Document Terms (per-type processing rules)

One question recurs throughout this module's guides: "where do the debit and credit accounts for this document come from?" The answer is always the document term. This page explains the idea of a term and its shared vocabulary, so we don't have to repeat it on every page.

What is a term?

When you save any document that generates an accounting effect — a receipt voucher, a payment voucher, a loan issue, an LC opening… — the system doesn't pick the accounts out of thin air; it picks them from a term linked to the document type. The term is the recipe that says: "for this kind of document, make the debit side this account, the credit side that one, and handle tax like so." So by changing the term — rather than editing each document one by one — you govern the behavior of a whole class of documents.

Each term has a two-page edit screen: Settings (account and subsidiary sources and controls) and Effect (the details of the posted value). The top of the screen sets its basic data: the document type, the code, a System flag (for terms the system creates), an Inactive flag, a field filter and the printed template.

Where does each side come from?

The heart of the term is the Debit and Credit blocks. In each side, the account resource type field decides how the account is derived; the most common sources are:

• A fixed account — you pick a specific account that's always used for this side.
• From the subsidiary — the account comes from the party's own subsidiary (the customer/supplier), specifying the subsidiary account type and account bag code when the subsidiary has multiple accounts.
• From a safe deposit or bank account — for the cash side, the account comes from a specific safe deposit or bank account.
• From the payment method — the account comes from the payment method chosen on the document.

The related subsidiary field on the other side links the two sides together, and you can constrain the user with prevent inserting values different from the term's so everyone sticks to the term's setup.

Conditional sources (based on "from doc")

When a document is created based on another (e.g. a voucher based on a request or order), the accounts needed may differ. So the term offers an Account and Subsidiary Source Settings grid that maps a from-doc type to a different account/subsidiary source, optionally applied conditionally when the from doc matches a criteria or a query, or by calculating the subsidiary from a field of the source document.

Taxes and dimension modifiability

• Taxes: the Taxes block sets the tax 1 and 2 debit/credit sides and whether each is a deduction, plus options to add the tax to the total debit/credit. (The tax fields appear on the document itself depending on the Accounting configuration options.)
• Details dimensions and modifiability: flags like cannot modify sector/branch/department/analysis set stop the user from changing the dimensions at the line level, so the term's values are enforced.

"Must / May / Cannot use"

Many term features (like invoice usage or commercial-paper usage) aren't set with just yes/no, but with three levels:

Value	Meaning
Must Use	the feature is mandatory; the user must fill it in.
May Use	the feature is optional; available but not required.
Cannot Use	the feature is hidden/forbidden for this type.

A term per document

Each document that posts has its own term with its own sides — a receipt voucher's sides aren't a loan issue's sides. This quick map links each document to the page where its sides are described in detail:

Document	Page
Receipt / payment voucher	Receipt & payment vouchers
Cashier voucher & shift close	Cashier shifts
Credit / debit note	Credit & debit notes
Bank transfer & bank reconciliation	Banks & bank accounts
Bank portfolio & financial papers	Cheques & financial papers
Loan issue & installment payment	Bank loans
LG issue	Letters of guarantee
LC opening	Letters of credit
Credit-facility issuance & payment	Credit facilities
Deposit issue & interest payment	Fixed deposits
Treasury-bill purchase & ROI proof	Treasury bills

For Support

• "The document posts to the wrong account" — check the Debit/Credit sides in the document type's term, specifically the account resource type; the change in the term applies to all documents of that type.
• "A document created based on another takes a different account" — that's usually intended; inspect the Account and Subsidiary Source Settings grid in the term.
• "The tax field doesn't appear" — tax fields appear depending on the Accounting configuration, and their sides are set in the term's Taxes block.
• The processing mechanism itself is explained in How documents are processed into accounting effects.