Our audience management platform, Multipub, plays an integral role in an organization’s success. Not only can it help you grow your business with its marketing and renewal capabilities, it handles the complex accounting requirements needed for subscription-based businesses. Over the years, Multipub has been audited by several accounting firms and has passed with “flying colors.” It serves as an accounts receivable module for all items entered and processed through it.
We know accounting practices can vary greatly from business to business or product to product. With that in mind, users can define their “Chart of Accounts,” using different account numbers available for each product. They can also create their own user-defined accounting periods. We even offer integrations via API to Sage Accounting.
Here’s How it Works
Posting Transactions in Multipub
When an order is processed, it is first entered as a transaction. Transactions can be edited and then posted. The transaction posting process consists of:
- Updating the order with the correct dollar amounts
- Creating transaction history records for each order, payment, adjustment, etc
- Creating a distribution record for all affected GL accounts, i.e. earned revenue, deferred revenue, account receivable, cash, etc.
- Preparing invoices, if the system is defined to produce invoices with order posting
- Preparing shipping documents, if the system is defined to ship items with order posting.
After an issue is served, the issue can also be “posted.” This posting process marks each record as having received the issue. It also automatically creates entries in the general ledger to post debits to the deferred income accounts and credits to the earned income accounts.
Developed to handle multiple product types in a single system, Multipub manages subscriptions and products for a variety of publishers. For example:
- Revenue recognition can be run for digital access day products, which recognizes revenue for the number of days of access. Multipub creates debits to deferred and credits to the earned income accounts.
- Multipub supports foreign currency by converting all amounts to the system’s native currency before making the GL distribution entries.
- In addition, the newspaper module earns revenue and reports A/R based on price per day, discounts, and payment status of the order.
Managing Your General Ledger
Because all general ledger (GL) entries have been created, they may be easily and electronically interfaced with your company-wide GL package. Multipub allows users to match up their system account numbers with their GL account numbers (in the event that they are different due to formatting reasons, etc.). Our electronic interface will prepare a file containing your desired GL account numbers, along with the amounts accumulated during the period’s activity in Multipub.
Generating Reports
Identify opportunities for growth with our extensive reporting features. A few of our most commonly used are:
- Aged Accounts Receivable
- Deferred Revenue
- Earned Revenue
- General Ledger Distribution
- Month-End Balancing
Each offers publishers unique insights into the health of their business.
