About subsidiary accounts

Using subsidiary accounts, you can arrange financial information into related categories under a single ledger account, providing quick access to specific information. A ledger account that uses subsidiary accounts is known as the controlling account. Asset and liability accounts primarily use subsidiary accounts, though you can also use subsidiary accounts with income and expense accounts.

Suppose that you want to track telephone expenses. You can split the telephone account into subsidiary accounts such as Basic Service, Long Distance, Cellular, and Paging. The Telephone ledger account then provides you with the overall expenses as well as a breakdown of the expenses by the subsidiary accounts.

Sage 100 Contractor automatically sets up subsidiary accounts for accounts receivable, accounts payable, and service receivables using the job, vendor, and client numbers as the subsidiary account numbers. However, Sage 100 Contractor does not provide access to these subsidiary accounts through the Ledger Accounts window because you can view the subsidiary account balances in the Job, Vendor, and Client windows. Sage 100 Contractor also sets up subsidiary accounts for Equipment Assets, Equipment Depreciation, and Equipment Loans using the equipment numbers as the subsidiary account numbers. Similarly, you view the subsidiary account balances for equipment in the Equipment window.

Setting up subsidiary accounts takes careful planning. Like ledger accounts, you cannot change the subsidiary account number after posting a transaction to a subsidiary account. It is important to note that you can always add subsidiary accounts to an existing controlling account.

You cannot make a ledger account into a controlling account if that ledger account that has had any activity or carried a balance. You can, however, create a new controlling account, set up subsidiary accounts, and transfer the balance from the ledger account into the subsidiary accounts of the new controlling account.