Understanding InterUnit Journal Approvals

When you submit an InterUnit journal for AWE approval, the system treats the data for each business unit within the InterUnit journal as an independent transaction. Therefore, each combination of (anchor BU, journal ID, journal date, line business unit) has its own approval instance, and each instance triggers its own notifications. This works well for those who have assigned different approvers to handle different business units.

For customers who have dedicated approvers who manage multiple business units, the Automatically Approve Non-Anchor BU Journals option is available on the Installation Options – General Ledger page.

When the Automatically Approve Non-Anchor BU Journals is selected, the system only submits the combination of (anchor BU, journal ID, journal date, line BU = anchor BU) for approval. All other combinations of (anchor BU, journal ID, journal date, line BU <> anchor BU) is set to “Approved to Post” (per existing logic, the InterUnit journal can’t be posted until the anchor BU is approved). This way, only one approval instance is assigned to an InterUnit journal, which triggers one set of notifications.

When the Automatically Approve Non-Anchor BU Journals is not selected, the system only shows the line business unit journal lines on the Journal Approval page. When the Automatically Approve Non-Anchor BU Journals is selected, the system shows all the interunit journal lines on the Journal Approval page, however, the header info only shows the anchor BU.