Shared, entity-specific (private), and restricted data in a multi-entity company

Intacct categorizes data as follows: 

Shared records

Shared records are created at the top level and are shared among entities in a company. Shared records include transactions and objects. Shared transactions include: bills, invoices, and journal entries. Shared objects include: customers, vendors, and bank accounts.

When you create shared data at the top level, you enable this data to be shared across entities and at the top level. Shared records appear in the lists of records for all entities.

Entity-specific records

Entity-specific records (formerly known as entity private) are created at the entity level and are accessible in the entity where the data was created. You can still access entity-specific records at the top level by selecting Include private or Show entity-specific data on a page where you view records. By design, Intacct prevents creating transactions at the top level using entity-specific objects.

Users can transact with entity-specific records using either shared or entity-specific objects. For example, you can generate an entity-specific invoice for either a shared customer (created at the top level) or an entity-specific customer.

Restricted

Restricted records relate to customers, vendors, checking accounts, and savings accounts in a multi-entity shared company that the administrator can restrict to locations, location groups, departments, and department groups.

For example, you can choose to restrict a UK vendor to the UK entity in your company. You can restrict individual vendors to the top level only, or to specific locations, location groups, departments, and department groups.

Entity-specific records (entity private)

You can create the following entity-specific objects:

  • GL accounts
  • Bank accounts
  • Customers
  • Vendors
  • Items
  • AR/AP Terms
  • Employees
  • Users
  • Locations
  • Projects
  • Classes
  • User-defined dimensions

Enable entity restrictions for customers, vendors, and bank accounts

By default, objects that you define at the top level of a multi-entity shared company are unrestricted. This enables the use of the same objects across entities.

You can restrict:

  • Vendors
  • Customers
  • Checking and savings accounts
You can enable entity restrictions at the top level only.
  1. Go to Company > Admin > Subscriptions.

    The Subscriptions page is shown.

  2. Select Multi-Entity Management, then select Configure.
  3. In the Entity restrictions section, select any of the following objects to enable restricting them to an entity:
    • Customers
    • Vendors
    • Checking accounts
    • Savings accounts

After saving your changes, a Restrictions tab is shown on the Information page for the objects you want to restrict.

Next steps: You can restrict the visibility of individual customers, vendors, and bank accounts.

What does "Not Owned" mean?

The standard practice in a multi-entity shared company is to define objects at the top level to enable access to these objects across entities. You can also define entity-specific objects as needed. For example, you can define a set of vendors at the entity level for use only in the context of that specific entity. This is useful for cases when only one entity in your company interacts with those specific vendors.

When working at the entity level, objects that are defined at the top level or in another entity are shown as Not owned in the entity where you're working. For example, an object that you define in entity E100 is shown as Not owned in entity E102. You can still view the object in the entity where you're working.