General Ledger

7.9. General Ledger

The General Ledger is the book of accounts summarising all of a company’s financial transactions. From the System Administration Utility in SICS you can create tables for transfer of data to General Ledger. Only bookings with a value in Accounting Classification can be transferred.

Refer to Base Company Specific Settings in System Parameter Maintenance chapter for more information about Accounting Classification.

Execute a General Ledger Transfer #

To execute an immediate transfer, double-click the General Ledger Transfer icon in the Periodic Functions Folder.

There are two alternate ways of specifying data to be included in the transfer.

  • By “Type”
  • By “General Ledger Transfer Order”.

For scheduling of General Ledger Transfer jobs, refer to Job Schedulerlater in this chapter.

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Transfer Data based on Transfer Type #

  1. Make sure the Type option is selected, and then select type of ledger from the drop-down list.
  2. Click _Run Now.
    _ The progress of the transfer will be reported in the form’s status bar. This will transfer all items of the specified type not previously transferred.

Transfer Data based on Order #

  1. Make sure the Order option is selected, and that you have specified an order title.
  2. To select an order, click the Find button. A list of General Ledger Transfer Orders will appear.

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  1. Select a General Ledger Transfer Order by double-clicking an item in the list. (You can also create a new order at this stage by selecting New from the pop-up menu.)
  2. Click Run Now.
    The progress of the transfer will be reported in the status bar.
    This will transfer data of the type specified in the order, but restricted to items not previously transferred. The order’s filter criteria will, if present, further restrict the transfer to matching items.

General Ledger Transfer Order #

A General Ledger Transfer Order contains the information needed to perform a transfer. The orders are stored in the database, and are available for both interactive and periodic scheduled execution. The SICS application environment is recorded with each order, which means that orders are only available in their originating application environment. Thus, an order created in P&C will not be visible in LIFE and vice versa.

The General Ledger has some mandatory fields that you need to fill in, and some optional fields.

  • Mandatory Attributes: Identifier and Transfer Type.
  • Optional Attributes: Filter Criteria and Notes.

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Viewing/Editing a General Ledger Transfer Order #

  1. Select an order from the list in the Find General Transfer Order window. (To view both active and inactive orders, select the Only Display Active option from the pop-up menu.
  2. Select Properties(to view), or Edit (to edit) from the pop-up menu.
    The General Ledger Transfer Order will appear. See figure General Ledger Transfer Order

Creating a New General Ledger Transfer Order #

  1. Select New from the pop-up menu.
    The General Ledger Transfer Order will appear.

  2. Enter mandatory items: Identifier and Transfer Type.

  3. Enter Filter Criteria and Notes if desired.

  4. Click OK to save the order.

Deleting a General Ledger Transfer Order #

  1. Open the Find General Ledger window.
  2. Select the order you want to delete.
  3. Select Delete from the pop-up menu.

You can only delete an order if the following criteria are met:

  • The order is not used by any scheduled jobs.
  • The order has not been used in any transfers.

Inactivating an Order #

  1. Open the Find General Ledger window.
  2. Select the order you want to inactivate.
  3. Select Edit from the pop-up menu.
  4. Clear the Active check box.
  5. Save the order.

Filter Criteria #

The filter criteria option is only available after Transfer Type has been selected in the order.

If no filter criteria are present, all items not previously transferred but restricted to the specified Transfer Type, will be transferred.

Filter criteria are set to further restrict the items to be transferred. Each item will be tested against all filter criteria. Only items passing all tests will be transferred.

Viewing Filter Criteria #

  1. Open the Find General Ledger window.
  2. Select the order you want to view.
  3. Select Properties from the pop-up menu. You see the General Ledger Order window in view mode.
  4. Click the Filter Criteria button.
    You see the Criteria for General Ledger window.

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Entering Filter Criteria #

  1. Open the Find General Ledger window.
  2. Select the order you want to enter filter criteria for.
  3. Select Edit from the pop-up menu. You see the General Ledger Order window in edit mode.
  4. Click the Filter Criteria button.
    You see the Criteria for General Ledger window.

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Base Companies: #

  • The transfer might be limited to one or more base companies.
  • Both balances must qualify for a Pairing to be transferred.
  • If you don’t select any base companies (an empty “Selected” list), data for all base companies will be transferred.

Booking Period: #

General:

  • Either From, To, both or none of the interval borders can be specified.
  • From and To are inclusive.
  • Year of booking may be specified without period, covering all bookings for that year.

Limitations:

Different types of periods cannot be combined, thus ‘Month 04, 1999’ to ‘Quarter 2, 2001’ is not a valid interval.

Furthermore, the application will not include records of any other booking period type than the one specified, thus a booking registered in ‘Quarter 2,2000’ will not be included in the interval ‘Month 01,2000’ to ‘Month 10, 2000’.

Period of booking from/to must be accompanied by year of booking.

Note! In the case of Pairings, the test will be against Booking Period of the Pairing itself. Booking Period on the paired balances will be ignored.

Level of Business: #

This extraction criterion is available for Technical Items and Pairing items only.

If this criterion is left unspecified (an empty ‘Selected’ list), data for all relevant levels of business will be transferred.

A Paring will be transferred if both paired balances qualify (a Remittance balances always qualify).

Closed Date #

  • For a Remittance this means the date the status was set to Final.
  • For a Technical item this means the date the status was set to Closed
  • For a Pairing item this means the date it was created.

From and to dates are inclusive, and missing date(s) means that the interval is open in one or both directions.

Main Class of Business: #

This extraction criterion is available for Technical Items only. #

If this criterion is left unspecified (an empty ‘Selected’ list), data for all Main Classes of Business will be transferred.

If one or more Main Classes of Business is selected the General Ledger Transfer order will extract booked details with Accounting Classifications containing these Main Classes of Business only.

Transfer Tables #

There are three pairs of transfer tables:

  • GL_T_NEW and GL_T_ALL for Technical items
  • GL_R_NEW and GL_R_ALL for Remittances
  • and GL_P_NEW and GL_P_ALL for pairing items.

In each run the first table in the pair will be emptied for old data, then new data will be inserted in both tables. It means that the table with suffix NEW will hold data from the last transfer, while the table with suffix ALL will hold aggregated data.

The system does contain any function to delete data from the tables with aggregated data. If you want to delete data from a table this has to be performed outside SICS.

It is expected that all columns necessary for the client’s General Ledger are present in the tables. If that is not so, it is still possible to retrieve more data from SICS by means of one or more of the foreign keys to the more basic tables in SICS.

All columns in the transfer tables are explained in the database.

For instance:

  • D_OBJECT_ID in GL_T_ALL
  • BAL_OBJECT_ID in GL_R_ALL
  • and P_OBJECT_ID in GL_T_ALL hold the object ID of transferred items.

Steps in the Transfer Process #

SICS goes through a set of steps when transferring orders. The section below describes these steps.

Technical Transfer:

  1. Flag details to be transferred.

  2. Create worktable with object IDs of details to be transferred.

  3. Build various temporary tables where each holds a portion of the information to be transferred.
    Temporary tables are created in this order 1, 4, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E, 3F, 3G, 3H, 3J, 2, and 5.

  4. Temporary tables are merged to GL_T_NEW.

  5. The content of GL_T_NEW is inserted into GL_T_ALL.

  6. Details are flagged at transferred to General Ledger.

  7. Cleanup of worktables and temporary tables.

Remittance Transfer:

  1. Flag remittances to be transferred.
  2. Create worktable with object IDs of remittances to be transferred.
  3. Insert remittance information into empty GL_R_NEW.
  4. The content of GL_R_NEW is inserted into GL_R_ALL.
  5. Remittances are flagged as transferred to General Ledger.
  6. Cleanup of worktable

Pairing Transfer:

  1. Flag pairing items to be transferred.
  2. Create work table with object IDs of pairing items to be transferred.
  3. Insert pairing information into empty GL_P_NEW.
  4. The content of GL_P_NEW is inserted into GL_P_ALL.
  5. Pairings are flagged at transferred to General Ledger.
  6. Cleanup of worktable.