All that's needed to set up your company file is a new asset account and a new supplier card for the head office. It's assumed you already have supplier cards set up for the individual branches - if not, create those too.

To set up a new asset account

1. Go to the Accounts command centre and click Accounts List.
2. Click the Asset tab.
3. Click New.
4. Select Bank as the Account Type.
5. Give the account a unique number that suits your account list.
6. Name the account Head Office Clearing (or similar).
7. Click OK. Here's our example account setup.
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To set up a new supplier card

1. Go to the Lists menu and choose Cards.
2. Click the Supplier tab.
3. Click New.
4. Enter the supplier's Head Office details.
5. Click OK.

Using the relevant supplier's branch card, enter a bill for the goods or services that have been purchased.

For details of entering purchases, see the AccountRight help (Australia | New Zealand).

If you report GST on a Cash (Payments) basis, the branch payments should only be recorded when the actual payment to head office is made.

When you record the payment, use the Head Office Clearing account (created earlier) to pay the Bills from the branch stores.

1. Go to the Purchases command centre and click Pay Bills.
2. Select the Pay From Account option and then enter the Head Office Clearing account in the adjacent Account field.
3. Select the branch's Card and apply a payment against the Bills being paid. If all the Bills are being paid, click Pay All.
4. Repeat step 3 for all branch Cards that need to have payments applied.

The above steps will:

• close the branch Bills, and
• consolidate the value of the branch Bills with a series of withdrawals from the Head Office Clearing account.

Record a single Bill for head office that is allocated to the Head Office Clearing account. This will clear the balance of the Head Office Clearing account with a deposit posting.

1. Go to the Purchases command centre and click Enter Purchases.
2. Select Head Office's Card.
3. Enter the Date and Memo.
4. Enter the Head Office Clearing account in the Acct# field. A warning may be displayed regarding the type of account selected - disregard this warning.
5. Enter the Amount (the total value of all the branch Bills that were paid).
6. Enter the N-T Tax/GST Code (the GST should have been recorded on the Bills entered for the branch stores).
7. Click Record.

Here's our example bill for head office (Acct# 1-1135 1130 represents the Head Office Clearing account created earlier).

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1. Go to the Purchases command centre and click Pay Bills.
2. Select the Pay From Account option then select your cheque account.
3. Select the supplier's head office card.
4. Enter the payment details including the Memo, Cheque Number, Date and Amount.
5. Enter the amount in the Amount Applied field against the Service type Bill that was created in Task 4 above.
6. Click Record.

The above steps will:

• close the Bill for head office, and
• post a withdrawal to your cheque account, which will represent the physical payment.

<h2><i class="fa fa-comments"></i>&nbsp;&nbsp;FAQs</h2><br>

Using Enter Sales and Receive Payments, the same principles as described above can be applied to your customers.

You won't be able to send a statement to head office showing each invoice entered for the branches. The statement will only show the Invoice entered for head office.

1. Set up a Customer Card for the head office and for each of the branches.
2. Record all sales to the head office Card.
3. When entering the Invoices, select the branch's Shipping Address by clicking the down arrow next to the Ship To field. Select the Other Card option then select the relevant branch Card. The Invoice will now show the branch name and address, even though the customer name selected in the Invoice is head office's.
4. Set up and use Job Numbers for each branch so that you can track the sales by branch using the Job Numbers. Our support note Tracking the profitability of profit centres using Jobs has more information on this.