Consolidating Across Summary Ledgers
Processing consolidation on summary ledgers offers the following advantages:
The process time is reduced because the volume of summary ledgers usually is much smaller than detail ledgers.
This is especially true if you are using existing summary ledgers that you are already maintaining.
You can achieve the purpose of consolidating business units with dissimilar charts of accounts through summarizing detail ledgers using trees.
The following are the main differences when setting up or running the consolidation process using summary ledgers:
Whenever a ledger template needs to be specified, instead of using a detail ledger template (for example, STANDARD), use the summary ledger template of your choice (for example, S_ACTDIV).
This includes your elimination set, minority interest set, consolidation ledger set, and consolidation set.
Because detail ledgers are not involved, the system does create journals.
The consolidation calculation log holds the information about how summary ledgers are updated.
Summary ledgers used for consolidation must be up-to-date before you process the consolidation so that, for example, any last-minute journals are rolled up to the summary ledgers properly when posted to its detail ledgers.
Summary ledgers can be incrementally updated either through journal posting or by running a separate Summary Ledger process.
To set up consolidation on summary ledgers:
Specify the summary ledger template.
For all the summary ledgers that are used for consolidation, you must specify the consolidation log and consolidation equity temporary records for summary ledger templates on the Ledger Template − Record Definitions page. If you plan to use the Affiliate field to identify intercompany transaction balances in summary ledger, your summary ledger must retain the affiliate values.
Define elimination sets on the summary ledger.
To consolidate on the summary ledger, use the Elimination Sets page to define elimination sets based on a summary ledger. You must specify both a ledger template and the name of the summary ledger so that the system knows how to prompt for ChartField and ChartField values.
If the affiliate value is kept in the summary ledger table, and you want to use the Affiliate method of elimination, check the Match Affiliate Value option on the Elimination Lines page. If the Affiliate field is not one of the fields in the summary ledger template, you must specify the business unit value in the elimination set.
Define minority interest sets on the summary ledger.
Specify the appropriate ledger template and ledger for the summary ledger on the Minor Int Source (minority interest source) page.
On the Minor Int Target (minority interest target) page, ensure that the Subsidiary Equity and Parent Investment values are ChartField value sets based on the same summary ledger.
Define consolidation ledger set.
Use the Consolidation Ledger Set page to specify the summary ledger names to be used for each business unit for consolidation.
Define consolidation sets on the summary ledger.
Use the Journal Options page to specify the appropriate ledger template and ledger for the summary ledger. The ledger set used for consolidation processing should be based on the same summary ledger.
On the Set Options page, ensure that elimination sets are based on the same summary ledger.