Understanding General Ledger Journal Entries

You may want to set up security for your profiles and users for General Ledger:

• PeopleTools Security

  Anyone who uses or accesses the general ledger must have a user ID. User IDs are defined in PeopleTools, Security, User Profiles. Several pages require a user ID and validate against the user profile before admitting a user to the page.

• ChartField Security

  Consider securing data access based on a user's role in the organization. ChartField Security is designed to work in conjunction with other security features, such as business unit and ledger security. ChartField security allows you to choose the ChartFields by which you want to configure access and rules that are specific to one or more products. It may further be used to configure access based on job function and activity. Restrict access to unauthorized ChartField values during journal entry or inquiry based on user, role or permission list.

  See Understanding ChartField Security.

• Journal Source Security

  Journal source security restricts online creation, copy, deletion and posting of journals based on permission added to User / Role for the specific journal source. In addition, users cannot post journals with sources beyond the date specified in the Period End Cutoff Definition Page, unless the User / Role has override exception.

  See Enabling Journal Source Security for more information.

• User Preferences

  Many applications have application-specific preferences. In PeopleSoft General Ledger, these preferences are defined on the User Preferences - General Ledger page. Many of the preferences that are specified on this page apply to entering, editing, and processing journals. While you can restrict users to specific business units, tablesets, ledgers, and so forth, the user preferences pages define only default settings for pages and reports. They do not necessarily define security.

• Enable Document Sequencing for each business unit if you use document sequence numbers to number your journals sequentially and open item journals.

At a minimum, a journal in PeopleSoft General Ledger consists of a header and journal entry lines. The header contains the information that uniquely identifies the journal (business unit, journal ID, and journal date) and options that enable you to quickly set up adjusting and reversing entries and foreign currencies. Journal entry lines record the monetary and statistical amounts and the ChartField values associated with each transaction.

Once you enter the header and line information, your journals are ready for processing. However, if you want a greater degree of control over the journal entry process, you can incorporate:

• Control totals that ensure accuracy and are particularly helpful when you enter a large number of lines.

• Journal approval, based on rules that you define, to ensure that only those journals within the limits that you specify are approved for further processing.

• Document sequencing to track journal IDs sequentially.

In General Ledger, standard journal entries (SJEs) enable you to automate the entry of similar or identical journals. There are three types of SJEs: recurring, template, and spread. A recurring journal entry is any entry that is periodically generated according to a schedule, such as monthly rent, lease payments, and depreciation expenses. A template journal entry is a data-entry model for other journals that you can automatically reproduce on a fixed schedule—like recurring SJEs—or use on request. A spread journal entry is an entry in which the entire journal's amount is spread proportionately across the different periods.

When you create a new journal, the system prompts you with three keys that uniquely identify that journal: business unit, journal ID, and journal date. You can enter your own ID or let the system assign one. You can reuse the same journal ID throughout the year, or even within the same accounting period, changing only the date for each instance.

After you create a journal, you can search by document sequence number on these pages:

• Create Journal Entries - Find an Existing Value search criteria.

• Review Journal Status - Find an Existing Value search criteria.

• Open Item Maintenance.

• Review Open Item Status.

• Review Financial Information - Journals - Journal Inquiry Criteria.

The document sequence number for a journal also appears on:

• The Journal Entry Detail Report (FIN2001).

• The General Ledger Activity Report (GLS7002).

This table demonstrates an example where your subsidiaries and parent organizations can record monthly payroll transactions using the journal ID PAYROLL, because each journal is uniquely identified by business unit, journal ID, and date.

Using these three keys to identify a journal makes finding, tracking, and organizing journals much easier. It also makes it possible to copy related journals and group them by ID. You can use the same journal IDs and dates across business units.

The journal ID mask enables you to specify a prefix for naming journals when you are using NEXT to generate journal IDs. A 10-character alphanumeric ID identifies journals. The system automatically appends the prefix that you specify to the journal IDs. For example, if you specify ALLOC as the journal ID mask, and your journal ID on the flat file is NEXT, your allocation journal IDs might be ALLOC00001, ALLOC00002, and so on.

General Ledger offers several ways to process journals. After completing the header and line entries, save the journal from any of the journal entry pages or do one of the following on the Journal Entry - Lines page:

• Request to edit.

• Request to budget check.

• Request to budget pre check.

• Request to post.

Most users enter and save journals, leaving editing, budget checking, and posting for later.