Understanding Accounting Calendars Based on Open and Close Periods

You can establish an accounting period configuration based on the beginning and ending period dates that you normally use, and combine these periods to create calendars. These accounting calendars define the time periods to which you post transactions for different transaction types, ledger groups, ledger codes, and business units. Set up calendars along with ledger codes, ledger groups, and business units according to your accounting environment.

PeopleSoft General Ledger supports multiple calendars, so you can keep separate calendars for actuals, for budget and forecast activity, and for special reporting or transitional needs. Only one calendar can be active for a ledger at a given time.

The PeopleSoft system uses the following calendar definition options:

Term

Definition

Calendar Builder

Use to create a base calendar that is the starting point for creating other calendars such as the detail calendar.

Detail Calendar

Define detail calendars to include the number and duration of accounting periods in your fiscal year and the beginning and ending dates for each period. This option also identifies the adjustment periods for the calendar. Posting is directly tied to the ledger group's calendar. Transactions are posted to the open period that corresponds to the journal date and to the adjustment period that you specify on the journal header. You can have any number of periods or years open at any time. If you use Asset Management, you can set up your depreciation allocations based on the detail calendars that you define.

Summary Calendar

(Optional) Use summary calendars to group detail calendar periods for inquiries and reporting, such as quarterly reports and semiannual reviews. While you must use detail calendars to control the posting of journals to a detail ledger, you use summary calendars with a summary ledger to further collapse your data across detail calendar periods. The accounting period on your summary ledger data corresponds to the summary calendar periods that you define. While you can associate a detail calendar with your summary ledger, you cannot use a summary calendar with your detail ledger.

Business Calendar

(Optional) Use to create the business (or working) calendar that identifies holidays and nonworking days. Once you define one or more of these calendars, link it to the business unit in the Holiday List ID field on the General Ledger Definition - Definition page. The only ledgers that recognize the business calendar are those with a default ledger type of Standard ledger template set up on the Ledger Template - Record Definitions page.

When you enter journals on the journal entry pages or run the Journal Generator process (FS_JGEN), the system edits the journal date to ensure that it falls on a working day. The Journal Edit process (GL_JEDIT) checks the journal date to verify that it falls on a working day in that business calendar. If the process finds that the journal date is not a working day, it marks the journal as an error. Because you cannot change the journal date, copy the journal to another date using the Copy Journal function, and delete the original journal (the one marked as in error).

For reversals, the Journal Edit process, not the Journal Post process (GL_JP), populates the reversal date. If you selected either End of Next Period or Beginning of Next Period for the reversal date on the journal header, the Journal Edit process changes the date if the date is not a working date. If you selected Beginning of Next Period, it uses the first valid working day in the next period. If you selected End of Next Period, it uses the last valid working day in the next period.

You can enter a specific journal date for reversals only when you enter journals using the Journal Entry pages. If you specify a date, the system edits the date at that time and requires you to enter a valid working date.

Used to manually define fiscal and nonfiscal detail budget period calendars for use with Commitment Control budgets.

Budget Period Calendar

Use to manually define fiscal and nonfiscal detail budget period calendars for use with Commitment Control budgets.

Budget Period Calendar Builder

Use to automatically define budget period calendars for use with Commitment Control budgets.

Summary BP Calendar (summary budget period calendar)

Use to create a summary budget period calendar, based on a predefined detail budget period calendar, for use with Commitment Control budgets.

Scheduling Options

Use to define scheduling options for various activities.

You can have as many adjustment periods (up to 3 digits) as necessary to capture adjustments according to your business practices. Define these adjustment periods on your detail calendars. For example, you can set up adjustment periods to capture adjustments for different parts of the year: one to capture adjustments for the first half of the year, one for the second half of the year, and one for the full year. You can set up adjustment periods to capture different types of adjustments: one for supervisor-related adjustments to that supervisor's department journals, one for adjustments based on internal audits, one for adjustments based on external audits, and one for adjustments related to a tax authority.

General Ledger maintains the following special periods that are not stored in normal calendar periods, so that they do not distort the period-to-period or year-to-year results. You can include them when you run reports, inquiries, or other processes such as summary ledgers.

Term

Definition

Period 0

Use to store the balance forward amounts or the balance at the beginning of each year. For balance sheet accounts, this represents the opening balance. Although normally zero for profit and loss accounts, this period can contain inception-to-date totals for the ChartFields that you specify on the P/L Roll Forward Options page in your closing rule. General Ledger updates this period only during the closing process.

Period 998

Use to store adjustment entries. You can create other adjustment periods to use instead of, or in addition to, the default adjustment period. Indicate an adjusting entry when you enter journals by selecting the Adjustment Entry check box on the Journal Entry - Header page.

Period 999

Use to store the results of year-end closing. The year-end closing entry to book the current year net income to retained earnings is posted here. General Ledger updates this period during the closing process only.

Note: Set up adjustment periods sequentially—for example, 901 through 912, corresponding to accounting periods 1 to 12.

General Ledger stores in its ledgers the activity for each accounting period defined in the calendar for the business unit and ledger group. Determine the beginning and end date of each period according to the calendar associated with each business unit and ledger group. Additionally, identify which periods are open (periods in which transactions can be posted) for each business unit, transaction type, ledger group, and ledger code.

Many PeopleSoft applications identify their open periods from the associated General Ledger business unit's calendar and open periods. When General Ledger closes periods for a business unit, all applications associated with that business unit are closed at the same time and transactions cannot be entered into the closed period. This is to ensure that no entries are recorded after financial statements are created.

You can also book accounting transactions according to different and often conflicting accounting principles for one business unit in one ledger and maintain these entries in compliance with the various rules promulgated by governments and regulatory organizations. To use multiple generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the PeopleSoft system uses book codes and ledger codes to create subsets of a ledger that enable you to simultaneously enter transactions into the subsets while maintaining their balances according to the accounting principles applicable to each subset. These book codes and ledger codes facilitate making prior period adjustments.

Transaction types as defined by the PeopleSoft system enable you to control which transactions are open and closed for further processing within a business cycle for both General Ledger journal entries and individual application transactions.

The following PeopleSoft applications can require open period date ranges independently of General Ledger and each other. For the applications that can have separate open period ranges, the open periods are defined for each business unit. Date ranges for open periods in an application can be the same as the open period date ranges for the associated general ledger business unit or they can be different. You can change these dates for applications by entering lag days or by changing the beginning and ending dates for the open period:

  • Asset Management

  • Billing

  • Expenses

  • Payables

  • Accounts Receivable

  • Project Costing

  • Inventory

Lag days can be at the beginning of the period, at the end of the period, or both. When you enter beginning lag days, the system calculates the first open date based on the from open period and year plus the lag days. For example, suppose that the from open period and year is second period 2003, and the first date of that period (as defined for the associated general ledger business unit) is April 1, 2003. If you enter -3 lag days for Accounts Payable (AP), the system calculates the first date of the open period for accounts payable as March 29, 2003. The system calculates end lag days in a similar manner.

Begin lag days enables you to enter transactions in an accounting period before the General Ledger start date of that accounting period. End lag days closes the accounting period before the General Ledger close date for the accounting period. Application transactions that you enter after the application-calculated close date are applied to the next period, even though the period is still open in General Ledger.

Lag days can be zero or a negative number only. This prevents you from inadvertently defining an application's open period end date (that is, the period closing date) as later than the period closing date as assigned for the associated General Ledger business unit.

Some customers have many legal entities that require their own set of books. The resulting number of ledgers and business units require the ability to perform mass updates rather than individually updating each business unit and ledger group's open periods. Mass updates enable you to change the open periods for a number of business units and ledger groups at the same time. Additionally, you can migrate mass changes that you make for General Ledger to other applications.

Individual and Mass Updating of Open Periods

Once you identify open periods, you can update them using any of the following methods:

  • Individual updates by business unit (for applications) or by business unit and ledger group (for General Ledger) using the Open Period Update page or the Open Periods Mass Update page.

  • Mass updates across business units (for applications) or across business units and ledger groups (for General Ledger) using the Open Periods Mass Update page.

  • Mass updates to applications' open periods using the migrate feature on the Open Periods Mass Update page.

    This feature migrates open period changes from General Ledger to other applications.

Post journal entries to the open periods defined on the Open Periods Mass Update page or the Open Period page only.

An advantage of using lag days to define date ranges for an application's open period is evident when you perform mass updates. You enter period beginning and end dates, which are applied to each of the business unit and transactions types within the application. If you have lag days defined for each of the business units, the lag days remain the same, and the application date range is calculated relative to the date range for the associated general ledger business unit. For example, suppose that the first date of the open period is April 1, 20X3 with –3 lag days making the application's period start date March 29, 20X3. When you change the period start date to April 5, 20X3, the –3 lag days still apply, and the period start date for the application becomes April 2, 20X3. With lag days, you can make one change that affects many business units but still results in different period start and end dates for each business unit.

Unit

General Ledger Period Start

Lag Days

Calculated Application Period Start

Changed GL Period Start (Mass Update)

Lag Days (Same)

New Application Period Start (After Mass Update)

US004

April 1, 20X3

–3

March 29, 20X3

May 1, 20X3

–3

April 28, 20X3

US005

April 1, 20X3

0

April 1, 20X3

May 1, 20X3

0

May 1, 20X3

US006

April 1, 20X3

–2

March 30, 20X2

May 1, 20X3

–2

April 29, 20X3

Note: This assumes that there is no business calendar associated with the business unit.

Another way to define period start and end dates for an application business unit differently from the associated general ledger business unit is to enter different period start dates and period end dates. The result is the same, but you lose the advantage of mass updates.

Note: If you must make adjustments to a closed period, reopen the closed period, and if the ledgers or journals for that period have been archived, restore the archived ledgers or journals before you make adjustments.