In some countries, such as China and France, the legal COA can be different from the operational COA for business or legal reasons. A company that is part of a larger organization may be required to define an alternate COA according to local GAAP, and then report to their head office using the operational COA. An alternate chart of accounts is a secondary grouping of accounts that is generally used for statutory reporting.

Some countries, such as China, require that companies use different alternate COAs for different financial periods, and that all alternate COA versions be stored for auditing purposes. Alternate COA offers a solution for companies operating in these countries.

The Alternate COA function provides the ability to generate reports using alternate COAs, in addition to a company’s operational COA. However, alternate COAs can be used for reporting purposes only—you cannot post transactions to alternate accounts. Currently, only the Regional Balance Sheet report and the Regional Income Statement report have the option to use an alternate COA. See Structured Reports.

An alternate COA consists of one or more account structures, each containing a group of non-duplicate alternate accounts. Each alternate account is assigned an account code, description, and account level indicator, and, optionally, a column label and an alternate COA group code. You can create an alternate COA structure manually or copy from an existing structure. The Alternate COA function also includes an Excel integration feature that lets you import alternate COA structures from an Excel spreadsheet.

In order to link alternate accounts to their corresponding operational GL accounts, you can create a COA cross-reference from within the alternate COA structure. You can also create a cross-reference for an alternate COA structure by using COA Cross Reference Create (25.3.14.1) directly. Only the lowest level codes in the alternate COA structure are linked to operational COA elements (GL account, sub-account, cost center, and project). Lowest level codes in the alternate COA structure are codes entered on rows that have no child rows.

In the example alternate COA structure in Alternate COA Structure, the following accounts are lowest level nodes: