1. Administering Financial Consolidation and Close
  2. Consolidating Data
  3. About Configurable Consolidation Rules

About Configurable Consolidation Rules

The purpose of the consolidation rules in populating the Elimination member is to create journal entries from the source data in order to re-classify, adjust and eliminate reported data. When these journal entries are applied to financial accounts (Balance Sheet and Income Statement), the journal posting results should generate balanced entries.

Consolidation rules provide for the creation of "rule-sets". Each rule-set can contain one or more rules. The rule-set represents a journal and each rule represents one journal posting entry (a single journal detail row).

For details on creating rule-sets and rules, see these topics:

Watch the following video for information on configurable consolidation rules:

Video iconManaging Configurable Consolidation Rules

Rule-Sets

Several parameters can be applied to the rule-set:

  1. Condition

    A condition under which the rule-set is executed

    The condition can be based on:

    • The consolidation method applicable to the entity dimension parent/child combination being processed

    • Some combination of dimension members or dimension member attributes - the dimensions applicable for a rule-set condition are the "page" dimensions: Scenario, Year, Period, Entity (S/Y/P/E) and the "sub-cube" dimensions: Account, Intercompany, Movement, Data Source, Multi-GAAP (if applicable), plus any user-created custom dimensions

    • A data value

    The condition defaults to "Always run".

  2. Factor

    A factor to which to apply to the source data values

    Source data is multiplied by the selected factor, the entity or partner Consolidation %, Ownership %, Minority Interest %, change from period-to-period of any of these percentages, the lower of Entity or Partner values of any of these percentages, the product (multiplication) of the Entity and Partner percentages, the prior period value of any of these percentages, a specific ratio/percentage, or the value from the last period of the prior year.

  3. Source Data-Set

    The source data-set that is to be processed by the consolidation rule-set defaults to the "page" dimension members of Current Scenario, Current Year, Current Period, level 0 members of the "FCCS_Entity Total" Consolidation dimension member and "Parent Currency". The source data-set can be modified to a different POV within certain limitations. In general, the source data-set cannot be a data-set that will be impacted by the posting of data-points by the current consolidation process. See Creating Consolidation Rule-sets for further details.

  4. Scope

    A source data POV to filter the data-set to which to apply the rule-set on a dimension by dimension basis. The default source POV includes all level 0 members of the sub-cube dimensions: Account, Intercompany, Movement, Data Source, Multi-GAAP (if applicable), plus any user-created custom dimensions.

    One or more selections of base (level 0) members can be made for sub-cube dimensions, including lists. The sub-cube dimension selections in the Source POV filters and limits the execution of the rule from the total data set to only those data-points that fall within the sub-cube filter definitions. So the Source POV could, for example, specify one single account to which to apply the rule-set. If a dimension is not added to the Source POV, then all base members of that dimension are included in the data-set.

    The page dimensions of Scenario, Year, Period and Entity can also be added to the Scope of the rule-set. Filtering on a page dimension will prevent the rule-set from running against any dimension members not included in the scope of the rule-set regardless of whether the member is in-scope for the consolidation process. Note that this method of excluding page dimension members from the scope of the consolidation is more efficient than using the condition field, but will not cater for selections that are conditional on more than one dimension.

  5. Partner Elimination

    If the Partner Elimination feature has been enabled for the application, and if one or more rules within the rule-set is to write a Partner Elimination entry, click on the Create Partner Elimination button. When selected, three dimensions will be added to the scope of the rule-set if not already added by the rules-writer.

The Factor entry and Scope are optional at the rule-set level, but if defined, then these settings will be inherited by each of the rules within the rule-set.

Rules

One or more rules can be created within the rule-set. The Condition, Factor and Scope created at the rule-set level will be inherited by each rule and cannot be modified.

If the rule-set has been defined as a Partner Elimination rule-set, then individual rules can then be set to write Partner Elimination data. Not all rules in a Partner Elimination rule-set must write partner eliminations.

In addition to parameters inherited from the rule-set, additional parameters can be defined for each rule:

  1. A factor to which to apply to the source data values (if not defined at the rule-set level)

  2. A Processing option of "Add" or "Subtract"

  3. One or more Target "Redirection" dimension members

    One or more target redirection members can be defined on a dimension-by-dimension basis (one redirection entry per dimension) for sub-cube dimensions. If no target redirection dimension members are defined, then the source data will be written to the target Elimination Consolidation dimension member using the source dimension members. If a redirection member is defined, then the source data will be written using the defined redirection member.

    Note that if the "#Source POV entity#" entry is selected for redirection of the Intercompany dimension, then the redirection will be applied to the Intercompany "ICP_<Source POV Entity>" member.

    Also note that if the Source POV Entity has not been designated as a valid intercompany member (and the "ICP_<Source POV Entity>" member does not exist), then the redirection will be ignored and the data will be written to the Source POV Intercompany member.

    If the rule is a Partner Elimination rule, the redirection for the Entity, Intercompany and Data Source dimensions will be pre-set and cannot be changed.

    Note: If you are using Partner Eliminations (PElim) logic in your Configurable Consolidation rules and are experiencing performance degradation as a result, you can use a substitution variable named EnablePelimNewLogic and set the value to True to improve performance..

    Note that if you are using PELIM where the entity and partner are the same member, your data values may change.

  4. Target "Redirection" conditions

    Multiple target redirection members can be specified using one or more conditions to determine when each redirection member is to be applied. A "condition block" can be created in the form of:

    If <condition1> Then

    <redirection member 1>

    ElseIf <condition2>

    <redirection member 2>

    Else

    Same as Source

    End

    If a condition is met during the execution of the rule, then the data is written using the redirection member of the source POV member as defined.

    The target redirection condition allows multiple redirection members to be defined for different conditions. The condition can be based on the dimension members of the source data point or a data value.

Example 1:

Source POV = Base members of Balance Sheet accounts

Account redirection 1 condition = Account is base member of the Net Income account

Account redirection 1 = Equity Company Income account

Account redirection 2 = Investment Elimination account

The above example would result in:

If the source account is a base member of the Net Income account then

Redirect to the Equity Company Income account

Else

Redirect to the Investment Elimination account

End If

Example 2:

Source POV = Base members of Balance Sheet accounts

Account redirection 1 condition = Account is base member of the Net Income account

Account redirection 1 = Equity Company Income account

Account redirection 2 condition = Account is base member of the Comprehensive Income account

Account redirection 2 = Investment Elimination account

The above example would result in:

If the source account is a base member of the Net Income account then

Redirect and write to the Equity Company Income account

Else if the source account is a base member of the Comprehensive Income account then

Redirect and write to the Investment Elimination account

Else

Write to the source dimension member

End If