What is an Intercompany Definition?

An intercompany definition is where you specify the intercompany control accounts and default analysis dimensionsClosed Custom objects that allow you to analyze the activity in your business in additional ways, such as by cost center, project, employee, or any other business entity important to you. that you want to use when posting and generating intercompany documents. An intercompany control account is a type of general ledger accountClosed The general ledger will normally include general ledger accounts (GLAs) for items such as income, expenses, assets, liabilities, and reserves.. Each companyClosed A self-balancing accounting unit within your organization. in your organizationClosed A deployment of the Salesforce/FinancialForce applications with a defined set of licensed users. Your organization (org) includes all of your data and applications, and is separate from all other orgs. must set up their own intercompany definition records.

Each intercompany definition defines the analysis (GLA and dimensions) for the company when it is a source of an intercompany transaction with the related company, and when it is the destination of an intercompany transaction originating from the related company.

The analysis (GLA and dimensions) in the destination company for an intercompany transaction is derived from the destination company's intercompany definition.

You must set up an intercompany definition for both the source and the destination company in any intercompany process.

So, if you have three companies in your organization (we will call them Company One, Company Two and Company Three), each company would have two intercompany definitions like these:

Company One
Related Company Accounts Receivable GLA Accounts Payable GLA
Company Two Intercompany Debtor: C2 owes C1 Intercompany Creditor: C1 owes C2
Company Three Intercompany Debtor: C3 owes C1 Intercompany Creditor: C1 owes C3

There is a limit of one record for each related company.

Company Two
Related Company Accounts Receivable GLA Accounts Payable GLA
Company One Intercompany Debtor: C1 owes C2 Intercompany Creditor: C2 owes C1
Company Three Intercompany Debtor: C3 owes C2 Intercompany Creditor: C2 owes C3
Company Three
Related Company Accounts Receivable GLA Accounts Payable GLA
Company One Intercompany Debtor: C1 owes C3 Intercompany Creditor: C3 owes C1
Company Two Intercompany Debtor: C2 owes C3 Intercompany Creditor: C3 owes C2

The accounts receivable GLAs are automatically applied when the accountant posts the intercompany document in the source company.

The accounts payable GLAs are automatically applied when the accountant generates the intercompany documents in the destination company.

See About Intercompany Journals for an example.

See Processing Intercompany Transfers Automatically for information about the Auto-Process option.