IMOS - Business Rules

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The Business Rules form links commercial operations accounting activities to specific General Ledger account codes that are defined in your Chart of Accounts. In short, Business Rules are the link between the Operations P&L and the Financials P&L. Each Business Rule contains an operations Source, an operations detail Code, and a generic Description for each Source/Code activity.

Business Rules shorthand follow the convention, SOURCE:CODE. For example, a Freight Invoice, Freight Line Item would be written FINV:CFRTR.

This article includes the following information about Business Rules:

Business Rules Guidelines

To get the most out of the Business Rules, follow these guidelines:

Set them up the same as your company's Chart of Accounts, with the help of a Veson Nautical consultant.
Try your best to match Business Rules Descriptions with your Chart of Accounts Account Description.
If you do not configure 100% of your Business Rules from the beginning, you can always add any that you may have missed.
Once you have configured a specific Business Rule, do not change it without consulting your Accounting department and Veson Nautical.

A missing Business Rule can cause an error to appear on the Voyage P&L.

How Do Business Rules Work?

The Veson IMOS Platform (IMOS) applies a single Business Rule at the line-item level of a transaction (i.e., AR Invoice, AP Invoice, or Journal), and uses the rule logic to automate the account posting process.

A user posts an invoice from one of the many invoice lists (e.g., Payables Summary, Receivables Summary, Post Invoices, and Transaction Summary).
The Veson IMOS Platform references the Source of the transaction that the user is posting.
The Veson IMOS Platform references the individual transaction line item Bill Code.
The Veson IMOS Platform references the Business Rules form to locate the row with the same Source and Code from steps 2 and 3.
The Veson IMOS Platform populates the transaction line item's empty Ledger Account with the same Ledger Account from the referenced Business Rules row.

After picking the ledger account for the line item, the Veson IMOS Platform will populate the corresponding General Ledger (Chart of Accounts) account Code.

Setting Up Business Rules

On the Financials menu

, under Setup, click Business Rules.

For each activity, enter the appropriate information:

Field	Additional notes beyond field help
Source	A transaction has one only one 4-letter Source. Examples: BINV corresponds to all accounting items/activities associated with bunker invoices. FINV corresponds to all freight invoice items/activities.
Code	A transaction has one Bill Code per line item. For a given Source and Bill Code, you can add two more rows that include a .CR and .DB suffix for the Bill Code. When posting an invoice that uses the Source and Bill Code, two additional detail lines appear on the invoice that net zero on the Transaction Data Entry form. .CR and .DB rows can be used to credit and debit accounts of your choosing. Example: Bill code CFACM under Source code DEMR refers to the demurrage address commission line item.
Account	Select the appropriate General Ledger account number from the selection list and click OK. The Account Description and Category from the Chart of Accounts appear. If you do not enter an account, a message asks if you want to run the Chart of Accounts. To view the Chart of Accounts, click Yes. Note: When importing invoices referencing the Company, Source, and Code, the Business Rule must be assigned to an Account and a Category, otherwise the imported file will fail in the Interface Message List with the following error: Line X Ledger Code is blank.
Debit Acc	This field is only used for Monthly Accruals and is editable only for source code MACR. An Expense that was posted and needs to be removed from the P&L will be posted in the balance sheet under the account specified in this column (deferred expenses). A Revenue that needs to be recognized in the P&L will be posted in the balance sheet under the account specified in this column (accrued revenues).
Intercompany (I/C)	Select to use this rule when the counterparty of a transaction is set as Internal in its Address book entry. When using this feature, there will be two Business with the same Source and Code.
Advanced Options
Credit Acc	In its basic form, a Business Rule is designed to pick the non-AP/AR account of the transaction. For direct Revenue or Expense items this would be the Revenue or Expense account while for inventory or prepayment items, this may be a balance sheet account. If you wish, you can use the Credit Acc column of the Business Rules form to also pick the corresponding AP/AR account per line item within a transaction. Select the appropriate General Ledger credit account (to offset another account) number from the selection list and click OK. If the Credit Account is defined, the Veson IMOS Platform defaults to that account number in the Transaction Data Entry, followed by the account number defined in the counterparty's Address Book, followed by the number defined in the Account Period. If the Credit Account is left blank, this Business Rule, when used in a posting, will use the Credit Account defined in the Account Period. Line items posted to an AP invoice will use the account in the AP field; the same is true for AR. An Expense that needs to be recognized in the P&L will be posted in the Balance Sheet under the account specified in this column (accrued expenses). A Revenue that was posted and needs to be removed from the P&L will be posted in the Balance Sheet under the account specified in this column (deferred revenues).
Vendor	Select the Vendor name from the selection list and click OK. The Address Type of the Vendor appears.
Country	Business Rules can be configured to apply to transaction line items that apply to specific countries.

Example Scenarios

Posting a Freight Invoice with Two Line Items

In the following example, an end user will post a Freight Invoice with two line items: Freight and Address Commission.

For reference, here are the Business Rules:

... and here is the transaction before posting:

Because the Business Rules are complete, the Veson IMOS Platform has already performed the logical steps necessary to select the Ledger Account Codes.

When the transaction is posted, the Veson IMOS Platform references the Source, which is FINV:

The Veson IMOS Platform then references the individual line item Codes within the transaction; these can be seen from the Operations tab of the Transaction Data Entry:

The Veson IMOS Platform references the Business Rules form and performs a look-up for the two Business Rules, which are FINV:CFRTR and FINV:CFACM:

Vendor-Specific Accounting

Problem: Some companies may account for transactions with certain counterparties differently than how they account for those same transaction types with the majority of their counterparties. A common example of this is handling Freight with an internal company via a different ledger account or handling all AP through vendor-specific accounts.

Solution: You can create two Business Rule entries for the same bill source and bill code but also include a Vendor value. With this rule configured, all transactions against the vendor will follow the vendor-specific Business Rule entry, while all other transactions of that same rule will follow the general rule.

The following screenshot shows two Freight Business Rules (FINV:CFRTR). One is for an internal counterparty, while the other is for all other counterparties:

Company-Specific Accounting

Problem: Some companies may account for transactions differently, which means they require a unique setup of financial rules and accounts.

Solution: You can create a different set of Business Rules per Company, which will override the general Business Rules' settings if a specific company runs a voyage.

Deleting Company-Specific Business Rules

Company-specific Business Rules can be deleted by doing either of the following:

Right-click each Business Rule line and then click Delete.
Override the Business Rules with a company that has no Business Rules set up.
Example:

Once Copy to Company is clicked, the Veson IMOS Platform will detect that company EMPTY does not have any Business Rules:

Click No to decline the creation of Business Rules based on the existing ones.

Finally, confirm this action to replace the Business Rule settings:

Country-Specific Accounting

Problem: Certain business scenarios require reporting on income or expense earned in a certain country for tax or customs purposes.

Solution: You can configure this in Business Rules by setting the Country field. When set, any transaction line item will follow a country-specific Business Rule if its Vendor's Address Book–entry Country is located in the specified country.

The below Business Rules are set to differentiate Port Expenses in Australia from Port Expenses in all other countries:

Related Configuration Flags

Name/Flag	Description
Enable Company Based Business Rules CFGEnableCompanyBasedBusinessRules	Allows separation of the Business Rules based on company.
Voyacc Accrual Type CFGVoyaccAccrualType	Enables an option to control the type of accrual items using Business Rules. There are five possible values: Ops (default): No change in behavior for accruals; the items generated are set as configured in the Business Rules. Act: New Business Rules are used for accruals. The items are grouped per their corresponding P&L accounts in the Business Rules (Accruals by Account). These are generated automatically upon opening the Business Rules form. ActCounterparty: Same as Act, but the accruals are also itemized per vendor. ActCounterpartyPort: Port expenses will be accrued on a separate line-item for each port and each counterparty, and all other items will be accrue per account and counterparty. ActPort: Port expenses will be accrued on a separate line-item for each port and all other items will be accrued per account. When set to a nondefault value, CFGVoyaccAccrualType adds a check box column to the Bill Viewer; to exclude a Bill Viewer row from Monthly Accruals, clear its check box.
Enable All Std Expense Matches CFGEnableAllStdExpMatches	When enabled along with CFGEnableStandards, the Standard Expenses form is available instead of the Expense Standards form. All standard expense definitions created using this form are individually evaluated and applied to voyages and Estimates. Also, a Rebill Type column is available in the Business Rules table, and is part of a unique index of the table. It allows the following values: Non-Rebillable, Rebillable, Advance Rebillable, <blank>. For the same Source and Code, an applicable rule whose Rebill Type column is not blank takes precedence over a rule whose Rebill Type column is blank.
Enable Standards CFGEnableStandards	Hides the Port Expense field on some forms, enables standards for expenses, and adds a Port Expenses Details form and a Port Expenses Details button on the Port Expenses Summary to open it. When detail-level port expenses are being used, the PortExp column in the Voyage Itinerary behaves the same as the PortExp column in the Estimate itinerary: For a port with no detail-level port expenses, you can edit its PortExp amount in the Voyage Itinerary Cargo Tab. The voyage P&L shows this amount as estimated expenses for that port. For a port with a single detail-level expense, that amount appears and can be edited in the voyage itinerary PortExp field. An estimated expense entered before creating the detail-level expense is no longer displayed in the voyage P&L. For a port with multiple detail-level expenses, the itinerary PortExp field shows the sum of the detail-level expenses for that port and cannot be edited. When CFGVoyageExpenseAllocation is set to Y, a Voyage Expense Allocation section will be added to the Voyage Estimate Profit & Loss Report, and optionally to the Voyage Profit & Loss Report. An ECA Factor field also appears on COA, Cargo/VC In, and CP Terms Details forms. When ECAFactor is used in an IMOS ECA Recovery Charge Results/Fee expression and an ECA Factor value is entered on a contract, an ECA Recovery Charge Extra Freight Term is generated on that contract. When a COA is created from an Estimate, ECA Factor is copied from CP Terms to the COA. When a COA Lifting is created, ECA Factor is copied from the COA to the Cargo. When a cargo is scheduled, ECA Factor is copied from the cargo to the backcreated Estimate.
Enable Shuttle Freight Invoicing CFGEnableShuttleFreightInvoicing	Enables the Shuttle Tanker Workflow and master data forms necessary for freight invoicing of time and bunkers for both the actual voyage and theoretical return legs, most commonly used by shuttle tankers.
Enable Currency in Business Rules CFGEnableCurrencyInBusinessRules	When enabled, a new dimension is added to the Business Rules for Currency. When a currency is selected on a business rule, the matching account will be applied only when this currency is used for the specific Source Code and Bill Code of an invoice. When an invoice is generated that match the Source Code and Bill Code, but do not match the Currency value defined in the rule, then the rule will not be utilized and it will default back to the business rule for the Source Code and Bill Code where the Currency is not defined.