Add custom control accounts Search...

Custom control accounts can be useful additions to your chart of accounts. A control account in Manager is a top-level, balance sheet
account containing subsidiary ledgers or subaccounts. (The terms are interchangeable). Some accounts activated automatically when
various tabs are enabled are control accounts. Perhaps the most familiar examples are Cash at bank and Cash on hand, the default
control accounts for bank and cash accounts. Another good example is Accounts receivable, made up of individual customer ledgers.

A custom control account is one you create yourself to segregate and give visibility to selected subsidiary ledgers that would otherwise
be assigned to a built-in control account. A custom control account may contain only one type of subsidiary ledger, including:

Bank accounts

Cash accounts

Customers

Suppliers

Inventory items

Fixed assets

Intangible assets

Capital accounts

Special accounts

Examples
Jurgen operates a machine shop with some very expensive, digitally controlled boring and milling machines. He wants see the
value of these important assets on his balance sheet separately from other fixed assets like workbenches and office furniture. So
he creates a custom control account called Digital machinery and assigns those fixed assets to it.

Northwind Traders has a variety of bank accounts it uses for different purposes. Rather than leave them all lumped together
under the built-in control account, Cash at bank, it decides to break them apart for better management visibility. So the company
renames that account as Cash deposits. It creates two new custom control accounts, Payroll accounts and Term deposits.
Northwind leaves its various demand deposit accounts in the original, renamed control account. It assigns the accounts at local
branch banks used to pay employees in various cities to Payroll accounts. And it assigns its longer term certificates of deposit to
Term deposits. Now the balance sheet clearly distinguishes between highly liquid funds, money available for the weekly payroll,
and cash reserves that are not readily accessible.

Create a custom control account

To create custom control account, go to Settings  Chart of Accounts and click New Account :

 

Define the custom control account:

 Name the account as you want it to appear on your balance sheet.

Enter a numerical Code to control display sequence.

Select which Group the custom control account will be in: Assets, Liabilities, or Equity.

Choose a Tax Code if one applies to most transactions to be posted to the account. (This will be editable when recording

transactions. The field will not be visible if you have no tax codes defined.)

Check the box for Control account.

Select the type of subsidiary ledgers the control account will be Made up of.

Click Create to add the custom control account to your chart of accounts.

Example
Brilliant Industries has defined a number of fixed assets. It has not defined any tax codes. Nor has it set a start date. By default,
the purchase costs of all fixed assets are shown on the balance sheet under the Fixed assets account (a built-in control account).
The company wants to split fixed assets into categories and have each category show separately as:

Land & Buildings

Motor Vehicles

Furniture

To do this, the company creates a custom control account made up of fixed assets:

It creates another custom control account named _Motor Vehicles_. And it renames _Fixed assets_ as _Furniture_. Then it edits individual
fixed assets under the Fixed Assets tab to select the specific control accounts to which they should belong:
After a control account has been selected for each fixed asset, the Fixed Assets tab shows which fixed asset belongs to which control
account. (This feature is not available for all types of subsidiary ledgers):

Once you have created a custom control account made up of a specific subaccount type, you will be able to select control accounts for
all subaccounts of the same type when creating new ones or by editing existing ones.

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