Adjustment-Only Books Overview

Important:

Multi-Book Accounting, including the Adjustment-Only Books feature, is available only in NetSuite OneWorld.

Adjustment-only books allow you to post book-specific adjustments to a secondary, adjustment-only book at closing. They serve as a light version of multi-book accounting, but you do not need the Full Multi-Book Accounting feature to use them. Adjustment-only books differ from standard secondary books in that they do not duplicate the data in the primary book. Instead, users post day-to-day transactions to a base book, and adjustments to data in the base book are made in the adjustment-only book. Adjustment-only book results are calculated at the report level by including data from both the base book and the adjustment-only book. You can display financial reports on the data combined from both the base book and adjustment-only book in reports and searches.

Adjustment-only books can be used to comply with different accounting standards across multiple jurisdictions. They are also useful when the only requirement is to post adjustments by book-specific journal entries at the end of the accounting period. You can create multiple adjustment-only books for a single base book, and adjustment-only books do not count against the accounting book limit.

Adjustment-only books have two advantages over a traditional multi-book setup:

Adjustment-only books are easier to implement for existing customers.
Adjustment-only secondary books require less financial data maintenance.

Adjustment-Only Book Definitions

Base book — The book to which you will post most day-to-day transactions. A base book can be either a primary book or a standard secondary book, but not an adjustment-only book.

Adjustment-only book — The book to which you post book-specific journal entries at the end of the accounting period. These journal entries are combined with those in the associated base book to produce a report as a complete secondary book. Adjustment-only books do not duplicate the data in their base book. They inherit their base book’s possible subsidiaries and consolidated exchange rates.

Adjustment-Only Book Workflow

The workflow for adjustment-only books is:

For day-to day operations, post transactions only to the base book.
At the end of the accounting period, enter book-specific journal entries to the adjustment-only book.
Generate reports for the adjustment-only book. When these reports are generated, they include data from both the base book and the adjustment-only book.

Adjustment-Only Book Requirements and Limitations

You must use NetSuite OneWorld. All NetSuite OneWorld accounts have Adjustment-Only Books available by default. The Adjustment Only Books option is visible to administrators in Setup > Company > Enable Features > Accounting > Multi-Book Accounting.
Base books can be either the primary book or a standard secondary book, but not an adjustment-only book.
The adjustment-only book must use the same currency as its base book.
The adjustment-only book cannot have subsidiaries which do not exist in the base book. If a base book’s Include Children flag is inactive, it will also be inactive in the adjustment-only book.
The effective period for the adjustment-only book is the same as the base book’s effective period.
Adjustment-only books do not support foreign currency management.
The chart of accounts are unnecessary when setting up an adjustment-only book.

Enabling the Adjustment-Only Book Feature

All OneWorld accounts can use the Adjustment-Only Book Feature, and it does not need to be provisioned through NetSuite Support. To enable the feature, administrators can go to Setup > Company > Enable Features > Accounting > Multi-Book Accounting and select the Adjustment Only Books option.

Setting Up an Adjustment-Only Book

To use adjustment-only books, you must use NetSuite OneWorld. When setting up a new accounting book, check the new Adjustment Only box on the accounting book record to make it an adjustment-only book.

Creating an adjustment-only book is very similar to creating a standard secondary book. The steps below highlight differences in the process. For more information, see Adding Accounting Books.

To add an adjustment-only book:

Go to Setup > Accounting > Multi-book Accounting > Accounting Books > New and click New Accounting Book.
Complete the required and optional fields as required. The following fields are modified for adjustment-only books:

Is Primary – This box is for display purposes only. It cannot be checked for adjustment-only books.

Subsidiary – (Required) Select one or more subsidiaries to associate with this accounting book. Any child subsidiaries of the subsidiaries you select are automatically associated with this accounting book. For adjustment-only books, only subsidiaries in the base book will appear in this list.

Include Children – If this box is checked, any child subsidiaries of a subsidiary that you select are automatically associated with this accounting book including newly created subsidiaries. This box cannot be checked if it is not checked for the base book.

Effective Period – (Required) The effective period for an adjustment-only book is the same as its base book, and cannot be edited.

Enable Consolidation – Check this box to enable this secondary accounting book for consolidation. Secondary accounting books enabled for consolidation have access to all OneWorld consolidation including all tasks on the period close check list, consolidated reporting, auto-elimination, and book-specific consolidated exchange rates.

Note:
By default, when consolidating exchange rates in the adjustment-only book, they are copied from the base book. You can edit these rates to achieve different consolidation exchange rates in the adjustment-only book.

Important:
If using the Period End Journal Entries feature, and changes the consolidated exchange rates in the adjustment-only book, there may be inconsistencies between the period-end reports and standard reports. This is because period-end journal entries are calculated based on the primary accounting book exchange rate. The same balance from the base book in standard reports is recalculated using the consolidated exchange rate from the adjustment-only book.

Important:
The default consolidated exchange rates in the adjustment—only book are copied from the base book when the adjustment-only book is created. They are also independent from the consolidated exchange rates in the base book. You can set different consolidated exchange rates in the adjustment—only book from the base book.
If using Advanced Revenue Management, the Enable Contingent Revenue Handling box is inactive for adjustment-only books, as items cannot be used with book-specific transactions.
Complete the Adjustment Books fields as follows:

Adjustment Only — check this box to make the secondary book an adjustment-only book.

Base Book — (appears when Adjustment Only is selected) select the accounting book which will be the base book for adjustments. Base books can be either the primary book or a standard secondary book, but not an adjustment-only book.
Adjustment-only books do not support Foreign Currency Management. If you are using Foreign Currency Management, the Base Currency lists in the Subsidiary subtab will be inactive, as the base currencies are inherited from the base book.
Click Save.

Reports and Adjustment-Only Books

Adjustment-only books differ from standard secondary books in that they do not duplicate the data in the primary book. Instead, users post day-to-day transactions to a base book, and adjustments to data in the base book are made in the adjustment-only book. Adjustment-only book results are calculated at the report level by combining data from both the base book and the adjustment-only book. You can display financial reports on the data combined from both the base book and adjustment-only book in reports and searches. When reporting on an adjustment-only book, the report will combine data from the base book and adjustment-only book to produce a report from a single book.