before the first move, not after.
What it does not change
A posting group changes where an entry lands, never whether it balances. Every transaction still produces a balanced double entry, and the sub-ledger still reconciles to the GL. Adding a second posting group adds GL accounts and rules — it does not add a second set of books.