Grouped vs Line-Level Posting
When you post a document with several lines, how many ledger entries should it produce? REDA gives you two modes, and the difference is purely about granularity in the general ledger — never about the totals. Either way the document balances and posts the same amounts; the choice is whether the ledger keeps one entry per line or one summarised entry per account.
- Line-level — one Accounting Transaction per source line. Maximum detail. This is the default.
- Grouped — lines hitting the same account (and same dimensions) are summed into a single Accounting Transaction. A leaner ledger.
Access you'll need. Changing this setting requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view territories but not change them.
A side-by-side example
A purchase invoice has three expense lines, two of which both go to the Office Supplies account:
| Line | Account | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Office Supplies | 200.00 |
| 2 | Office Supplies | 150.00 |
| 3 | Travel | 300.00 |
Line-level posting writes one debit per line:
| Account | Debit | Lines summarised |
|---|---|---|
| Office Supplies | 200.00 | 1 |
| Office Supplies | 150.00 | 1 |
| Travel | 300.00 | 1 |
Grouped posting merges the two Office Supplies lines into one:
| Account | Debit | Lines summarised |
|---|---|---|
| Office Supplies | 350.00 | 2 |
| Travel | 300.00 | 1 |
Both post $650 in debits against the payable. Grouped just records two ledger lines instead of three, and notes on the merged entry that it summarised two source lines — so the count is never lost.
That count lives in the Line Count field on the merged Accounting Transaction. A Line Count of 1 means the entry maps one-to-one to a source line; anything higher tells you — and your auditor — exactly how many source lines stand behind the figure. And because the merged entry still links back to its source document, the full line-by-line breakdown is always one click away on the invoice itself.
What gets grouped together
In grouped mode, two lines are merged only when they match on all of:
- the same GL Account,
- the same entity,
- the same side (debit or credit), and
- the same posting dimension values.
That last point matters: if two rent lines carry different cost centres, grouping keeps them separate — you never lose an analysis breakdown to summarisation. Grouping is only ever as coarse as your dimensions allow.
Which should you use?
| Line-level (default) | Grouped | |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger detail | Full — every line traceable on its own entry | Summarised per account |
| Ledger volume | Higher | Lower — fewer rows |
| Per-line foreign currency | Fully preserved | Preserved only when a group is a single line |
| Best for | E-invoicing & tax regimes that demand line detail; granular audit | High-volume books where account-level summaries are enough |
Journal Entries always post line-level
There is one deliberate exception: Journal Entries ignore the grouping setting entirely and always post line-level. The reasoning is simple — on an invoice the lines are operational detail, but on a journal every line is a deliberate, authored instruction. Summarising them would erase the exact entries the preparer intended. So REDA never groups a journal, whatever the territory setting says.
Grouping therefore applies only to the AR and AP documents — Sales Invoices, Purchase Invoices, Cash Receipts, Cash Disbursements, Credit Memos, and Vendor Memos.
Where the setting lives
The switch is a single checkbox on the Territory record: Grouped Posting Enabled. It ships unticked, which means line-level posting — the safe, maximum-detail default. Because it sits on the territory, it’s resolved per entity through that entity’s territory: a group can run, say, line-level in a strict e-invoicing country and grouped elsewhere — from one configuration, without code. Your administrator manages it alongside the other per-territory policies; see Understanding Territories.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Enabling grouping in a territory subject to line-detail audit rules | Regulators expecting transaction-level books (Brazil SPED, India GST, Italy SDI, much of LATAM) will find summarised entries instead | Leave Grouped Posting Enabled unticked for those territories — the default already protects you |
| Expecting grouping to reduce or change posted amounts | It never does — confusion here leads to false alarms during review | Compare account totals, not row counts, when validating a grouped ledger |
| Turning the flag on and expecting old entries to regroup | The mode is applied at the moment each document posts; history is immutable and stays as it was written | Treat the change as forward-only — entries already in the ledger keep their original shape |
| Relying on dimensions you haven’t configured to keep detail apart | With no posting dimensions set up, everything on the same account and side merges into one entry | Configure the dimensions you analyse by before enabling grouping — grouping is only as fine-grained as your dimensions |
Where to go next
- How Posting Works — the posting engine end to end.
- Accounting Transactions — the lines each mode produces.
- Posting Dimensions — how dimensions affect grouping.
- Ledger Management — the ledger each entry is stamped with.
Frequently asked questions
No. The totals posted to each account are identical either way. Grouping only changes how many individual ledger lines sit behind those totals — your Trial Balance, P&L, and Balance Sheet are unaffected.
The ledger holds the summarised entry (with a count of how many lines it merged), but the source document still has every original line. You can always open the invoice to see the full breakdown; grouping only summarises the general-ledger side.
No — journals always post line-level regardless of the setting. The grouping toggle only affects AR/AP documents.
Yes. The setting is scoped to a territory, so each entity follows its territory’s policy. Keep line-level where e-invoicing rules require it and group elsewhere — all from one configuration.
Nothing. The mode is applied at the moment each document posts, and ledger entries are immutable once written. Changing the flag only affects documents posted from then on — if you need an old document reshaped, unpost it and post it again under the new setting.
No. Lines are only merged when they match on the account, the entity, the debit/credit side, and every posting-dimension value. Two lines to the same account with different cost centres stay as two ledger entries — grouping never collapses an analysis breakdown you’ve configured.
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