A dimension is data that you can add to an entry as a kind of marker so that the program can group entries with similar characteristics and easily retrieve these groups for analysis purposes. Dimensions can be used throughout the program on entries in journals and documents, as well as budgets. The term dimension is used to describe how analysis occurs. A two-dimensional analysis, for example, would be sales per area. However, by using more than two dimensions when creating an entry, you can carry out a more complex analysis at a later time, for example, sales per sales campaign per customer group per area.

Each dimension can have an unlimited series of dimension values that are sub-units of that dimension. For example, a dimension called Department can have departments called Sales, Administration and so on as subunits. These departments are dimension values. Dimensions and dimension values are user-defined and unlimited, which means you can create dimensions tailored to your company's needs and business processes. However, some dimensions, such as account number and date, are already defined for you by the program.

A company's accounts are made up of many entries from many different sources and are associated with numerous activities within the company. It is often necessary to create statements, statistics and analyses that are extracts of the complete financial statements. These extracts can be created using individual dimensions or combinations of dimensions.

If you set up a dimension called Department, and then use this dimension and a dimension value when posting an entry, you can later retrieve information on, for example, which items have been sold by which departments. If more than one dimension has been used on posted entries, the user can create a richer analysis of a company's activities. For example, a single sales entry can include multiple dimension information about which account the item sale has been posted to, where the item was sold, who sold it, and what kind of customer made the purchase.

By using dimensions, you can analyze trends and compare various characteristics across a range of entries. The analysis view functionality is particularly effective for this purpose, but you can also use filters, account schedules and reports to create informative dimensions analyses.

It is also possible for you to use dimensions to support business rules by influencing how a user can combine dimensions and how dimensions can be posted. This may be useful if certain departments are not allowed to use particular accounts or sell to particular customers. For more on this, see Dimension Combinations and Default Dimensions.

You can define as many dimensions as you need in your company, and you can define an unlimited number of dimension values for each dimension. All dimensions defined by you can be used on entries in journals and documents, as well as in dimensions-related reports and batch jobs.

You can also attribute extra functionality to some of the dimensions, as explained in the following:

When you select a dimension to be a global, a shortcut or a budget dimension, the program will automatically rename all fields that use that dimension type with the code caption you have entered for the selected dimension in the Dimension table.

However, you should note that the online Help will continue to use the generic names for the dimension types, for example, Global Dimension 1 code rather than the company-defined code name for that dimension.

You must define which dimensions and dimension values you want to use in your company.

You should also define which dimensions you wish to use as global and shortcut dimensions. You should consider carefully which dimensions will be most effective as global and shortcut dimensions for your company.

Furthermore, you can use dimensions functionality to support the business rules used in your company. For example, you can define which dimension combinations are allowed in a journal or document so that a specific project team cannot post certain expense types or that a certain item cannot be sold in a particular area. You can also define default dimensions for account types such as customer accounts or for each individual account.

On a journal line you can enter information about an entry, such as an account number, a customer number and so on. You can also add dimension information to an entry in the same way, if you have set up shortcut dimensions as fields directly on journal lines.

Alternatively, you can enter dimension information in the Dimensions window by clicking Related Information, Line, Dimensions in a journal. You can use the Dimensions window either as an alternative to using the shortcut dimension fields or for entering information for dimensions not defined as shortcut dimensions.

When you post a journal entry, the program also posts all dimension information.

In a document, dimension information can be entered for both a document line and a document header. You can enter dimension values for the first two shortcut dimensions directly on the document header and add further dimension information for the header in the Dimensions window, for example, by clicking Related Information, Quote, Dimensions, in a quotation document.

You can make each shortcut dimension available directly on document entry lines. You can then enter dimension values for a dimension directly on the line. Alternatively, you can enter dimensions information in the Dimensions window by choosing Related Information, Line, Dimensions.

For both the document header and line, you can use the Dimensions window either as an alternative to using the shortcut dimension fields or for entering information for dimensions not defined as shortcut dimensions.

When you post a document, all dimension information is also posted by the program and can be viewed in the related posted document.

If you have defined default dimensions for some accounts or account types, the program automatically determines which dimensions and dimension values should be filled in on a line or header and enters this information as you enter lines in both journals and documents. The program bases the dimension information it enters on the account numbers and account types you have entered.

You can use dimensions as filters in a number of ways. You can filter on all G/L entries using the two dimensions you have defined as global dimensions. You can filter budget entries using budget dimensions. Furthermore, you can filter by any dimension using analysis views. In this way, you can analyze entries and create informative reports that gather dimension information from all your entry data.

If a dimension filter field contains a dimension value, the filtered fields will show amounts based only on these dimension values.

You can enter a maximum of 20 characters, both numbers and letters. As with other filters, there are certain rules for how dimension filters can be combined. These rules are illustrated in the following examples, which use dimension values for a dimension that a user has defined as Department:

You can also combine the various format types: