Investigating Location Differences
The nominals and ledgers used in this topic may be different to those in your chart of accounts.
This article will explain how Intracompany variances occur and how to find them manually.
For MATs consisting of several academies, each academy will have its own nominal codes, prefixed with the location code
If a document is posted that debits one location and credits another, this means that whilst the trial balance for all locations combined will still be in balance, a trial balance for each location individually would not balance. This is because one location will show a debit, but no corresponding credit and the other location will show a credit, but no corresponding debit.
For example, Academy A provides access to its swimming pool to another academy (Academy B). In return, Academy B pays 50% of the swimming pool running costs. Academy A will need to recharge Academy B for 50% of the relevant utility costs using applicable invoices.
The invoice created to recharge will debit Academy B and credit Academy A. IRIS Financials identifies that the academies are part of the MAT (because the document contains a combination of nominals for different locations) and applies an intercompany rule. This rule posts a balancing entry (an INTR document) to the
The invoice created credits Academy A and debits Academy B.
The balancing entry debits Academy A and credits Academy B.
Sometimes, users may think they have made a typing error and use the change document function to amend the invoice so that all lines are coded to the same location nominals. However, the INTR document that was triggered by the intercompany rule still exists and consequently, the locations do not balance.
It can be difficult to identify and locate documents that are causing intercompany differences, but the following options will narrow the possibilities:
- Confirm that the difference is not as a result of transactions being hidden from view due to security restrictions (this would only happen if the trail balance was not run as a System Administrator.
- See Running a Trial Balance to run one period at a time to identify the time frame during which the imbalance arose. Once you know the period, run an account enquiry on the
Correcting intracompany/location differences
To correct any differences, amend the applicable INTR document setting all values to zero, or reverse the INTR using another INTR as the document type. Using an INTR document type will stop the system automatically posting any subsequent INTR documents when the reversal is posted.
If you find you have made a mistake when posting, which is likely to affect the intercompany nominals, the best practice is to reverse and repost, rather than change the existing document. This ensures the intercompany postings are also reversed automatically.
It can be difficult to locate the documents that are causing the difference but there are a few things that you can do to narrow down the possibilities.
First, confirm that the difference is not down to transactions being hidden from view via security restrictions. Running the trial balance as the CUSTADMIN / PSFADMIN user will ensure that all transactions are visible.
When running the trial balance you can run it for one period at a time, to work out when the difference arose.
Once you know which period to search in, you can run an account enquiry on the
The INTR transactions will quote the document number of the 'source' transaction in Userfield 2. 
If you group the account enquiry by this field, by dragging the column header into the grey area above, this will give you the total for each document that has generated an intercompany posting.
If you compare the source documents against their corresponding INTR documents then this can help identify the differences.
The most common reason is where the source document has been amended after its initial posting. If you change the original document then the INTR will not automatically update.
Scenario
A user posts an invoice document that debits PSF and credits LLL
An INTR document is immediately generated to balance the TB, posted to PSF
The user then realises they made a typing error and uses the 'change document' function to amend the invoice so that all lines are coded to LLL nominals.
This means the invoice is no longer an intercompany transaction, therefore the INTR document is no longer required. The INTR document does not change, so this causes the difference on the TB.
To correct this, you can either amend the INTR document, setting all values to zero, or reverse the INTR using another INTR as the doctype (if you use a general journal doctype, this will trigger another INTR posting).
If you find you have made a mistake when posting which is likely to affect the intercompany nominals, the best practice is to reverse and repost, rather than change the existing document. This ensures the intercompany postings are also reversed automatically.
Alternative method
Should you not wish to correct the imbalance at an individual document level, you can post a single journal to balance each location's TB. This method offers less detailed analysis of the interactions between the locations but will still balance the TB overall.
Logged in as the admin user (CUSTADMIN or PSFADMIN), run a Trial Balance for all nominals for the full financial year, e.g. period 00 to period 97. If the 'Location' column is not showing, you can select it using the ‘Columns’ button on the menu bar, and then drag it to the grey bar above to group by location
Post an INTR doc type on Input Form ‘PSF Journal’ as follows to period 97 (changing the year as appropriate):
Post the values for each location from the TB (in reverse) to it's corresponding Intracompany nominal (
Post the journal and the TBs should now balance for all locations.