What are Summary Accounts?

A summary account is an account whose balance is the sum of balances from

multiple detail
accounts.
Use summary accounts to perform online summary inquiries, as well as speed
the processing of financial reports and Mass Allocations, and Recurring journal
formulas.
You do not enter or post transactions directly to summary accounts.
Summary Accounts Examples:
Company Segment - Summarize companies by major industry; by regions within
a country; or by country group.
Cost Center Segment - Track functional areas at a detailed level but produce
summary reports that group cost centers into one or more divisions.
Account Segment - Summarize your accounts by account type: Assets,
Liabilities, Equity, Revenue & Expense or more detailed: Current Assets.
Detail versus Summary Accounts:
Summary Accounts are updated when journals are posted to a corresponding
detail account. They enable online summary inquiries and speed concurrent
processing.
Detail Accounts allow direct posting of business transactions and journals.
Summary Accounts versus Parent Values:

Parent Values and Rollup Groups:

About Rollup Groups:

A rollup group is a collection of parent segment values for a given
segment.
A value cannot belong to a rollup group unless it is a parent value
that has child values.
Parent values and child values belong to the same value set, which is
attached to a key flexfield
segment.