Balancing Segments and Journals

In NetSuite, accounting entries are always balanced for the company (subsidiary). For each entry, debits equal credits. Some organizations also need to balance entries for other dimensions or categories, such as funds or business units. This requirement is common for non-profit organizations, advertising, media, and publishing firms. The Balancing Segments feature lets you use custom segments to balance accounting entries by other dimensions automatically.

The Balancing Segments feature depends on custom segments, and you must have the Custom Segments feature to use balancing segments. For information, see Custom Segments.

Note:

The Balancing Segments feature does not provide balancing by the standard class, department, or location categories in NetSuite. You can, however, create balancing custom segments that use dimensions with these names.

You can have a maximum of two active balancing segments.

Balancing Segments Definitions

The following terms appear often in documentation for balancing segments and journals:

Segment – A custom classification field used to classify records, similar to class, department, and location. You can define possible values for each segment and add the segments to specific record types.
Balancing segment – A segment within which you can balance debits and credits. Examples of balancing segments that you might create include business units, product lines, or funds.
Header segment value – A value within the segment that you select in the transaction header.
Column or Line segment value – The value or values within the segment that you select in transaction lines.
Intersegment account - A general ledger account used as a clearing account to balance transactions by segment.

For transactions balanced by segment, the header segment value is a debit or credit that balances with the column or line segment values’ debits and credits.

See the following topics for more information about the Balancing Segments feature:

Balancing Segments Definitions

Related Topics