Natural accounts are the portion of general ledger account segments and chart fields that identify financial activity, such as expenses, withholding tax, and other wages. The natural account segments or chart fields in the General Ledger are usually set up as members in the Account dimension. Use the Natural Accounts tab to specify how basic expenses and compensation expenses (for positions and employees in an entity) are allocated to General Ledger account segments or chart fields. For example, an administrator can specify that dental plan benefits are allocated to the 515600 account segment (natural account) for all entities.
Department or cost center managers can associate natural accounts with benefits, additional earnings, and employer-paid taxes for selected entities. For example, the Department of Public Safety manager can associate account 515500 (Medical Insurance Expense) with the Benefit Expense account, and account 512290 (FICA) with Employer-Paid Taxes.
When department managers associate natural accounts for other compensation categories (Benefit Defaults, Additional Earnings Defaults, and Employer-paid Tax Defaults) for selected entities, elements in the categories are allocated to the associated account segment, unless the administrator defined a natural account for an element. In this case, if Medical Insurance and Vision Care benefits are not assigned a natural account, their expenses are allocated to the account segment (515500) associated with Benefit Defaults for the entity. However, Dental Plan benefits are allocated to the 515600 account segment that is specified for all entities.