Most of today's general ledger packages provide multidimensional account structures. These account structures consist of one or more segments to reflect, at a minimum, the General Ledger (GL) account number plus other numbers that generally reflect Company, Cost Center, Account, Product, Project, and so on.

Account Structure Example

In this example, we can examine a typical accounting structure by breaking out the specific segments of the account number 10-100-1010-550-968 as follows:

In this example, the first two digits are the Company segment. If the organization has a multi-entity structure, this segment designates the specific company within the organization. The second set of digits is the Cost Center segment, and the third set of digits is the Account Number, which defines the type of account (such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, and so on). The fourth set of digits is the Product segment — a unique number that defines the product sold/returned/purchase. The final set of digits is the Project Segment.