Example: Flexible Account Number
A pharmaceutical company sells its products nationwide to hospitals and pharmacies. It also sells nonprescription products to retail outlets.
The company tracks sales by region of the country, hospital versus retail pharmacies, and pharmacy (prescription) versus over-the-counter (nonprescription) sales. The company can direct the sales, cost of goods sold, and inventory charges to accounts that are made up of different combinations of these three categories to track their sales information.
The company could define the flexible account number as:
Business unit, in two segments:
Address book category code, such as sales region (for example, W for West).
Address book category code, such as line of business (for example, HOS for hospital or RET for retail).
General ledger object account from the AAI, such as 5010.
(Optional) Subsidiary account, in one segment.
Use the item master reporting code, such as sales catalog section (for example, PHR for pharmacy or OTC for over the counter).
This diagram illustrates that the revenue when a hospital buys a prescription drug for its pharmacy goes to the WHOS.5010.PHR account:
