About master budget structures

A master budget structure is needed to allow for roll-up reporting outside of a single property. Most companies have similar chart of accounts (COA) in which an account number is used to record revenues, costs, and units for a specific reason. However, each individual property describes the COA differently. For example, in a Food & Beverage Department of a hotel chain, all full-service properties have at least one restaurant (and some have many). A company does not create a single COA entry for each restaurant at all of their properties—doing so would result in a massive and untenable COA. The company usually creates multiple cost centers. Because each property in the company's portfolio might have a differently named restaurant, budget administrators customize the company's COA to their needs. This process includes customizing the names for restaurants in their COA and budget tree.

Additionally, most companies start with a standardized account code and naming structure in their accounting system. However, some companies do not control the naming of the accounts once that template has been applied to a property. This means that the names on the accounts can (and most likely will) vary just like the budget lines.