Accounting Setup Manager

The ledger is a basic concept in Release 12. The ledger replaces the 11i concept of a set of books. It represents an accounting representation for one or more legal entities or for a business need such as consolidation or management reporting. Companies can now clearly and efficiently model its legal entities and their accounting representations in Release 12. This seems to be a major area in getting success of the shared service center and single instance initiatives where many or all legal entities of an enterprise are accounted for in a single instance, and data, setup, and processing must be effectively secured but also possibly shared.

Now, legal Entities can be mapped to entire Ledgers or if you account for more than one legal entity within a ledger, you can map a legal entity to balancing segments within a ledger.

While a set of books is defined by 3 C’s,

1. chart of accounts2. functional currency3. accounting calendar,

The addition in this list the ledger is defined by a 4th C: the accounting method,

This 4th C allows you to assign and manage a specific accounting method for each ledger. Therefore, when a legal entity is subject to multiple reporting requirements, separate ledgers can be used to record the accounting information.

Accounting Setup Manager is a new feature that allows you to set up your common financial setup components from a central location.

What is Accounting Setup Manager

Accounting Setup Manager is a new feature that streamlines the setup and implementation of Oracle Financial Applications. The Accounting Setup Manager will facilitate the setup required for simultaneous accounting for multiple reporting requirements.

With the Accounting Setup Manager, you can perform and maintain the following common setup components from a central location:

Legal Entities Ledgers, primary and secondary Operating Units, which are assigned to primary ledgers Reporting Currencies, which is an enhanced feature Subledger Accounting Options. This is where you define the accounting methods

for each legal entity subledger transaction and associate them to the ledger where the accounting will be stored.

Intercompany Accounts and Balancing Rules Accounting and Reporting Sequencing

Both Intercompany and Sequencing

Will discuss some more granular details in some other post.

Subledger Accounting (SLA)

As discussed in couple of earlier post GL is integrated with SLA to enable a unified process to account for subledger transactions and post data to GL, and to provide a consistent view when drilling down from GL to subledger transactions. 

Enhanced Foreign Currency Processing by Reporting Made easy

GL has added new features and enhanced existing features to support foreign currency processing , they are mainly as:

In R12, MRC feature is enhanced with a feature call Reporting Currencies. That mean it will now support multiple currency representations of data from any source, including external systems, Oracle or non-Oracle subledgers, and Oracle General Ledger journals and balances.

The second one is in reporting to view balances view balances that were entered in your ledger currency separate from those balances that were entered and converted to the ledger currency.The change in R12 is that balances entered in the ledger currency are maintained separately from balances converted to the ledger currency for use in Reporting and Analysis.

Here’s an example. Assume we have a ledger and the ledger currency is USD.I enter and post two journals; one in 1,000 US Dollars, and another in 500 British Pounds that gets converted to 1200 US Dollars.

In Release 11i, I can review the 500 GBP and the 1200 USD that results from converting the 500 GBP, and the total 2200 USD which is the USD balance in the Cash Account. The $2200 is the sum of the $1000 entered in USD and the $1200 converted from the 500 British Pounds. However, I view that a 1000 USD were entered directly in USD.

In Release 12, I can view the 1000 USD by performing an account inquiry on the Cash account for balances entered only in the ledger currency. The amounts entered in foreign currencies that were converted to the ledger currency will not be included in the balance. Of course, if I want to

retrieve all balances in USD, both the entered as well and the converted, I can still do that in Release 12.

 

Creating foreign currency recurring journals

In Release 11i, you could define recurring journals using the functional currency or STAT currency.

Now in Release 12, you can create recurring journals using foreign currencies. This is particularly useful if you need to create foreign currency journals that are recurring in nature. For example, assume a subsidiary that uses a different currency from its parent borrows money from the parent. The subsidiary can now generate a recurring entry to record monthly interest payable to the parent company in the parent’s currency.

Data Access to Multiple Legal Entities and Ledgers

You no longer have to constantly switch responsibilities in order to access the data in a different ledger. You can access multiple ledgers from a single responsibility as long as all ledgers share the same chart of accounts and calendar.

Simultaneous Opening and Closing of Periods for Multiple Ledgers

You no longer have to open and close periods for each ledger separately. You can now open and close periods across multiple ledgers simultaneously by submitting Open and Close Periods programs from the Submit Request form.

Simultaneous Currency Translation of Multiple Ledgers

You can run the Translation program for multiple ledgers simultaneously, if you are managing multiple ledgers.

Financial Reporting for Multiple Ledgers

Now with this feature you can run Financial Statement Generator (FSG) reports for multiple ledgers simultaneously. This is useful if you manage multiple ledgers and want to run a balance sheet or income statement report for all of your ledgers at the same time.

Cross-Ledger and Foreign Currency Allocations

You are able to allocate financial data from one or more ledgers to a different target ledger. This enables you to perform cross-ledger allocations, which is useful for purposes such as allocating corporate or regional expenses to local subsidiaries when each entity has its own ledger

Streamlined Automatic Posting

You can now share AutoPost Criteria sets across multiple ledgers that share the same chart of accounts and calendar and use the AutoPost Criteria sets to post journals across multiple ledgers simultaneously.

Streamlined AutoReversal Criteria Setup Integrated Web-based

AutoReversal Criteria Sets can also be shared across ledgers to reverse journals across multiple ledgers. This is enhanced by integrated Web-based Spreadsheet Interface.

Journal Copy

Now we can now copy entire journal batches. You can copy journal batches with any status. The system will create a new journal batch containing the same journal entries.You may also change the batch name, period, and/or effective date while copying the journal batch. After copying the journal batch, you may modify the unposted journals in the same manner as any manually created journals.

Streamlined Consolidation Mappings

You are able to define Chart of Accounts Mappings (formerly known as Consolidation Mappings) between two charts of accounts. Therefore, if you have multiple Consolidation Definitions for parent and subsidiary ledgers that share the same chart of accounts pair, and their mapping rules are the same, you only have to define a single Chart of Accounts Mapping.

The enhancement in R12 allows you to define mappings between charts of accounts instead of between sets of books, so that they can be shared across multiple Consolidation Definitions.

Therefore, if you have multiple Consolidation Definitions for parent and subsidiary ledgers that share the same chart of accounts pair, and their mapping rules are the same, you only have to define a single Chart of Accounts Mapping.

You can also secure access to chart of accounts mappings using definition access set security. This allows you to secure which users can view, modify, and/or use chart of account mappings in consolidation definitions.

Replacement for Disabled Accounts

Normally when an account is disabled, you can prevent transactions that include the account from erroring during journal import by defining a replacement account for the disabled account. Journal import replaces the disabled account with the replacement account and continue the journal import process if the replacement account is valid. This improves processing efficiency by preventing the journal import process from erroring and enabling the successful creation of the journal with minimal user intervention when an account has been disabled.

Data Access Security for Legal Entities and Ledgers

In R12, since you can access multiple legal entities and ledgers when you log into Oracle General Ledger using a single responsibility, Oracle General Ledger provides you with flexible ways to secure your data by legal entity, ledger, or even balancing segment values or management segment values. You are able to control whether a user can only view data, or whether they can also enter and modify data for a legal entity, ledger, balancing segment value or management segment value.

Management Reporting and Security

This can be best understood as:You can designate any segment (except the natural account segment) of your chart of accounts to be your management segment and use Oracle GL security model to secure the management segment for reporting and entry of management adjustments.

Prevent Reversal of Journals with Frozen Sources

You can no longer reverse journals from frozen sources defined in the journal sources form.

If the journal is created from a frozen source, the journal cannot be modified even if the source is subsequently unfrozen in the future.This provides streamlined data reconciliation with subsystems. Not being able to reverse journals that originated in subledgers will ensure that the account balances will always tie out with General Ledger. If you need to reverse a subledger journal, then you should do so in Subledger Accounting or the subledger application.

Prevent Reversal of Unposted Journals

You also can no longer reverse unposted journals. This ensures data integrity and better auditability. In the past when we allowed you to reverse unposted journals, there was a risk that the original journal could be deleted so you could end up reversing something that didn’t exist. Now, all reversals can be tied back to the original posted journal.

Integrated Web-based Spreadsheet Interface

Through the integration with Web ADI, users can now leverage spreadsheet functionality in Oracle General Ledger via a web-based interface. The spreadsheet interface can be conveniently launched from a GL responsibility.

Using the Journal Wizard, we can leverage spreadsheet functionality to create actual, budget, or encumbrance journals. You can take advantage of spreadsheet data entry shortcuts such as copying and pasting or dragging and dropping ranges of cells, or even using formulas to calculate journal line amounts. You can then upload your journals to Oracle General Ledger. Before uploading, you can save and distribute your journal worksheets for approval.

We can also import data from text files into spreadsheets, where it can be further modified before uploading to Oracle. This functionality is useful when migrating data from legacy systems, or from any source that can produce delimited files.

Using the Budget Wizard, you can download budget amounts to a spreadsheet, modify the amounts, and then upload them back. You can also choose to download the actual amounts to compare it with the budget amount. Budget Wizard also allows you to plot graphs and do a graphical comparison on the amounts. Budget Wizard also provides budget notes. You can add descriptions to accounts and amounts in your budget and explain your budget within the budget worksheet, avoiding the clutter of external documentation.

Control Accounts

You are able to control data entry to an account by ensuring it only contains data from a specified journal source and to prevent users from entering data for the account either in other journal sources or manually within general ledger.

Security for Definitions

You can secure your setup and definitions by granting specific privileges to users to view, modify, and/or execute a definition. This enables you to control which of your users can view a definition, but not modify or execute it, or execute a definition without modifying it, or vice versa.

Following is a list of definitions that have this security available for:

1. MassAllocation and MassBudget Formulas2. FSG Reports and Components3. Accounting Calendars4. Transaction Calendars5. AutoPost Criteria Sets6. AuoReversal Criteria Sets7. Budget Organizations8. Chart of Accounts Mappings9. Consolidation Definitions10. Consolidation Sets11. Elimination Sets12. Ledger Sets13. Recurring Journals and Budget Formulas14. Rate Types

15. Revaluations

Sequence for Reporting

Maintaining two sequnces have been introduced, accounting and reporting sequencing.

Journal Line Reconciliation

Journal Line Reconciliation enables you to reconcile journal lines that should net to zero, such as suspense accounts, or payroll and tax payable accounts for countries, such as Norway, Germany, or France.

In R12, we’ve made many improvements to intercompany accounting. R11i’s Global Intercompany System (GIS) has been replaced with an exciting new product called Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS). We also extended intercompany balancing support to include encumbrance journals.

Enhanced Intercompany

For more deatils , read this

Some of the GL Standard Reports converted into XML Publisher

Oracle General Ledger's Account Analysis, General Journals and Trial Balance standard reports are now integrated with XML Publisher.

Since last fortnight,I was looking into R12 GIS Module, seems some of the old features and functionlity have been greatly enhanced with addition of some more new features introduced.The point which should be noted here is,R11i GIS get new name commonly known as "Advanced Global Intercompany System" in short 'AGIS'. The difference is the prefix 'A', therfore will take a close microscopic view on feature that makes 11i GIS into Advanced GIS of R12. Here are the candidate features :

Ability to create invoices (AR and AP)Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System can create invoices in payables and receivables sub ledger from intercompany transactions.

Using Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System user can enter transactions for multiple recipients within a single batch. This allows user to submit intercompany transactions from one initiator to one or more recipients in a single batch.

Proration of transaction distribution amounts

When user allocates more than one distribution account in a batch that has multiple recipient transactions, Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System can automatically prorate the distribution amounts based on the recipient transaction amounts. The proration of amounts is also used by Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System to adjust the distribution amounts in the batch when a recipient transaction is deleted or it is rejected.

Upload Transaction Batches created in Excel

This was a missing link in the earlier version, as earlier product does not have capability to use direct upload functionality, rather than interfacing through Open GIS interface. In Release 12 ADI is heavily used in this module, which is replacement of external integration for AGIS System using by mean of Microsoft based Excel spreadsheet. Now flexibility is provided to user that can generate spreadsheet templates that have features of intercompany entry pages and using the templates the user can enter transactions in the spreadsheet and upload them into Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System. The good thing has found the standard templates can be customized by removing or adding the entry fields from a list of available fields. This feature is used to create a template that contains only the entry fields that are important for the business. The required fields cannot be removed from the template. Once the templates are generated, user can save them in their local computer to reuse them in the future. This figure describe the options available in both the versions.

Multiple recipients Support

Reversal of batch/transaction

This changed feature enables a user to reverse a whole batch or an individual transaction in a batch. When the user reverses a batch or a transaction, a new reversal batch is created, which displays the references to the original transaction. One point to be noticed is that new batch is submitted automatically immediately after it is created. Not both the parties (Sender /receiver), its only users with access to the initiator organization can reverse its batches or transactions. The

set up is there where a user can choose a reversal method determining if the new batch will be created with opposite signs, or with switched debits and credits.

Descriptive flexfield support

In AGIS descriptive flexfields is supported on the batch and also on individual transactions within the batch. Descriptive flexfields allow user to enter any additional information specific to the nature of business, in the batch and in the transactions. Important to note that these DFF can be used by sender. The user can enter descriptive flexfield information for the recipient in the Recipient Accounting section.

Flexible Approval Rules and Workflow Notifications

In R12, AGIS very similar to other module, home page displays notifications about approval or rejection statuses of intercompany transactions. You should note that notifications can be sent to the users via email. The rules for approvals and notifications can be customized using Oracle Approval Management Engine (AME), which allows the user to add extra approval rules and hierarchies to suit their business needs.

Document attachment

The user can attach the documents for the batch as well as for each of the transaction. When user submits the batch, the documents are transferred to respective recipients.

Transaction security

Intercompany transactions entry pages incorporate various security features. The user can enter transactions only for those intercompany organizations that are assigned to the user. Other security features include minimum transaction amount, control amount and function security.

For example:

Intercompany accountant processes intercompany transactions for many intercompany organizations in the enterprise.What is different between these two is :

R11i - Each responsibility has only one subsidiary assigned, therefore a user can initiate intercompany transactions for one subsidiary from each responsibility

R12 – the user can initiate intercompany transactions for many trading partners without changing responsibility

Intercompany Periods

The new Intercompany calendar gives the user the option to control intercompany transaction processing by periods status.

What is observed in this functionality can be best describe as:

If a user wants to control intercompany cut-off dates, then the user can choose which General Ledger calendar will be used to control transaction entry by intercompany period status. Intercompany Calendar prevents users from entering transactions in closed periods and from closing the period if open transactions exist for the period user wants to close. When the user tries to close General Ledger accounting period, or Oracle Payables period or Oracle Receivables period while Intercompany Period is still open, the warning message can be displayed informing user about the status of intercompany period.

Setup Profile Options

In AGIS there is no profile options that means these three as below intercompany profile options used in R11i are obsolete in this release.

Intercompany: Protect Receiver Natural Account

ntercompany: Subsidiary

Intercompany: Use Automatic Transaction

Intercompany Reconciliation and Reporting

There are two new reports avaible in XML Publisher format

Intercompany Transaction Summary report

Intercompany Account Details report.

These reports replace reports that were available in the Global Intercompany System (GIS) in Release 11i.

The new reports offer all of the functionality of the obsolete reports plus additional benefits.

A bit on these 2 reports:

1)Intercompany Transaction Summary report replaces the Intercompany Transaction Detail report and Unapproved Transaction Listing report.

The purpsoe of this report is to give user a clear overview of intercompany transactions and their statuses, there so that day-to-day tasks and speeds up period close activities.

This report also provides supporting documentation for intercompany reconciliation and helps keep intercompany in balance by uncovering any potential discrepancies.

2) Intercompany Account Details report replaces the Transaction Activity Summary report

This new report provides a detailed listing of all accounting lines for intercompany batches, grouped by transaction.

The report is divided into two sections:

one section for outbound batches

one section inbound transactions.

The outbound section shows transactions initiated by the organizations to which the user has an access, the inbound section shows transactions received by these organizations. The user can choose whether to include inbound, outbound, or both sections in the report.

The user can run the report for one or many organizations to which the user is given the access.

User can select what parameters like initiator, Recipient, GL Date range, Batch Number range, Transaction Status, Currency, Batch Type, Invoice Number, and many more to run the report by. User can run the report by ranges of initiator and recipient accounts to see what transactions make up their balances.

Overview of Oracle General Ledger Module 

This article will explore the overview of Oracle General Ledger system, general ledger functionalities and general ledger features. How Oracle GL integrates to other modules.

The General Ledger (GL) module is the heart of the accounting system.   Detailed to summary level activity of accounts and sub-accounts are maintained here.  The ledger provides access to data through a tool called Financial Statement Generator (FSG).  Oracle’s General Ledger allows you to:

Maintain separate company’s financial information regardless of currency or chart of accounts

Administer security rules to allow only those authorized to retrieve needed accounting information

Produce consolidated financial reporting Separate cost allocations to many different ledger accounts using a single formula Use multiple currency rates for different ‘companies’ within the organization Consolidate different sets of books into a single ‘Parent’ set of books

Summary Accounts

Reference summary accounts when allocating funds Organize detail accounting information into optimum number of accounts Are updated by any transaction to the detail account

Multi-Company Accounting

Maintain multiple companies with like or different accounting methods Auto balance inter-company transactions Allows multiple sets of books using different calendars and currencies Add additional companies at any time without difficult restructuring

Set of Books consolidation

Create a single parent set of books Define rules to link subsidiary accounts to the parent set of books

Consolidate balances or individual journal entries Combine budget balances between sets or within a set of books

Financial Statement Generator

Secured reporting environment controlled by business functional people Flexible method to cover the broadest accounting methods Reports on account balances by period and not individual journal entries

Introduction to Oracle Payables

Payables Workbenches

Oracle Payables includes two fully integrated workbenches, the Invoice Workbench and the Payment Workbench. You can perform most of your transactions in Payables using the Invoice Workbench or the Payment Workbench. You enter, adjust, and review invoices and invoice batches in the Invoice Workbench. You create, adjust, and review payments and payment batches in the Payments Workbench.

Payables workbenches let you find critical information in a flexible way. For example, in the Invoice Workbench, you can find an invoice based on supplier, purchase order number, status, or other criteria. Then, for that invoice, you can review distributions, scheduled payments, payments, holds, and other detailed invoice information. You can also perform matching, submit invoice validation, apply and release holds, or initiate payment. You can query an invoice then perform several transactions without having to find the invoice again. You can also keep multiple windows open at one time.

The Invoice Workbench

The Invoice Workbench is a group of windows that you use to enter, adjust, and review your invoices and invoice batches. The following is the window hierarchy in the Invoice Workbench:

Invoice Batches o Find Invoice Batches

Invoices o Find Invoices

Calculate Balance Owedo Distributions

Find Invoice Distributionso Invoice Actions

Apply/Unapply Prepayments Invoice Overview

The following diagram shows how you can navigate between the windows in the Invoice Workbench. You navigate into the Invoices window or Invoice Batches window through the Navigator, and navigate to most regions by choosing tabs. You can access the Find windows from the View menu, and the Apply/Unapply Prepayment window by selecting the appropriate check box in the Invoice Actions window. You access the matching windows from the Invoices window by selecting Invoice, Purchase Order, or Receipt from the match poplist and then choosing the Match button.

The Payment Workbench

The Payment Workbench is a group of windows that you use to create, adjust, and review payments and payment batches. The following is the window hierarchy in the Payment Workbench:

Payment Batches o Find Payment Batcheso Copy Too Payment Batch Actions

Modify Payment Batch Confirm Payment Batch

Payments o Find Paymentso Select Invoiceso Payment Actions

Payment Overview

The following diagram shows how you can navigate between windows in the Payment Workbench. You navigate into the Payments, Payment Batches, and Payment Overview windows through the Navigator, and navigate to most of the other windows by choosing buttons. You can access the Find windows from the View menu, and the Modify Payment Batch and Confirm Payment Batch windows by selecting the appropriate check box in the Payment Batch Actions window.