The quick answer
NetSuite balances each entry within its company or subsidiary. To balance by fund, program or business unit as well, make a GL-impacting custom segment a balancing segment under Setup → Accounting → Accounting Preferences → Balancing Segments, set the intersegment Due To and Due From accounts, then run Transactions → Financial → Balance Transactions by Segments for the period. The run generates one or more balancing journals with Due From and Due To lines for the affected segment values, and once it finishes, each included transaction shows Balancing by Segments Details under GL Impact and a Balanced by Segments status.
A bill can balance perfectly, debits equal to credits, and still leave one fund holding a payable that belongs to two others. Balancing segments fix that with generated intersegment lines in clearing accounts you choose, so nobody has to reclass it by hand each month. The screenshots use sample data and a fictional operating company.
Before you start
Enable Custom Segments, then Balancing Segments, under Setup → Company → Enable Features. Create or pick a List/Record custom segment with GL Impact turned on and give it its values. Here it's Fund, with General Operating, Youth Program and Housing Program. Once a segment is a balancing segment, its GL Impact setting can't be cleared.
Permissions come in a few pieces: Balance Transactions by Segments to reach the process, Create or higher on Balancing Journal to run it (Full if a re-run has to delete an earlier journal), Edit record access on every active balancing segment, and Accounting Preferences to configure the subtab. NetSuite allows at most two active balancing segments, and Department, Class and Location can't be used directly; it has to be a custom segment.
The Due To and Due From accounts have to exist before you configure them, and NetSuite restricts their types (payables, receivables, bank, other asset and liability types).
01 · Set the balancing preferences
Go to Setup → Accounting → Accounting Preferences and open the Balancing Segments subtab. Under Segments, add Fund as a balancing segment. Under Default Accounts, set the Default Intersegment Due To Account and Default Intersegment Due From Account; these are the clearing accounts the run posts to, and transaction-specific mappings on the Accounts subtab can override them. Two options you don't need for this example: Enable Intersegment Elimination, which then requires an elimination value for the segment, and Payments Use Transaction Line Segmentation, which makes the Default Intersegment Cash Account required and segments payments by the lines they pay.
02 · Enter a bill that balances overall but not by fund
Enter a vendor bill for 1,000.00 with the header Fund set to General Operating; on this form the header value classifies the Accounts Payable line. Add two expense lines: 400.00 with Youth Program in the Fund column, and 600.00 with Housing Program. Save.
Open GL Impact. The bill balances: 1,000.00 credit to Accounts Payable, 400.00 and 600.00 debits to the expense account. Read the Fund column and it doesn't: General Operating carries 1,000.00 of credit and nothing else, Youth Program 400.00 of debit, Housing Program 600.00 of debit.
03 · Run Balance Transactions by Segments
Go to Transactions → Financial → Balance Transactions by Segments. Pick the posting period. In OneWorld, pick the subsidiaries and decide whether Include Children applies; in Multi-Book, pick the accounting books. Add a memo if you want the run identifiable later, and click Run.
The Balancing by Segments Process page opens. Refresh until Status reads Completed Successfully and Percent Complete reads 100%. The process record and its linked journal are how you find the result later; a large run can produce more than one journal, since each holds at most 1,000 lines.
04 · Read the balancing journal
Open the balancing journal from the process. Confirm its posting period, subsidiary and, where relevant, accounting book. Then read the lines: a 1,000.00 debit to Intersegment Due From tagged General Operating, and Due To credits of 400.00 tagged Youth Program and 600.00 tagged Housing Program. Each line's type is Balancing by Segments.
Within the period and subsidiary you ran, add those to the bill's own lines and each fund balances. General Operating: 1,000.00 credit against 1,000.00 debit. Youth Program: 400.00 debit against 400.00 credit. Housing Program: 600.00 against 600.00.
05 · Verify from the bill
Reopen the vendor bill. Its status now reads Balanced by Segments. On GL Impact, Balancing by Segments Details lists the intersegment lines the run attached to this transaction and links to the journal that carries them.
Run the process as part of your close, or more often if reporting by fund needs to be current between closes. Re-running it for an overlapping period and scope updates the existing balancing journal only when Update the balancing journal on process re-run is on; otherwise NetSuite may delete and recreate it, which needs Full access to Balancing Journal.
Common questions
Do I need the Social Impact or Nonprofit edition to balance by fund?
No. Balancing by segments needs the Custom Segments and Balancing Segments features, a GL-impacting custom segment such as Fund, and the permissions above. It isn't tied to an edition.
Can Department, Class or Location be balancing segments?
Not directly. A balancing segment has to be a GL-impacting custom segment. If you need to balance on one of those dimensions, create a custom segment that represents it. NetSuite allows two active balancing segments at a time.
What are the Intersegment Due To and Due From accounts for?
They're the clearing accounts the balancing journal posts to. In the example, NetSuite debits Intersegment Due From for 1,000.00 in General Operating and credits Intersegment Due To for 400.00 in Youth Program and 600.00 in Housing Program, which brings each fund into balance.
Why is my bill balanced overall but still unbalanced by segment?
Total debits and credits can agree while the Fund values don't. A 1,000.00 payable in General Operating doesn't offset expense debits in Youth Program and Housing Program until the process adds the intersegment lines.
Does a blank Fund value make a transaction unbalanced?
Not by itself, but a blank is treated as its own value, separate from every named fund. Mixing blank and populated values on one transaction can leave segment-level differences, so tag every line.
What happens if I run the process twice for the same period?
For an overlapping period and scope, NetSuite either updates the existing balancing journals or removes and recreates them, depending on the re-run preference, and then posts the current balancing entries. It doesn't stack a second set on top.
How do I confirm a transaction was balanced by segments?
Open it and check GL Impact for Balancing by Segments Details. After the process finishes, the transaction shows Balanced by Segments, and a transaction search can filter on that field.