Archiving Account Balances and Journal Detail
You can archive and purge account balances, as well as journal batches, entries, lines, and associated journal references for one or more accounting periods, provided the periods are permanently closed.
You can archive and purge actual, budget, or encumbrance balances. In addition, for translated actual and budget balances, you can purge them before you rerun your translation. Except for translated balances, you must archive balances or journals before you can purge them.
Note: If you have average balance processing enabled in your set of books, your average balances will be archived and/or purged automatically, at the same time that you archive and purge your standard balances.
To ensure better control over your archiving and purging process, we recommend that you perform your archive and purge in separate steps. If possible, run the archive utility when no users are on the system. This avoids degrading performance and response time during business hours.
General Ledger prevents you from archiving twice for the same period and set of books. However, if your archive process does not complete successfully, you can rerun the Archive program.
Attention: When you rerun the Archive program, you overwrite the data in the archive tables. Therefore if you have previously run the archive process, be sure to export your archived data to an operating system file and to save the file to tape.
Consult your Database Administrator and your System Administrator before running the archive utility.
Prerequisites
Permanently close all periods that you want to archive or purge. You do not have to permanently close periods to purge only translated balances.
Run all of your standard accounting reports to maintain a printed record of the transactions you will archive and purge.
Create the appropriate tablespace and set your storage parameters to hold your archived data.
Ensure that you have exported any previously archived data to an operating system file and saved the file to tape.
To archive account balances:
1. Make sure you are using the set of books for the data you want to archive. You can only archive and purge data for the current set of books.
2. Navigate to the Archive and Purge window.
3. Select Balances from the poplist.
General Ledger automatically displays (in the field, Period From) the earliest accounting period in your set of books that has not already been successfully archived and purged. You must archive and purge data for your oldest accounting period first.
4. Select the Archive Balances checkbox.
5. Select the Balance Type you want to archive. You can archive Actual, Budget, or Encumbrance balances. If you choose to archive budget balances, you must also enter a Budget name. You cannot enter All.
6. Enter the Period To which you want to archive. General Ledger will archive all periods in the range specified in the Period From and Period To fields.
7. Choose Archive/Purge. General Ledger submits a concurrent request to archive your balances. The Archive program copies account balances from the GL_BALANCES table to the GL_ARCHIVE_BALANCES table for the range of periods you requested.
8. Review the Archive and Purge Audit Report to verify that the data for all periods you requested was successfully archived. We also recommend that you keep a written confirmation of the number of records you archived. You can compare this number to the number of records purged when you run the purge utility.
9. Export the archive tables and copy the export files to tape.
To archive journals:
1. Make sure you are using the set of books for the data you want to archive. You can only archive and purge data for the current set of books.
2. Navigate to the Archive and Purge window.
3. Select Journals from the poplist.
General Ledger automatically displays (in the field, Periods From) the earliest accounting period in your set of books that has not already been successfully archived and purged. You must archive and purge data for your oldest period first.
4. Select the Archive Journals checkbox.
5. Select the Balance Type you want to archive. You can archive Actual, Budget, or Encumbrance journals. If you choose to archive budget journals, you must also enter a Budget name. You cannot enter All.
6. Enter the Period To which you want to archive. General Ledger will archive all periods in the range specified in the Period From and Period To fields.
7. Choose Archive/Purge. General Ledger submits a concurrent request to copy journal details from the GL_JE_BATCHES, GL_JE_HEADERS and GL_JE_LINES tables to the GL_ARCHIVE_BATCHES, GL_ARCHIVE_HEADERS and GL_ARCHIVE_LINES tables for the accounting periods you requested. If you imported journal references along with your actual journal entries, General Ledger also copies reference details from the GL_IMPORT_REFERENCES table to the GL_ARCHIVE_REFERENCES table.
8. Review the Archive and Purge Audit Report to verify that the data for all periods you requested was successfully archived. We also recommend that you keep a written confirmation of the number of records you archived. You can compare this number to the number of records purged when you run the purge utility.
9. Export the archive tables and copy the export files to tape.
See Also
Creating a Tablespace for Archived Data
Exporting Archived Data
Purging Archived Account Balances and Journal Detail
Opening and Closing Periods
Submitting a Request
Archive and Purge Audit Report
