Multi-book Posting & Reporting Considerations

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Overview

Once your organization is configured for multi-book accounting (see Multi-book Accounting Setup & Migration), you need to understand how transactions post to both the Accrual and Cash Ledgers, and how to report on either basis. This article covers the posting behavior for each transaction type, consolidation considerations, reporting options, and performance optimization with the Large Data Optimizer feature. If you use Orders & Inventory, review the important limitation at the end of this article before enabling multi-book accounting.

In this article:

Create and Post Records with Multi-book Accounting
Consolidation Ledgers with Multi-book Accounting
Financial Reports and Salesforce Reports
Large Data Optimizer with Multi-book
Orders & Inventory with Multi-book Accounting

Create and Post Records with Multi-book Accounting

When you create and post transaction records with multi-book accounting enabled, these records post to the appropriate ledgers based on their transaction type. Each transaction type follows a specific posting sequence and updates the corresponding GL accounts on both the Accrual and Cash ledgers.

Billings or Payables

When you post a Billing or Payable with the ledger set to the primary "Accrual and Cash" ledger, the system posts transactions ONLY to this primary "Accrual and Cash" Ledger. No transactions are posted to the related Cash Ledger because money has not been received or paid.

Journal Entries

Unlike other transaction types, where posting is automatic, a Journal Entry lets you choose its ledger directly through the Accrual and/or Cash field (available when the Journal Entry's Ledger is the primary "Accrual and Cash" ledger). As a rule: include Cash only if cash is actually changing hands. Note that the value Accrual and Cash names where the entry posts, not the primary ledger itself.

Value	Posts To	Use For
Accrual and Cash	Both the primary ledger and the related Cash Ledger	Adjustments that affect both ledgers equally, such as a bank fee or interest income
Accrual	The primary ledger only	Period-end accruals and non-cash Balance Sheet adjustments (Prepaid Expenses, Accrued Liabilities, Fixed Assets)
Cash	The related Cash Ledger only	Cash-only adjustments, opening cash balances, and cash-basis tax return entries

Important:

Once posted, the Accrual and/or Cash field is read-only; to change it, unpost, update the field, and repost. Unposting requires Post/Unpost permission and an open Accounting Period for the entry's original posting date, reopening it first if needed.
This alters historical ledger balances for that period. If the period was already closed, reconciled, or reported on, treat the change as a correcting entry and confirm with your controller first.
If the original Cash Ledger posting was already reconciled to a bank statement, changing the field to Accrual will unreconcile it. Verify reconciliation status first.
Selecting Accrual and Cash on a non-cash Balance Sheet adjustment also posts it to the related Cash Ledger, misstating that ledger's Balance Sheet. Use Accrual instead, and post a separate Cash entry later only if cash actually changes hands.

Note: If your org uses the Deferred GL Account and Recognition GL Account fields on a Prepaid or deferred-revenue GL Account, cash-basis recognition may already be automatic. Check with your administrator before manually splitting entries.

Example: An organization pays $12,000 for an annual insurance policy in advance. With Deferred/Recognition GL Account configured for Prepaid Insurance, the related Cash Ledger already expensed the full $12,000 at payment, leaving no Prepaid Insurance balance to adjust. (Without that configuration, the original Prepaid Insurance posting also lands on the Cash Ledger and must be written off there separately.) Each month, record $1,000 of Insurance Expense on the primary ledger only: create a Journal Entry with Accrual and/or Cash set to Accrual, debit Insurance Expense and credit Prepaid Insurance for $1,000. This updates the primary ledger for GAAP reporting without touching the related Cash Ledger.

Cash Receipts or Cash Disbursement - Posted

When you post a Cash Receipt or Cash Disbursement with the ledger set to the primary "Accrual and Cash" ledger, the system posts transactions to BOTH the primary "Accrual and Cash" and related Cash ledgers.

Related Cash Ledger: When a Cash Receipt is Posted:
- Debit Bank GL account
- Credit Unapplied Revenue GL account

Cash Receipt Posted - Cash Ledger transactions

Related Cash Ledger: When a Cash Disbursement is Posted:
- Debit Unapplied Expense GL account
- Credit Bank GL account

Cash Disbursement Posted - Cash Ledger transactions

Cash Receipts or Cash Disbursement - Applied

When you apply a Cash Receipt to a Billing the Billing Cash Receipt (BCR) posts to BOTH ledgers. It posts as usual to the primary "Accrual and Cash" ledger. On the related Cash ledger the BCR posts:

Reversing transaction to the Unapplied Revenue GL Account
Transaction to the Revenue GL account on the related Billing

When the Cash Receipt is applied to the Billing, the Transactions related list on the Billing includes transactions for the primary Accrual and Cash Ledger, as well as transactions for the Cash Ledger, which are actually the same transactions that were recorded on the Billing Cash Receipt (BCR).

BCR transactions on Billing - Accrual and Cash Ledger

If you do not want to see the BCR transactions from the Cash Ledger on the Billing, add a filter to remove these transactions using the steps below.

From the Billing record, click the Gear icon and select Edit Page.
Scroll down to the Transaction related list and select it.
In the right panel, if Upgrade Now displays to upgrade to Dynamic Related List, click that button. Then, continue with step 5.
Under Related List Filters, click Add Filter.
From the Field drop-down list, select the Billing Cash Receipt field and Equals as the Operator. Leave the Value blank.
Click Done and then click Save.

Similarly, when you apply a Cash Disbursement to a Payable the AP Disbursement (APD) posts to BOTH ledgers. It posts as usual to the primary "Accrual and Cash" ledger. On the related Cash ledger the APD posts:

Reversing transaction to the Unapplied Expense GL Account
Transaction to the Expense GL account on the related Payable

As on the Billing, when the Cash Disbursement is applied to the Payable, the Payable includes transactions for the primary Accrual and Cash Ledger, as well as transactions for the Cash Ledger, which are the same transactions that on the Accounts Payable Disbursement (APD). If you do not want to see the APD transactions on the Payable Transactions related list, display a Payable, and follow the steps above to add a similar filter on the AP Disbursement field.

Post and Apply Order (on Cash Ledgers)

Since each step in the process works off of what was already posted, it is important to post and apply in the order of the Accounting Period Date or the Applied Date (from the earliest date to the latest date). For example:

2024-01: Cash Receipt is partially paid
2024-02: Credit Memo partially applied to it
2024-03: final partial Cash Receipt applied

Using the above example, you might determine that you need to reverse the initial application from 2024-01. Since the order to record and apply must be in the order of Accounting Period Date or the Applied Date, you would first:

reverse the final partial Cash Receipt from 2024-03,
then reverse the Credit Memo that was applied in 2024-02,
then reverse the partial paid Cash Receipt from 2024-01. Once the Cash Receipt in 2024-01 is reversed, you can go ahead and re-apply the Credit Memo in 2024-02 and the partial Cash Receipt in 2024-03, in that order. If you attempt to unapply records out of sequential order, an error message will display. For more information about partial payments on a Cash Ledger, refer to the Cash Basis Processes article.

Important:

When applying both a Credit Memo and a payment(s) in the same Accounting Period, the Credit Memo must be applied first.
When you void a Cash Receipt that has been applied, the Void Date must be in an Accounting Period that is greater than or equal to the Accounting Period on the related Billing Cash Receipt (BCR) or the Billing Credit Memo (BCM).
BCR and APD transactions that are generated on a Cash Ledger are also associated with the Billing and Payable (or Billing Line and Payable Line, based upon the Posting Settings). These BCR and APD transactions display on the Billing/Payable (or Line) Transactions related list. However, these transactions are only affected by the BCR/APD posting process. Therefore, if a Billing or Payable is unposted/reposted due to a change, the related BCR or APD record would need to be reposted in order to reflect the change on the Cash Ledger transactions.

Best Practice: We recommend enabling Auto-Post on your Cash Receipt and Cash Disbursement records to simplify this process and ensure records post automatically in the correct sequence.

Funding Credit Memo (on Cash Ledgers)

When a Cash Receipt refund (Refund button) is issued, the negative BCR created as a part of the Refund Cash Receipt process does not post transactions on the related Cash Ledger because offsetting transactions are not created on the related Funding Credit Memo. When a BCR is created as part of the Refund process, the Funding Credit Memo checkbox on the related Billing is automatically selected. To add the Funding Credit Memo checkbox onto the Billing page:

Go to Setup > Object Manager > Billing
Click Page Layouts and select the Billing layout or the layout being used.
Drag and drop the Funding Credit Memo field onto the page layout directly below the Ledger Amount. Click Save.

Consolidation Ledgers with Multi-book Accounting

You can create separate Consolidation Ledger Hierarchies for Accrual Ledgers and for Cash Ledgers. However, an Accrual Ledger cannot be consolidated with a Cash Ledger.

Important:

If the parent Ledger in a Ledger Hierarchy is Accrual, all child Ledgers must be Accrual. If the parent is Cash, all children must be Cash. An error message will display if you attempt to consolidate mismatched ledger types.
For Consolidations-Transactional Ledgers: When you create a Ledger with the Type "Consolidations-Transactional," the Accounting Method must be either "Accrual" or "Cash". It cannot be "Accrual and Cash". Additionally, the Accounting Method on the Eliminations Ledger must match the Accounting Method on the related Consolidations-Transactional Ledger.

Best Practice: If you change the Accounting Method on a Consolidation Ledger, create a new Ledger Hierarchy rather than modifying the existing one. Refer to Set up Consolidations for detailed instructions.

Financial Reports and Salesforce Reports

Accounting Seed Financial Reports and Salesforce Report Builder reports can be filtered by Ledger. When running reports:

Select the Cash Ledger to view a Cash Basis report.
Select the Accrual Ledger to view an Accrual Basis report.

This allows you to easily generate reports in either accounting basis without maintaining separate systems.

Large Data Optimizer with Multi-book

If you are tracking both Accrual and Cash transactions and you have a high volume of transactions, enable the Large Data Optimizer (LDO) feature. LDO allows you to post and unpost more lines on Billings, Payables, and Journal Entries. The process runs as a background process instead of synchronously helping improve performance and preventing timeouts.

You can enable or disable the Large Data Optimizer (LDO) feature directly from the Enablements page for AR, AP, or JE. This feature was added in the Spring '26 Release. For more information see the Enablements article.

Orders & Inventory with Multi-book Accounting

Important: When using the Orders & Inventory package to track inventory, the use of a Cash Ledger is not currently supported. If you require both inventory tracking and multi-book accounting, contact Support to discuss your options.

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Multi-book Posting & Reporting Considerations

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