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Accounting Profiles

Target Audience: Administrators

Introduction

Accounting profiles control how revenue is classified for different product types. Each profile defines which revenue account to use, optional bookkeeping dimensions (cost center and project), and whether revenue is recognised over time or per delivered issue.

Administrators can manage accounting profiles in PAP under Control Panel > Settings > Accounting Profiles.

For a conceptual overview, see Accounting Profiles (core concepts).

Managing Profiles

Creating a Profile

When creating a new accounting profile, the following fields are available:

Field Required Description
Name Yes A human-readable label, e.g., "Digital" or "Print"
Revenue account Yes The account code where revenue is booked, e.g., "3320"
Cost center No Bookkeeping dimension for cost reporting
Project No Bookkeeping dimension for project reporting
Recognition type Yes Time-based (default) or Issue-based

A revenue account in the chart of accounts is created automatically the first time a profile's revenue account code is used — there is no need to create it manually.

Editing a Profile

All fields on an existing profile can be updated. Changes apply to future journal entries — existing entries are not affected.

Deleting a Profile

A profile can be deleted. Packages that were using the deleted profile will fall back to default behaviour (default revenue account, no dimensions, time-based recognition).

Assigning a Profile to a Package

Accounting profiles are assigned to packages. This can be done when editing a package in PAP. Campaigns inherit the profile from their base package automatically — there is no need to assign profiles to individual campaigns.

When no profile is assigned to a package, the default behaviour applies:

  • Revenue is booked to the organisation's default revenue account (typically 3001)
  • No cost center or project dimensions are applied
  • Revenue recognition uses the time-based model

Example Setup

A typical publisher might create two profiles:

Profile Revenue account Recognition type Used for
Digital 3320 Time-based All digital subscription packages
Print 3330 Issue-based All print subscription packages

This splits revenue into separate accounts by product type and ensures print subscriptions use per-issue recognition based on the distribution calendar.