Weekly Dynamic: Fixed Allocation Accounts

Allocation accounts have been in Dynamics for a long time but a lot of people still don't use them. Today we'll look at the simplest version, fixed allocation accounts.
With fixed allocation accounts you apportion costs based on a fixed percentage. Allocation accounts always have a zero balance. Transactions posted to an allocation account get their amounts split to the underlying accounts based on the percentages setup and nothing actually posts to the allocation account itself.
For example, if you have a sales office attached to headquarters. You could apportion say, 10% of the HQ facility costs to the sales office since they don't have separate rent, utilities, etc. Posting to the allocation account will automatically split the amounts 90/10 between a Headquarters account and a Sales Department account.
We use a different numbering scheme for allocation accounts to be able to easily identify them. To setup a Fixed Allocation, go to Cards-Financial-Fixed Allocation, then:

• Enter an Account Number and Description
  
• Enter successive distribution accounts and their percentages

The distribution percentages must add up to 100%. That's the minimum you need to do to setup a Fixed Allocation account. When entering transaction, you will see the allocation account on a batch edit list. However, if you check "Break Down Allocation" at the batch level, edit lists will show the actual account breakdowns and totals that will post.