Another use of reference numbers is to track information for entities that are not incorporated into the organization or account structure.

One common instance is when you need to categorize costs in a way not supported by your account structure or organization structure. For example, suppose you have a three-level organization structure. Level one is the overall company level, level two is the business segment level, and level three is the region level. However, you also want to track and report on costs by product line. You cannot use an alternate reporting structure to obtain this information because it is not captured within the existing account and organization structures. The solution is to use one of the reference number fields for data entry. You define reference numbers for each product line. Then, when you enter transactions, you enter the appropriate reference number as well as account and organization.

You do not have to link reference numbers to accounts or account/organization combinations explicitly for data entry, as when you use reference numbers as alternate reporting structures. You can use any valid reference number with any valid, active account/organization combination during data entry. However, you must initialize default reference number tables in all modules for journals that update the Reference Summary table to ensure that posting programs update the correct reference number.

When you use reference numbers for data entry, posting programs store amounts in the Reference Summary table by account and reference number. The data in the G/L Detail table and Transaction History table for each module also include the reference number for each transaction. It is imperative that you initialize the reference numbers throughout Costpoint before data entry, so that these tables contain accurate balances. You can also initialize beginning balances in the Reference Summary table.

Note that the Reference Summary table is similar to the Financial Statement Summary table. Both contain beginning balances and amounts and hours by fiscal year and period. The Financial Statement table stores this information by account and organization, while the Reference Summary table stores balances by account and reference number. The organization is not stored in the Reference Summary table.