What this article covers: How the Combine financial segments template brings the segments your accounting systems track into one dimension across entities — choosing the ledgers, naming the dimension, matching options to members, and picking the metrics.
Each accounting system groups its figures its own way — Xero tracking categories, QuickBooks classes, MYOB jobs and categories, Zoho reporting tags — and each entity names its options its own way, so the same region can read North in one entity and N. Region in another. Combine financial segments builds a Business Data Builder model with one dimension of your own, fed by all of them.
1. Starting the Template
Go to Organisation Settings → Business Data Builder, click New Model, and click Use this template on Combine financial segments. The template runs in four steps.
2. Pick the Segments to Combine
Under Which ledgers?, tick the segment datasets to combine — any mix, across entities. Each shows the entity it belongs to and how many options it holds.
3. Name the Segment
Enter a Dimension name, such as Region — what the figures are grouped by. Enter a Model name too, or leave it empty and the model takes the dimension’s name.
4. Match Options
Each row is a member of your dimension, and each chosen ledger is a column. The members start as one per distinct option the ledgers hold. Rename them, remove them, or click + Add member to add more, then put each ledger’s values in the member they belong to. Several values can feed one member, and a value belongs to one member only.
Values no member has taken are listed below the table, and sit on Unassigned unless you put them in a member. Each system’s own no-segment value (for example, Xero’s Unassigned or QuickBooks’ Not Specified) also belongs to Unassigned, so totals still agree with the ledgers. Every member needs a name before you can continue.
5. Pick What to Report
Each line is one metric: it adds up the accounts shown next to it, split by your members. The lines are the sections of the group chart of accounts that the chosen ledgers’ accounts are mapped into, in profit and loss order, with the totals the profit and loss works out between them — Gross Profit down to Net Profit — as calculated metrics.
Accounts that are not mapped to the group chart of accounts are left out, and listed above the lines. Click Map them in a new tab to map them on Account Mapping, then come back and click Refresh; your choices on every step are kept.
Click Create model. The model opens on the model page and starts loading its data. From there it can be changed like any other model — see Building a Business Data Builder Model.