We have a new client that is switching over to Adagio from Great Plains.
Their GL uses Dept Codes that are 3-digits in length.

The issue is that the Dept Codes are 000, 001, 002,…020, 021,…100, 101.

Adagio GL does not permit the Dept to start with 0’s in the code. (The zeros are truncated.)

I am told that the users have been using this coding system from 20 years (or longer), so it would have been nice if we could continue to use the same Dept settings.

But as it appears that this will not work for Adagio, I am open to suggestions from other users and partners.
Has anyone else had this issue?
And if so, what might you suggest?

Sam:

Normally what I do in the situation is add a 1 as the first character

1000
1001
1002
1020
1021
1100
1101

In this way all departments are 4 characters (best practice for Adagio) and the new department numbers are intuitive for the users.

Hi Samuel:

That problem occurs with at least 50% of conversions for me.

One solution is to add a leading digit to all Department codes so that "000" becomes "1000", "001" becomes "1001" etc. But it's not a very popular solution because it requires more keystrokes; I've never had anyone make that choice, though I suppose there might be growing organizations where a 4-digit Department makes sense.

The other choice is to replace the leading zero with another digit. For a conversion currently underway, they were able to use the digit "1" because the 100-199 series wasn't in use yet (that was a lucky break). in another they went with "9" because the "0" series Departments were all administrative and it didn't affect the rank-and-file staff members.

Maybe after 20 years they could see this as an opportunity to do a more extensive COA restructuring?

COA?

Chart of Accounts

COA = Chart of Accounts. Maybe you can convince them to see this an an opportunity to clear up past sins, not as a problem. I remember the Retired Guy used to say that, given enough time, charts of accounts will tend towards maximum entropy and need to be reviewed periodically.

Edit: Doug is about 60 seconds faster than me today!

Thanks guys!
I also considered adding the digit 1 to the Depts so that they will all be 4-digits in length.
Hopefully it will be not too difficult for the users to adjust to the new format.