Control Accounts
A control account in Voyzu is a pointer from a supporting ledger to a General Ledger account.
The supporting ledger holds the detailed financial records. The linked General Ledger account holds their financial total in the company ledger. Voyzu uses the control account to connect the two.
Control accounts and the related bank/cash, tax, and inventory accounts are collectively described as ledger-backed account codes.
How the relationship works
The control account is not a second General Ledger account and does not duplicate the detailed ledger. It identifies:
the supporting ledger the activity belongs to
the business purpose of the balance
the General Ledger account to which the financial value is posted
For example, AP_TRADE_PAYABLES represents trade payable activity in the Accounts Payable ledger and points to the General Ledger liability account used to hold the total trade payables balance.
Why control accounts exist
A General Ledger is designed to show financial totals. A supporting ledger explains what makes up those totals.
Without this separation, every supplier bill, customer invoice, inventory movement, or tax movement would need to carry all its operational detail directly in the General Ledger. Control accounts allow the General Ledger to remain financially complete while the supporting ledgers retain the detail needed for allocation, settlement, enquiry, and audit.
The relationship also provides an important integrity check:
The comparison must be made for the same company, control-account purpose, date, and accounting basis. A difference indicates that activity is missing, misclassified, or was posted outside the expected route.
Ledger-backed account types
Voyzu uses the same pointer pattern for several financial areas:
Accounts Payable
AP control account
Supplier bills, payments, credits, and outstanding supplier balances
Liability
Accounts Receivable
AR control account
Customer invoices, receipts, credits, and outstanding customer balances
Asset
Bank / Cash
Bank / cash account
Movement and balance for a bank account, cash account, or cash equivalent
Asset or liability
Tax
Tax account
Tax charged, recoverable, payable, adjusted, paid, or refunded
Asset or liability
Inventory
Inventory control account
Quantity and value movements recorded in the inventory ledger
Asset
The exact General Ledger classification depends on the purpose of the account. For example, a normal bank account is usually an asset, while an overdrawn account may be represented by a liability account.
Posting through a control account
When Voyzu processes a financial document, its posting engine resolves the document's posting route. Where that route names a control account, Voyzu follows the pointer to determine the General Ledger account.
A posting normally produces two connected views of the same event:
Detailed activity is recorded in the relevant supporting ledger.
A journal line is posted to the General Ledger account identified by the control account.
Consider a supplier bill posted to AP_TRADE_PAYABLES:
The Accounts Payable ledger records the supplier, document, due amount, and open balance.
The control account identifies the trade payables liability account.
The General Ledger journal credits that liability account for the payable amount.
Paying or crediting the bill updates the supporting ledger and posts the corresponding movement to the same linked General Ledger account. The detailed supplier balances should therefore continue to support the General Ledger total.
Control-account codes and GL codes
The control-account code and General Ledger code serve different purposes.
A control-account code is a stable business alias used by posting rules, such as
AR_TRADE_RECEIVABLES.A GL code identifies the account in the company's chart of accounts, such as
110000.
Keeping these separate allows an organization or company to retain consistent posting meanings even where its chart-of-accounts codes differ. The Ledger Backed Account Codes report shows each control-account code, its supporting ledger, and the GL account to which it points.
Organization standards and company records
Control accounts can form part of the organization base settings. A company using those settings follows the organization's control-account-to-GL-account mappings. A company with its own settings maintains its own mappings within its separate chart of accounts.
In either case, financial activity belongs to the company. Control accounts never combine supporting-ledger records or General Ledger balances across companies.
For more about this relationship, see Organizations and Companies.
Practical principles
Give each control-account code one clear and stable financial meaning.
Link it to a GL account with the correct account type and business purpose.
Route supporting-ledger activity through the control account rather than treating the linked GL account as an unrelated posting destination.
Avoid changing a mapping after financial activity exists unless the accounting impact has been fully assessed.
Reconcile supporting-ledger totals to their linked General Ledger accounts regularly.
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