Understanding General Accounting Constants

Constants provide a basic framework for how you want your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne General Accounting system to work. Generally, one person sets up the General Accounting constants. We recommend that you do not change constants after they have been set up because the results of the change will be unpredictable.

Constants are cached information. If you change settings for any of the constants, contact your system administrator to determine what additional steps you must perform in order for the changes to take effect. Information about the General Accounting constants is stored in the Company Constants (F0010) and General Constants (F0009) tables.

This table describes each General Accounting constant:

Constant	Description
Batch Control Required	When you create a batch of documents, such as journal entries, you might want to verify the total number of documents and total currency amount for the batch. Doing this enables you to verify the total amount expected against the total amount entered immediately after you enter a batch.
Manager Approval of Input	The Manager Approval of Input constant enables you to specify whether management approval of batches is required before batches can be posted.
Allow PBCO Postings (allow posted before cut off postings)	Circumstances might occur, especially during implementation, when you need to post batches to prior accounting periods. A constant controls whether the system allows you to do this. If the constant is not set to allow prior period posting, another approach is to change the current period for the company to a prior period and then post to that period. In either case, you need to close the prior period again and process updated period-end financial reports for that period and subsequent periods.
Allow Invalid Accounts	You control whether you allow journal entries to be entered with invalid account numbers. Invalid account numbers are account numbers that have not yet been set up in the system for a business unit that already exists in the Business Unit Master table (F0006). By entering an invalid account number, you can complete a batch without exiting and losing your entries. If you allow an invalid account number, the system either: Leaves the batch in an error status and unposted until you correct the invalid account number. Creates a new account dynamically if you have set up the system to do so.
Use End of Period Reversal Date	You control whether the system reverses a journal entry on the first or last day of the next fiscal period. Reversing journal entries are used most often for periodic accruals.
Intercompany Settlements	If your organization has transactions between companies, the companies will be out of balance unless you create and post intercompany balancing entries. You create intercompany settlements to ensure that each company's net balance equals zero (that is, debits equal credits). You can either create these settlements yourself or have the system create them automatically. You can select one of these intercompany settlement methods to use: Hub method Detail method Configured Hub method
Account Symbols	When you enter an account number during data entry, you can use any of these formats: Business unit.object.subsidiary Short ID (8-digit, system-assigned number) Third account number You specify the format that you are using by preceding the account number with a symbol that identifies the format. Normally, you do not specify an account symbol for the most commonly used format to allow for quicker data entry. You can also define the symbol that separates the different components of the business unit.object.subsidiary account format.