Departments
A Department is a catalog that lets you split your company into internal areas (Sales, Production, Administration, Maintenance...) to classify your transactions and reports by that dimension, the same way you already do with Locations, Divisions or Item Classes. You can organize them in a hierarchy up to three levels deep (for example, "Operations : Production : Packing") and use them as a cost or profit center across your accounting, payroll, projects, budgets and fixed assets.
What is it and what is it for?
Each Department has a name and, optionally, a Parent Department, letting you build a hierarchy up to three levels deep (for example: "Administration" → "Human Resources" → "Recruiting"). Once created, the Department is available as a dimension to tag:
- Account, item and employee lines on your accounting transactions (invoices, payments, journal entries, etc.).
- Payroll transactions and employees.
- Projects and their budgets (Project Accounting).
- General Budgets and Accounting Distribution Rules (allocation).
- Fixed Assets, Payroll Job Openings and Processes/automations.
- A Contact or Relationship's record (for example, to record which department an employee works in).
This lets you later filter and compare your financial reports (Financial Statements, Budget Reports, etc.) by Department, in addition to Location, Division or Item Class.
How to use it
- Create the department from the list with the New button, entering its Name and, if needed, its Notes.
- Assign it a Parent Department if you want it to be part of a hierarchy (this field only shows up if your company has the Hierarchical View enabled). Remember the hierarchy allows a maximum of three levels.
- Restrict it to specific Subsidiaries on the Subsidiaries tab (if your plan uses them): check Only show on selected subsidiaries and pick which ones it should appear on; if you leave it unchecked, the department shows up in every subsidiary.
- Link ledger accounts for Purchase Orders on the Accounting Accounts for Purchase Orders tab: if you add one or more accounts here, choosing this department on a Purchase Order's detail will only offer those accounts in the account field; if you don't link any, every account in your chart of accounts is still shown, as usual.
- Save the record with Save. From then on, the Department is available to pick in every transaction and catalog that uses it.
- Review the org chart with Hierarchical View from the list (Enterprise plan only), to see at a glance how all your departments and sub-departments are organized. The chart is interactive: you can search, expand or collapse branches, zoom in and out, switch between vertical and horizontal, and print it.
Key capabilities
- Hierarchy up to three levels deep between department and sub-departments, with an automatic compound name (e.g. "Parent : Child").
- Usable as a dimension on accounting, payroll, project, budget, fixed asset, allocation-rule and process transactions.
- Restrict which ledger accounts are available on a Purchase Order's detail, per department.
- Limit visibility to specific Subsidiaries, when your company uses Subsidiaries.
- Fast autocomplete search on every department selection field, cached for speed.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the department throughout the system. Required, and can't be repeated together with the same Parent Department. |
| Parent Department | Places the department within the hierarchy. Only shown if your company has the Hierarchical View enabled; optional, and capped at three total levels. |
| Notes | Free-text remarks about the department. |
| Inactive | Hides the department from selection lists without erasing its already-recorded history. |
| Only show on selected subsidiaries | When checked, the department is only available in the Subsidiaries listed on the Subsidiaries tab. Only applies if your plan uses Subsidiaries. |
| Subsidiaries tab | The list of Subsidiaries this department will be available on, when its visibility is restricted. |
| Accounting Accounts for Purchase Orders tab | The chart-of-accounts entries offered when this department is picked on a Purchase Order's detail. Leave it empty to keep every account available. |
Validations on save
- Name is required.
- Name can't be repeated under the same Parent Department (you can have, for example, a "Warehouse" under two different parents, but not twice under the same one).
- A department can't be its own parent.
- The chosen Parent Department must exist and can't form a loop (a department can't be both a child and a parent of the same department).
- The hierarchy allows a maximum of three levels. If the chosen parent already has a parent, and that parent has one too, saving is rejected.
- Linked Subsidiaries can't be voided.
- Linked Accounting Accounts for Purchase Orders must exist in the chart of accounts.
Availability
- Browsing, creating, editing and deleting Departments requires the "Departments" permission on your user group, with separate levels for each action.
- The Hierarchical View (the org-chart diagram of departments and sub-departments) is only available on the Enterprise plan. On the other plans that do include Departments, the Parent Department field is hidden and departments are managed as a flat catalog.
- The Subsidiaries tab only shows up if your plan has Subsidiaries enabled and your company has the "Subsidiaries in Cost Centers" feature active.
Tips and common mistakes
"Can't delete because it has related records": means the department is already in use on transactions, employees, projects, budgets, fixed assets, allocation rules, processes, or on a contact/relationship's record. The message details where it's in use; instead of deleting it, mark it Inactive so it stops being offered on new selections without losing its history.
"Cannot specify more than 3 department hierarchy levels": happens when trying to nest a fourth level. Check the existing hierarchy and pick a parent that's at most on the second level.
Only link accounts for Purchase Orders if you need to restrict data entry. If a department has no accounts linked on that tab, every account in the chart of accounts remains available when entering a Purchase Order for that department, as usual.