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Financial Line Items & GL Coding

What is Financial Line Items & GL Coding?

Financial Line Items & GL Coding in TMS.ai provides a centralized view and management system for every financial transaction flowing through your operation. The Global Financial Line Items (FLI) board consolidates line-level detail from invoices, carrier bills, and assets into one searchable, filterable table. Each line item includes the GL code, accounting tags, amount, source document, and any custom fields you've configured. This gives your accounting team a single source of truth for financial data rather than having to dig through individual invoices and bills.

The GL coding system lets you categorize every financial transaction according to your chart of accounts structure. You can assign codes manually or set up automation rules that apply the correct GL code based on transaction type, customer, lane, or other criteria. This ensures your financial reporting accurately reflects revenue and expenses by the dimensions your business cares about.

How Financial Line Items & GL Coding works:

  1. Access the Financial Line Items board from your main navigation. This board displays all financial line items generated from invoices (revenue), bills (expenses), and assets (depreciation or other costs). The system shows detailed columns including GL code, accounting tag, amount, document reference, and transaction date.
  2. Filter financial data using the board's filtering capabilities. Search by date range, GL code, customer, vendor, document type, or any custom field you've configured. This lets you quickly find specific transactions or analyze spending and revenue patterns.
  3. Create or update GL codes using the Object Builder. Navigate to the builder, access the GL codes object, and add new codes matching your QuickBooks or other accounting system chart of accounts. Include the code number, description, and account type (revenue, expense, asset, etc.).
  4. Configure accounting tags for additional categorization beyond GL codes. Tags let you classify transactions by dimensions like division, department, project, or customer segment. Create tags in the Object Builder and make them available for selection on invoices and bills.
  5. Assign GL codes to transactions either manually when creating invoices and bills, or automatically through builder rules. When you add a line item to an invoice, select the appropriate GL code from the dropdown. For automation, create rules in the Object Builder that assign codes based on conditions (e.g., "if freight type = LTL, assign GL code 4100").
  6. Export financial data for external analysis by clicking the Export button on the FLI board. The system generates a CSV file containing all line items with their GL codes, accounting tags, and details. Use this export to feed data into external accounting systems like Sage or Great Plains, or for custom financial analysis.
  7. Integrate with accounting systems using the API if you need real-time data sync rather than manual exports. Configure API connections in your integration settings, mapping TMS.ai financial objects to your accounting system's data structure.
  8. Customize field visibility by adjusting which columns appear on the FLI board. Add custom fields through the Object Builder if you need to track additional financial dimensions (cost center, region, equipment type, etc.). These fields export along with standard financial data.
  9. Set up role-based permissions to control which users can view, edit, or export financial line items. Navigate to user settings and configure access levels, ensuring sensitive financial data is restricted to appropriate team members.

What it means for you:

The Global Financial Line Items board transforms financial data from scattered across hundreds of documents into one organized, searchable database. Your accounting team stops opening individual invoices and bills to find specific transactions or calculate totals by GL code. They filter the FLI board and immediately see everything they need.

The automated GL coding eliminates the manual work and errors of assigning codes to every transaction. When you set up rules in the Object Builder, TMS.ai automatically applies the correct revenue or expense code based on the transaction characteristics. A fuel surcharge always hits the right GL code. An LTL accessorial always goes to the correct revenue account. Consistent coding means your financial reports accurately reflect where money comes from and where it goes. The CSV export capability gives you flexibility to work with any accounting system. If you use something other than QuickBooks, you export the financial data and import it into your system following their requirements. The clean, structured export format makes this process straightforward rather than requiring complex data manipulation. The result is faster month-end closes, more accurate financial reporting, better expense visibility, and an accounting team that spends time analyzing the business rather than chasing transactions and fixing coding errors.