The General Ledger Accounting Cycle

The General Ledger Accounting Cycle

After you set up your ledger, follow these steps to enter, maintain, and report on actual accounting information for your enterprise:

1. Open an accounting period. See: Opening and Closing an Accounting Period.

2. Enter manual journal entries, including:

• Standard journal entries. See: Creating Journal Batches.

• Foreign and dual currency journal entries. See: Entering Foreign and Dual Currency Journals.

• Statistical journal entries. See: Entering Statistical Journals.

• Intercompany journal entries.

3. Import journals from subledgers. If you encounter an error when trying to import a subledger journal, you can correct the import data and rerun journal import. See: Importing Journals.

4. Define recurring journal formulas for transactions that have a common format or that you enter frequently. You can also create recurring journal formulas to create allocation entries. See: Creating Recurring Journal Formula Batches.

You can use recurring journals to create three types of journal entries:

• Skeleton entries affect the same accounts each period, but have different posting amounts. See: Creating Skeleton Journal Entries.

• Standard recurring journal entries use the same accounts and amounts each period. See: Creating Standard Recurring Journal Entries.

• Formula entries use formulas to calculate journal amounts that vary from period to period. Entering Recurring Journal and Budget Formulas.

5. Define MassAllocation formulas to allocate a cost pool across a group of departments, companies, etc. See: Creating MassAllocation Formulas.

6. Generate recurring journal and MassAllocation journal batches based on formulas you defined. See: Generating Recurring Journal Batches and Generating MassAllocation Journals.

7. Review the details of your unposted journal batches.

• To view and optionally change unposted journal batches online, use the Enter Journals window.

• To view unposted journal batch detail online, use the Journal Inquiry window.

• To print a report showing unposted batch detail, produce an Unposted Journals Report.

8. Edit unposted journals to change information about an unposted batch or its journal detail, including the batch period and the journal currency.

9. Post your journal batches manually or automatically. See: Posting Journal Batches.

10. Check for posting errors. General Ledger automatically produces a Posting Execution Report so you can check the results of your posting. This report notifies you of any errors.

11. Reverse journals. You can reverse a posted or unposted journal entry. Once you assign a reversing period to the journal, generate and post the reversing batch. See: Defining Reverse Journal Entries.

12. Revalue your foreign-denominated assets and liabilities to reflect exchange rate fluctuations at the end of each accounting period. See: Revaluing Balances.

13. Translate your actual account balances to any foreign currency for reporting purposes. See: Translating Balances.

14. Consolidate sets of books by defining and running a consolidation. You can consolidate sets of books that have different charts of accounts and calendars. See: Overview of Consolidation.

15. Produce financial reports and perform online inquiries to review current account balances.

• Review account balances online using the Account Inquiry window. See: Performing an Account Inquiry.

• Review posted journal details in the Posted Journals Report, as well as in the General Ledger and Account Analysis reports.

• You can also define an unlimited variety of custom reports using the Financial Statement Generator to review account balances in the format of your choice. See: Overview of the Financial Statement Generator.

16. Enter journals to clear suspense account balances. Examine General Ledger and Account Analysis reports to identify the source of suspense account entries.

17. Close the current accounting period. See: Opening and Closing an Accounting Period.

18. Open the next accounting period.