Example
Once dimensions and derivations are set up, this is an example of how it works.
Say that you have an employee, Joe, who works in IT Consulting Department. You need to set up his information so that you will be able to include him and his activities on various reports. For example, you can set it up so that every time the employee enters information on his timesheet, Maconomy will derives a value from Location (such as Office), such as “NY” and Entity (such as Department) as “IT.”
Next, the employee enters time on his timesheet. A lot of information is generated by a timesheet entry, which tracks hours, activities, and ultimately the profitability associated with various projects. As such, timesheets can function as the backbone for numerous reports.
We can set up dimensions behind the scenes to certify which project the time goes onto, as well as which customer is related to this project, and which department. We can then report on the progress filtered by all of these variables. However, we do not need the employee to enter all of this information each time he records hours on a timesheet. Instead, we set up Maconomy beforehand, using dimensions, to link all of this information together.
Once the employee logs in, he does not have to enter which department he belongs to, since Maconomy knows this through the Entity dimension. When the employee enters a task on the timesheet, the task is set up to automatically derive an activity, and then the activity is linked to a financial account. The employee enters time on a project, but then behind the scenes, the project is linked to a project department and a project type. It is also linked to a customer, the company of both the employee and the project, and perhaps other links may have been defined.
Taking this a step further, once this timesheet is posted, it generates financial entries to both the general ledger and the project sub-ledger. Now you can run a report for any of the previously defined dimensions in your system.