How to Set Up Statistical Accounts

Statistical accounts track non-monetary quantities, such as headcount, square footage, or machine hours, alongside your financial data. They carry no General Ledger impact: nothing posts as a debit or credit, and they never appear on your financial statements. You record their values through a statistical journal, then reference the account as the driver on an allocation journal so DualEntry calculates each destination’s share from the real, period-specific ratio instead of a manually entered percentage. Set the account up once, then post a journal every period, usually monthly, to keep the numbers current.

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Prerequisites

Before setting up a statistical account, confirm the following:

• You have the access needed to create accounts in your chart of accounts, which is the same access any other account creation requires (see User Roles and Permissions).
• You know what you are measuring and at what grain, for example headcount per department or square footage per location.
• The classifications you intend to record values against already exist, if you are measuring by department, location, class, or project.
• An allocation journal schedule exists, or you are ready to create one, if your goal is to drive a distribution from these quantities.

Two limits are worth knowing before you build a monthly process around this feature:

• Statistical balances are not yet available in the standard P&L or the custom report builder. View them on the statistical account’s detail page or the Statistical Journal listing page instead.
• There is no bulk or CSV import for statistical values yet, so journals are entered one at a time.

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How statistical accounts and journals fit together

There are two pieces to this feature, and it helps to think of them the same way you think about a chart of accounts and journal entries. The account is the definition and the journal is the data, so one account accumulates a value per period for as long as you keep posting to it. For example, a $120,000 rent bill needs to be split by department. Rather than guessing at a percentage, you record each department’s square footage in a statistical account, and DualEntry allocates the rent proportionally based on those real numbers.

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Create a statistical account

Create a statistical account from the same Chart of Accounts form used for every other account.

1. Navigate to Chart of Accounts.
2. Add a new account.
3. Set the account type to Statistical.
4. Complete the remaining fields, then save.

The account form includes the following fields: After saving, the account appears on the Chart of Accounts list under a distinct Statistical type, and its detail page shows three tabs: Overview, Migration, and Activity. The Overview tab lists the account’s description, company access, sum duplicate postings setting, and a Recent Journals table of every statistical journal that has posted to it.

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Record values with a statistical journal

A statistical journal records the actual measured values for a statistical account, for a given date, company, and classification. Post one journal per period, for example monthly, to keep the account current. The Statistical Journal listing page has three tabs: Overview for posted journals, Draft for unposted journals, and Archive for archived journals.

1. Navigate to Transactions → Statistical Journal.
2. Start a new journal.
3. Fill in the header fields listed below.
4. Add one line per company or classification combination you are recording a value for, using the line fields listed below.
5. Choose Save as Draft to hold the journal for review, or Save and Post to finalize it. This is the same pattern used on journal entries.

The header section takes the following fields: Each line includes the following fields: At least one of company, account, or a classification must be set on each line, and quantity is always required. Only posted journals feed statistical balances. Post the journal instead of saving it as a draft. Posted quantities appear on the account’s Recent Journals list and become available as an allocation driver for the period they cover. Draft and archived journals do not contribute to statistical balances.

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Use statistical values in an allocation

Once you have posted values, reference the statistical account as the destination type on an allocation journal schedule instead of typing in a fixed percentage.

1. Open an allocation journal schedule.
2. Set the schedule’s source to a specific transaction, for example a bill or journal entry.
3. Choose Statistical account as the destination type.
4. Select the statistical account and the driver period to use.

DualEntry reads the quantities posted for that period and calculates each destination line’s share automatically. For example, a $79,000 facilities rent bill needs to be split by headcount. A statistical journal for the month already shows Engineering at 46, Sales at 20, and Operations at 13, for a total of 79. Pointing the allocation at that statistical account and period produces Engineering: $46,000, Sales: $20,000, and Operations: $13,000, with no percentage entered by hand. See Allocation Journals for the general mechanics of sources, targets, and generation frequency.

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Troubleshooting

Most problems with statistical accounts trace back to a journal that was never posted, or to a setting on the account itself. The table below maps what you see to what to do about it.

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Related reading

Statistical accounts live in the same chart of accounts as your GL accounts, and statistical journals follow the same draft and post pattern as journal entries. Once your journals are current for a period, drive a distribution from them in Allocation Journals.

• How to Configure the Chart of Accounts
• Journal Entries: Reference
• Allocation Journals: Reference
• General Ledger
• User Roles and Permissions