GL Classification Policies

GL classification policies let you control the GL classifications that Atlar sets on the lines it posts to your ERP—such as dimensions in Business Central or department/location in NetSuite. For each classification type, you can set a default value, specify whether it is required, or restrict which values are allowed, applying these rules to specific GL accounts or vendor bank accounts. Atlar then applies the policy whenever a match creates an outgoing document, so the same rule holds no matter which reconciliation rule or match produced the line.

Before You Start

Your GL entity must have GL classification types and GL classifications synced from your ERP. A policy can only reference classifications that exist for its GL entity.
You need permission to read and manage GL classification policies in the organization.

Where to Find Policies

Policies belong to a reconciliation configuration, so they are managed from the configuration's details page:

Go to Settings > Acccounting > Configuration to open the list of Reconciliation Configurations
Open the configuration for the GL entity you want to setup a policy for.
Select the GL classification policies tab. The tab shows every policy for that GL entity.

The table lists each policy's Name, Target type, Scope and a summary of its Rules. Hover over a scope to see the accounts it covers.

Configuring a Policy

Select Create to add a policy, or the edit action on an existing row to change it. The form has three sections.

1. Policy

Name: a label for the policy.
GL entity: fixed to the GL entity of the configuration.

2. Accounts

Target type: what the policy applies to.
- GL account: lines posted to the selected GL accounts.
- ERP bank account: the bank line of a document, so bank accounts that share one GL account can have different classifications. This option is only shown for GL entities that support it.
- The target type cannot be changed after the policy is created.
Scope: which accounts the policy covers.
- All: every account of the target type in the GL entity that is not covered by a specific-accounts policy. Only one All policy is allowed per GL entity and target type. If one exists, the option is greyed out and the form links you to it.
- Specific accounts: only the accounts you select, up to 40 per policy. Accounts that already belong to another policy are disabled and show which policy they are in. An account can belong to only one policy.

3. Classification rules

Add a row for each classification type you want to control. Types without a row are not checked. Each row has these settings:

Setting	What it does
Type	The classification type, for example Cost center. Each type can appear in one row only.
Requirement	Optional: the line may be left empty, and the default is a suggestion. Required: the line must have a value.
Default value	The classification set on a line that has none. Required for Optional rules.
Allowed values	Shown for Required rules. When set, only these values are accepted. If you also set a default, it must be one of them. Leave empty to allow any value.
Applies to	Target lines only: the rule applies to the lines of the policy's accounts. All lines in document: the rule applies to every line of a document that has a bank line in the policy. Shown only for bank-account policies.

Some combinations are rejected when you save:

An Optional rule without a default.
Allowed values on an Optional rule. Allowed values only apply to Required rules.
A default that is not in the allowed values.
An All lines in document rule without a default.

Editing and Deleting

You can change the name, scope and rules of an existing policy. The target type stays fixed.
Changes apply to new matches only. Existing matches and documents already sent to your ERP are not affected.
Deleting a policy removes it for future matches. Documents that were already created are not changed.

How Policies Are Used

Policies are checked when a match creates a new outgoing document in your ERP. They are not checked when Atlar updates an existing document.

For each line of the document, Atlar works out which policies apply and then does one of two things:

Fills in defaults. A line with no value takes the default from the policy. On lines that a creation template or a manual match set up, a blank Optional value stays blank. Defaults only fill lines that nobody filled in, or lines that would otherwise be invalid because a value is required.
Rejects what the policy forbids. If a line has a value that is not allowed, or is missing a required value, the match is rejected and the reason is shown. Automatic matches that would break a policy are skipped instead, so they stay for review.

A GL entity with no policies is not checked at all.

How Policies Apply

When several policies or rules apply to the same line, Atlar combines them as follows.

Which policies apply to a line

Bank line (a line on the bank account): the policy for its ERP bank account, the policy for its GL account, and the All policy for vendor bank accounts.
Any other line: the policy for its GL account and the All policy for GL accounts.

An All policy for GL accounts does not apply to bank lines.

How the rules combine for each classification type

Requirement: the strictest one wins. If any rule requires a value, the line must have one.
Allowed values: the lists from all rules are intersected, so a value must be allowed by every rule that restricts the type. If no value is allowed by all of them, the rules conflict. The line is then rejected until one of the policies is changed. The conflict message links to the policies involved.
Default: the most specific default wins, in this order:
1. the vendor bank account policy,
2. the GL account policy,
3. a rule that applies to all lines in the document, taken from the bank line,
4. the All policy.
A default that is not in the allowed values is skipped. When rules at the same level suggest different defaults, all of them are skipped and the next level is used.

A more specific policy can add a default or narrow the allowed values. It cannot loosen a broader policy.

Example

An All policy for GL accounts requires Cost center and allows only Sales and Marketing. A specific policy for one GL account sets Operations as the default for Cost center.

A line on that GL account uses Operations as its default. Operations is not in the allowed values, so the default is skipped and the line has no default. The line is still required to have a value from Sales or Marketing.
A line on any other GL account uses the All policy. It has no default, so it must be set to Sales or Marketing.

Reconciliation Rules: the rules that create outgoing documents from matches.
Accounting Document: the documents that policies apply to.