The AP clerk at a regional skilled nursing operator opens a broadline distributor invoice for one of the buildings. The lines run from raw food and dairy to paper goods and a case of exam gloves. Each line has to land on a general ledger account and a department, and the invoice on the right building, before it can post. The chart of accounts is printed and taped beside the monitor, and the clerk keys the codes from that sheet, one line at a time.
GL coding an invoice by facility and department means giving each invoice line an account, a department, and the building it was bought for, so the ledger and the budget both see the spend where it happened. The codes can come from the purchase order, the vendor record, or the item, and which source applies to which kind of invoice is a setup decision the operator makes rather than one fixed rule.
What GL coding an invoice means
GL coding assigns each invoice line to an account in the general ledger, and in a multi-building operator the same step also assigns the department and the facility that will carry the cost. The account says what kind of spend it is, raw food or housekeeping chemicals. The department says who spent it. The facility says which building's books and which building's per patient day budget the line lands in.
If the chart of accounts follows the cost report's departments, then dietary, nursing, housekeeping, laundry, and plant each carry their own accounts. A line coded to the wrong department moves cost between cost centers. A line coded to the wrong building moves cost between entities, so one building's per patient day shows an overrun and another's shows savings that did not happen. When a corporate office codes invoices for every building, the people coding did not see the delivery, so the building has to come from the ship-to address or the PO.
Where the GL code on an invoice line comes from
The GL code on a line can come from four places, and which one applies depends on how the invoice got there.
| Where the code comes from | What has to be in place first | What it cannot cover |
|---|---|---|
| The purchase order | Account, department, and building on each approved order line | Invoices that never had a PO |
| The vendor record | A default account and department on the vendor | A vendor that sells to more than one department |
| The item | An account on each catalog item | Items bought off the catalog |
| A person keying it | Someone who knows the chart and the buildings | Turnover, and the number of lines |
A line on an approved catalog order carries its account and department from the requisition, and that order is also the PO a three-way match checks the invoice against later. A utility bill has no PO, so its codes have to come from the vendor record, the item, or a person. A phone order to a local vendor may have nothing to draw on, and someone keys it from the printed chart, the kind of step behind what manual AP costs.
The sources mix in practice, so the question to ask of any coding setup is which source each kind of invoice uses and what happens to a line none of them covers.
Why a distributor invoice is coded line by line
A broadline distributor invoice mixes departments on one page, so one code on the header puts the dairy and the exam gloves into the same account. Coding by line sends raw food, dairy, produce, and dietary supplies to their own accounts and lets the gloves go to nursing and the chemicals to housekeeping. The dietary per patient day then carries only dietary spend.
The trade-off is a coding decision on every line instead of one for the whole invoice, so where the code comes from matters more than how fast the coding screen is. Line coding also depends on the lines being read off the invoice correctly, which is the capture step, covered in what AI invoice capture does.
How GL coding works in Adelpo
In Adelpo, invoices come in as PDFs, EDI, or images. Each location usually has its own intake email address. An invoice sent to one address for a group of locations is routed by the facility name or address on it, with or without a PO. Adelpo Capture splits each invoice line by line, and the GL code on each line comes from a mix of sources set up per customer, for example the purchase order or the vendor. An invoice missing a GL code never syncs. Adelpo flags it for review and alerts someone to add the code. Each location can have its own chart of accounts, and the department and facility travel with each line to Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, and batch imports alike.
Questions controllers ask about GL coding
where does the gl code come from on an invoice with no purchase order?
An invoice with no PO cannot take its codes from an order, so they come from the vendor record, the item, or a person. In Adelpo, service and utility bills arrive without a PO, are reviewed and approved from the invoice itself, and still count against the budget. An invoice without a PO can be approved and paid, and the GL code on each line is usually what places it in a budget category.
how do department gl codes work in a nursing home chart of accounts?
Each department carries its own accounts in the chart, so dietary and housekeeping each have a supplies account. A case of gloves bought by dietary stays out of nursing's supply line only if the department code on that line says dietary. Adelpo reports spend by department, and any department, dietary included, can be split into smaller categories such as raw food, dietary supplies, dairy, and produce.
does invoice coding automation send the gl codes to sage intacct or quickbooks?
Adelpo connects to Sage Intacct and QuickBooks and sends the invoice PDF, the line items with their GL codes, and the invoice details, meaning the invoice number, date, due date, and amount. For Sage Intacct, custom fields can be set or selected in Adelpo and sync over with the invoice. NetSuite and other accounting systems receive approved invoices by automatic batch import on a daily, weekly, or biweekly schedule, and the invoice PDF can be attached to the batch.