Common Open Item Terminology

These terms are common to open item accounting in General Ledger:

Term	Definition
Open Item Account	A ChartField account, normally balance sheet accounts, used for open item accounting, such as Employee Advances.
Open Item Key	The identifying or search key for open items in an open item account. For an employee advances account, the Open Item Key field typically is the employee ID or social security number. This implies that any journal entry that posts to the employee advances account also carries an employee ID in the Open Item Key field. This search key is required by the system.
Open Item	Each transaction that affects an open item account remains an open item until the balance of all transactions with a given open item key equals zero. For example, the first open item in the employee advances account is the issuance of an advance. payment against the initial advance become open items until a final payment brings the balance for a given employee ID to zero. When that transaction is posted, all open items for the employee ID are closed.
Closed Item	Transactions for an open item key become closed items when the balance of the open item key transactions equals zero.
Tolerance Amount	Indicates that General Ledger should close transactions in which open items do not sum up to zero, provided the open item balance falls within this specified tolerance amount. This only applies to open items you reconcile manually (online). The system does not apply a tolerance amount for open items reconciled through background (batch) processing.