How to implement accounting contexts?

AI generated answer (using internal Slack threads):

****** Disclaimer: This response was generated by an artificial intelligence assistant based on previous conversations from multiple Slack channels, and may contain inaccuracies or mistakes. ****** Accounting contexts in NetSuite are used to manage different chart of accounts (CoA) in different countries or subsidiaries. This feature allows you to have multiple charts of accounts in one NetSuite instance. However, it's important to note that this can create complications for consolidation, as you may want to eliminate some transactions between sister companies. Therefore, it's crucial to think carefully about your reporting requirements. To implement accounting contexts, you would need to set up different accounting contexts for each of your different CoAs. Each accounting context can be associated with a specific subsidiary or country, allowing you to manage different CoAs within the same NetSuite instance. However, it's important to note that accounting context changes how you do searches, so you need to understand the impact there before publishing in production. In terms of mapping multiple local GAAP GL accounts (assigned to the same Accounting Context) to a single global GL account, it's not possible with accounting context as it is a one-to-one relationship. However, with Multi-Book (MB) accounting, it is possible. In MB, you can have fully different CoA in a secondary book. You tie accounts to your primary book, but because you would always have Cash, AR, AP, etc. you can line up two CoAs. To associate multiple local accounts to a single global GL account, you can use Global Account Mapping. You need to have a source account and destination account for mapping, so yes, actual GL accounts. These accounts can be book specific, book + sub specific, or whatever combination you want. You can map ANY account type to ANY account type (with a few rare exceptions).