About Collecting General Ledger Data

1 About Collecting General Ledger Data

Learn basic concepts about collecting general ledger (G/L) data in your Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) system.

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About Collecting G/L Data

The general ledger is a list of accounts in which your company records financial transactions for accounting purposes. It shows how much revenue is recorded for each type of charge, such as how much revenue is generated by purchase fees or usage fees. Each type of transaction is recorded in a separate general ledger (G/L) account.

In BRM, you group related G/L accounts that you want to report a financial transaction against in a G/L ID. Each G/L ID is associated with a debit account and a credit account. For example, the revenue earned for telephony services could be in a G/L ID that is associated with:

Debit account: Telephony liability
Credit account: Telephony revenue

The general process for collecting G/L data is:

You set up a general ledger in BRM that matches the corporate general ledger in your external financial system. In BRM, this involves defining your general ledger accounts and then adding them to G/L IDs.

When you create your general ledger in BRM, you set up your G/L accounts and G/L IDs for the revenue recognition scheme that your company supports: deliverable-based revenue recognition or event-based revenue recognition. See " About Deliverable-Based Revenue Recognition" and "About Event-Based Revenue Recognition".
You associate G/L IDs with everything that has a balance impact, such as charges, discounts, accounts receivable actions, as so on.
When an event with a balance impact occurs, BRM stores the revenue data along with its associated G/L ID information in a /journal object in the BRM database.
You generate a G/L report at the end of your company's reporting period.
BRM does the following to generate the G/L report:
- Retrieves the revenue data from the /journal objects and uses the G/L IDs to compile the total amounts for each type of revenue.
- Saves the report to a /ledger_report object in the BRM database.
- Exports the report to an XML output file in your specified directory.
You retrieve the report XML output file and then post it to the corporate general ledger on your external financial system.

Figure 1-1 shows how multiple purchase events and monthly fee events are compiled into a G/L report.

Figure 1-1 G/L IDs in Events and In a G/L Report

Description of "Figure 1-1 G/L IDs in Events and In a G/L Report"

About G/L IDs

BRM contains four types of G/L IDs: revenue, accounts receivable (AR), standard, and contract. The ones you use depend on the revenue recognition scheme your company is using and the type of financial transaction you are tracking.

About Revenue G/L IDs

You use revenue G/L IDs in deliverable-based revenue recognition (see "About Deliverable-Based Revenue Recognition"). Revenue G/L IDs record financial transactions from charges that are associated with deliverables and that occur when a customer cancels their contract early.

Revenue G/L IDs report earned net revenue.

About Accounts Receivable G/L IDs

You use accounts receivable (A/R) G/L IDs in deliverable-based revenue recognition (see "About Deliverable-Based Revenue Recognition"). A/R G/L IDs record financial transactions from:

Recurring, one-time, and charge selector charges
Recurring, one-time, and simple discounts
Taxes
Early termination fees, which can occur when customers cancel their contracts before the commitment period ends

A/R G/L IDs report billed net, billed tax, unbilled net, and unbilled tax revenue.

About Standard G/L IDs

You can use standard G/L IDs in both event-based revenue recognition and deliverable-based revenue recognition. See "About Event-Based Revenue Recognition" and "About Deliverable-Based Revenue Recognition".

In event-based revenue recognition, standard G/L IDs track all financial transactions in your system, including charges, discounts, tax codes, early termination fees, and A/R actions.

In deliverable-based revenue recognition, standard G/L IDs track financial transactions for:

Service usage charges, such as the amount of data downloaded
Charges and discounts that are not associated with deliverables
A/R actions, such as payments, write-offs, and adjustments
Fees for canceling services in no-contract subscriptions

Because standard G/L IDs can be used for multiple types of financial transactions, BRM allows you to map them to any debit account and credit account. When you create standard G/L IDs, ensure that the mappings are valid for your business needs.

Table 1-1 shows the recommended debit and credit accounts to use for each financial transaction type.

Table 1-1 Recommended Debit and Credit Accounts for Financial Transactions

Financial Transaction Type	Report Type	Amount Represents	Debit Account Type	Credit Account Type
Charge	Billed Unbilled	Net	Asset	Liability
Charge	Earned	Net	Liability	Revenue
Credit adjustment Write-off	Billed Unbilled	Net	Asset	Expense
Debit adjustment	Billed Unbilled	Net	Asset	Liability
Debit adjustment	Earned	Net	Liability	Revenue
Payment	Billed Unbilled	Net	Asset	Cash

By default, standard G/L IDs report billed, unbilled, and earned revenue with either a net or a tax attribute.

In addition to the default revenue types, standard G/L IDs can also report billed earned, billed unearned, previous billed earned, unbilled earned, and unbilled unearned revenue with a net, tax, gross, or discount attribute. Use these revenue types and attributes only if your company uses event-based revenue recognition. To be able to report these revenue types and attributes, create Individual G/L reports. See "About Individual G/L Reports".

About the Contract G/L ID

You use the contract G/L ID in deliverable-based revenue recognition (see "About Deliverable-Based Revenue Recognition"). The contract G/L ID uses journal entries to track the amount paid and owed by your customers throughout their contract commitment term. BRM automatically creates the contract G/L ID for you.

Contract G/L IDs report earned net revenue.