What is Allocations in Aplos?

Allocations is an advanced accounting add-on feature that allows you to create cost drivers to split income or expense across multiple funds or tags (i.e. departments, projects, locations). This feature is $100/mon and can only be enabled by an administrator Aplos user.

A few examples of allocations are:

1. Splitting donations across multiple funds
2. Splitting the expense of an electricity bill by square footage across multiple locations
3. Splitting the cost of printing costs evenly across multiple departments

These three examples can easily be accomplished using the Allocations tool.

Step 1: Enable Allocations

To get started:

1. navigate to Fund Accounting -> Allocations
   
   
   
   • If you have not yet enabled this feature, select the orange "add allocations" button on the splash page that appears
     
   • You can also add this feature from your subscription page

Step 2: Create a Cost Driver

Once you have enabled the feature, the first step will be to create your cost driver. The cost driver will be the trigger which changes the overall dispersal of income or expense.

1. Navigate to the Cost Drivers tab
2. Click the green plus (+) button to the right 
   
3. Complete the Name, Note, Target and Field sections
   • The Target will allow you to choose to split between multiple funds, or tags
   • The Fields can only be split by amount, percentages will automatically calculate based upon the amounts entered.

The example below, is a cost driver using the previous example of splitting the expense of an electricity bill by square footage across multiple locations.

In the Fields section:

• Column 1 - a list of different locations
• Column 2 - the square footage of each location
• Column 3- automatically calculates the percentage of the whole number.

Step 3: Allocate Transactions

After you have created your cost driver, you can now record a transaction, which you will allocate after posting. You will see that the software has automatically created an Allocate fund, and an Allocate tag for each of your different tag options. You will use either the Allocate fund or Allocate tag when recording your transaction. This will act as a holding place for that transaction until you go in and post the actual allocation.

1. Go to your Registers screen
2. Record your income/expense transaction as normal
3. Select the allocate fund/tag (depending on the cost driver created) before clicking submit
   • This will trigger the software to add that transaction to your Allocations page.

Step 4: Post the Allocation

After you've posted your transaction, you can now go to your Allocations page to post your allocation. This process will distribute the total of the transaction across multiple funds or tags, depending on your cost driver.

1. Navigate to the Allocate tab
2. Choose the allocation that you'd like to post by checking the box to the right.
3. Choose the cost driver you want to allocate your transaction selected to
   
4. Once selected, review the breakdown of the allocation
   
5. Click Submit at the bottom right to post.
   • This will post a transaction to allocate the split to the specified location tags.

The software will continue to track what transactions can be allocated, so keep an eye on your Allocations page and submit those when necessary.

How to Unallocate Transactions

Any transaction that has been allocated through the Allocations module can be edited and unallocated.

To begin:

1. navigate to the Allocations module under Fund Accounting -> Allocations.
2. Click, See Allocated Transactions on the right side of your screen.
   
   
3. Locate the transaction(s) you wish to edit
   • you may need to toggle between your funds and tags depending on how you categorized your allocated transaction. To do so, click Select a Target on the right side and choose between your Funds, Tags or All. Each target will present any transaction(s) that was allocated to their respective fund or tag. You can also search by date by selecting the earliest date a transaction may appear in the Minimum Date box.
4. Click the check box to the left of the screen for every transaction you wish to unallocate and select Unallocate Selected Transactions.
   
   
   
5. Review unallocations, then click the green Confirm button
   
   

You have now successfully unallocated your transactions.