SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > Financial > General Ledger Setup

General Ledger Setup

You use this program to define the setup options for your General Ledger system.

For this module to run efficiently, we recommend that you indicate the options you require before processing any transactions. However, most of the options can be changed later, if necessary.

General

Field Description
Default browse sequence

Ledger code

Select this to default to viewing the ledger file in ledger code sequence.

Description

Select this to default to viewing the ledger file in ledger description sequence.

Options

Reverse out provision journals at period/year end

Select this to reverse provisional journals processed using the GL Journal Entry program automatically at period and/or year end.

This reversal causes entries to be made to the General Ledger journal and detail files in the next period.

Provisional journals are typically processed for income accrued but not yet received, or expenses incurred but not yet paid in a specific accounting period.

Global tax file required

Select this to be able to produce a single tax report for sales transactions processed in the Accounts Receivable and Sales Order modules and for transactions posted in the Accounts Payable and Cash Book modules.

In addition, if you select this option, then a tax amount can be entered when processing transactions using the AP Invoice Posting, Deposits and Withdrawals and CB Permanent Entries Posting programs, even if the Tax distribution method is set to Not required in Accounts Payable and Cash Book (see Accounts Payable Setup and Cash Book Setup Tax tab). You use the GL Global Tax Report program to generate a report of these transactions.

Regardless of any other options selected, a global tax report can only be produced if you select this option.

Show account balance in ledger code browse

This enables you to restrict the viewing of account balances within the General Ledger Codes listview.

This does not suppress the display of account balances in the GL Query or GL Structure Query programs.

Passwords required for individual ledger accounts

Select this to prevent unauthorized postings being made to individual ledger accounts.

Integration from sub-ledger at ledger code level

Select this to be able to define different levels of integration for specific ledger account codes. This is particularly useful when the sub-ledger is linked to the General Ledger in detail, but for specific ledger accounts against which postings are made, you only want summary information passed through to the General Ledger, and vice versa.

Refer to General Ledger Integration Introduction for additional information on General Ledger integration.

Analysis entries

Indicate the accounts types for which you may require account analysis.

[Note]

This option merely enables you to indicate the GL account types for which analysis can be defined. Disabling all the account types against this option does not 'switch off' GL analysis.

If you no longer require GL Analysis, then you need to untick GL Analysis required against each of the GL account codes where that option was enabled.

At the time of adding a ledger code (see General Ledger Codes and GL Structure Definition), you are prompted to set account analysis against the ledger codes that have the account types indicated at this option. At the prompt, you can select whether to enable account analysis against the ledger code.

You can indicate that a prompt is required for account analysis against the following account types:

  • Asset accounts
  • Liability accounts
  • Capital accounts
  • Revenue accounts
  • Expense accounts
Save

Select this to save the selections you made on all the tab pages and to exit the program.

Print

Select this to print a report of your General Ledger setup options.

It is advisable to keep this report for disaster recovery purposes.

Cancel

Select this to exit the program without saving any changes you made.

Help

Select this to view the latest online Help documentation for this program.

Budget

Field Description
Budget processing at year end

Retain current year budgets

Select this to leave budget information in tact after the Year end function of the GL Period End program. If you select this option, then the budgets for the current year remain the budgets for the current year after the year end has been processed.

Zeroize current year budgets

Select this to set the current years' budgets to zero at year end (i.e. you will have to enter budgets manually for the new year).

Copy next year budgets to current year

Select this for next years' budgets to become the budgets for the current year during the Year end function of the GL Period End program.

[Note]

If the budget for the next year is not defined, then the current year budget remains intact.

Set to zero if next year budget not defined

If copying next years' budget to the current year and next years' budgets are not found, then the system sets the current years' budget to zero and you will have to enter budgets manually for the new year.

This option is only enabled if you selected the previous option: Copy next year budgets to current year.

Definition of variable budget spread

Indicate the level at which you require variable budget amounts to be spread across each period of the year.

By company

Select this to apply the spread to all ledger codes in the company.

By group

Select this to apply the spread to ledger codes according to the groups to which they are assigned.

Budgets required

For year end period

Select this if you require an additional budget period for the year end period.

Budget Descriptions

You can define up to eight different budgets/forecasts within SYSPRO. You use this function to assign your own descriptions to these budgets.

Budget Descriptions

You use the Budget Descriptions function to assign your own descriptions to your budgets. Up to eight different budgets/forecasts can be defined. If you do not assign your own descriptions to these budgets, then the default descriptions: Alternate budget 1 through to Alternate budget 8 are used.

Field Description
Alternate budget 1

Assign your own description for the first alternate budget.

Alternate budget 2

Assign your own description for the second alternate budget.

Alternate budget 3

Assign your own description for the third alternate budget.

Alternate budget 4

Assign your own description for the fourth alternate budget.

Alternate budget 5

Assign your own description for the fifth alternate budget.

Alternate budget 6

Assign your own description for the sixth alternate budget.

Alternate budget 7

Assign your own description for the seventh alternate budget.

Alternate budget 8

Assign your own description for the eighth alternate budget.

Close

Select this to accept the entries you made and to return to the previous screen.

You still need to select the Save function to save the descriptions you entered.

History

Field Description
Number of years to retain

Summary history of balances

Indicate the number of years for which you want to retain summary history of balances.

Balance history and alternate currency history (if alternate reporting currencies are defined) for the current company are deleted when next you run the Purge function of the GL Period End program if these have been held on file for at least the number of years entered here.

The minimum number of years you can retain information is one year (i.e. you cannot delete any information in these files until after at least one year end).

Your selection here affects the number of prior years for which you can report on summary balances.

Detail transaction history

Indicate the number of years for which you want to retain detail transaction history.

Detail transaction history and alternate currency detail (if alternate reporting currencies are defined) for the current company are deleted when next you run the Purge function of the GL Period End program if these have been held on file for at least the number of years entered here.

If you are using G/L Analysis (see General Ledger Analysis Introduction), then analysis entries associated with deleted transactions are also removed.

The minimum number of years you can retain information is one year (i.e. you cannot delete any information in these files until after at least one year end).

Your selection here affects the number of prior years for which you can report on detail transactions.

[Note]

You cannot retain Detail transaction history for longer than your Summary history of balances.

Number of periods to retain

Posted journals

Indicate the number of periods for which you want to retain cancelled and posted journals.

Cancelled and posted journals that have been printed are deleted when next you run the Purge function of the GL Period End program if they have been held on file for at least the number of periods entered here. Any notes associated with the deleted journals are also removed.

The minimum number of periods you can retain information is one period (i.e. you cannot delete any information in these files until after at least one period end).

Your selection here will affect the number of prior periods for which you can report on posted journals.

Expired recurring journals

Indicate the number of periods for which you want to retain expired recurring journals.

Expired recurring journals are deleted when next you run the Purge function of the GL Period End program if they have been held on file for at least the number of periods entered here. Any notes associated with the deleted journals are also removed.

The minimum number of periods you can retain information is one period (i.e. you cannot delete any information in these files until after at least one period end).

Your selection here will affect the number of prior periods for which you can report on expired recurring journals.

Posted group entries

Indicate the number of periods for which you want to retain cancelled and posted group entries.

Cancelled and expired group entries are deleted when next you run the Purge function of the GL Period End program if they have been held on file for at least the number of periods entered here.

The minimum number of periods you can retain information is one period (i.e. you cannot delete any information in these files until after at least one period end).

Your selection here will affect the number of prior periods for which you can report on posted group entries.

[Note]

Group entries only apply to versions of SYSPRO prior to SYSPRO 6.1.

Periods

Field Description
Current year

Change Current

Select this to maintain the period end dates and statuses for the current year, and control how information is posted to the General Ledger module.

[Note]

The current period and current year cannot be changed once entries other than the Forced balance or Retained earnings accounts exist in the GenHistory table or any transactions exist in GenTransaction table.

Period

This column displays the period to which the end date and status relate for the current year.

End date

This column displays the period end dates defined for each period in the current year.

Status

This column indicates whether or not posting can currently be made to the period.

A status of open allows postings to be made to the period, while a status of closed prevents further postings from being made to the period.

Previous year

Change Previous

Select this to maintain the period end date and access status for the selected period for the previous year.

Period

This column displays the periods for the previous year.

End date This column displays the period end dates defined for each period for the previous year.
Status

This column indicates whether or not posting can currently be made to the period.

Current period

This indicates the ledger period your General Ledger module is currently in.

Current Year

You use the Change Current function to define the period end dates for the current year.

Field Description
Period end date Indicate the period end date for the selected period.
Period is The control of information posted is achieved by defining the access status (i.e. open or closed) for each period. A status of open allows postings to be made to the period, while a status of closed prevents further postings from being made to the period.
Open

Select this to allow postings to be made to the period.

Closed Select this to prevent further postings from being made to the period.
OK Select this to set the end date and status for the selected period and to return to the previous screen.
Cancel Select this to ignore any information you entered and to return to the previous screen.

Previous Year

You use the Change Previous function to define the period end dates for the previous year.

Field Description
Period end date You use this field to indicate the period end date for the selected period.
Period is The control of information posted is achieved by defining the access status (i.e. open or closed) for each period. A status of open allows postings to be made to the period, while a status of closed prevents further postings from being made to the period.
Open Select this to allow postings to be made to the period.
Closed Select this to prevent further postings from being made to the period.
OK Select this to set the end date and status for the selected period and to return to the previous screen.
Cancel Select this to ignore any information you entered and to return to the previous screen.

Balances

The Balances tab indicates the General Ledger balances for Assets, Liabilities, Capital, Revenue and Expense account types.

An account type is defined against each General Ledger account code (see General Ledger Codes).

You can view the same information using the GL at a Glance program.

Field Description
G/L Control Balances

Total assets

This indicates the sum of all Asset type account balances.

Total liabilities

This indicates the sum of all Liability type account balances.

Total capital

This indicates the sum of all Capital type account balances.

Total revenue

This indicates the Year to Date total of all Revenue account type balances.

Total expenses

This indicates the Year to Date total of all Expense account type balances.

Information

The fields on this tab page are displayed for information purposes only. The same information can be viewed by selecting the Posting Information function from the GL at a Glance program.

Field Description
Current ledger

Current ledger year

This indicates the calendar year in which your current ledger year ends.

Current ledger period

This indicates the period in which your company is running in relation to the start of your ledger year.

Next journal numbers
[Note]

The following journal numbers are applicable only if you have not selected the option: Next journal number by period (General Ledger Setup - Journal tab).

If you set journal numbering by period, then refer to Next Journal Numbers, to view next journal number information.

Previous ledger year

This indicates the journal number that will be assigned to the next entry created within the GL Journal Entry program for the previous ledger year.

Current ledger year

This indicates the journal number that will be assigned to the next journal entry created within the GL Journal Entry program for the current ledger year.

Next ledger year

This indicates the journal number that will be assigned to the next journal entry created within the GL Journal Entry program for the next ledger year.

G/L analysis  
Next analysis number
Other information

Oldest detail movement

Reverse provisional journals

This indicates whether you have posted provision journals in your current ledger period that will be reversed as part of the Period end function of the GL Period End program.

Next entries group

Previous ledger year

This indicates the number that will be assigned to the next batch of transactions transferred from other modules to the General Ledger for the previous ledger year.

Current ledger year

This indicates the number that will be assigned to the next batch of transactions transferred from other modules to the General Ledger for the current ledger year.

Next ledger year

This indicates the number that will be assigned to the next batch of transactions transferred from other modules to the General Ledger for the next ledger year.

Current Period

Field Description
Ledger year

This indicates the calendar year in which your current ledger year ends.

You can change this only if no active data is held within the ledger history, details, entries and journal files.

Ledger period

This indicates the period in which your company is running, in relation to the start of your ledger year.

You can change this only if no active data is held within the ledger history, details, entries and journal files.

Number of periods per year

This field displays the number of accounting periods in the year as defined against your company (Company Maintenance - General tab).

Commitments

[Note]

Commitment Accounting only applies to non-stocked items and services.

Field Description
Commitment Accounting Required

Select this to monitor committed and uncommitted costs against the budgets for the ledger codes.

Committed costs are incurred when a commitment has been made to purchase a service or non-stocked item but the service or item has not yet been provided.

SYSPRO currently records a budget per ledger code and then records the actual value of transactions posted against that ledger code. Any expected costs are excluded from the check against the budget.

Committed and uncommitted values are recorded against the relevant ledger code as they are incurred (i.e. not updated in batch mode).

When an item changes from uncommitted (e.g. a requisition) to committed (a purchase order is created), the uncommitted value is reduced and the committed value is increased. The value remains committed until the actual cost is incurred and posted. Thereafter, it is removed.

[Note]

When you enable this option, you must define all General Ledger period end dates for the entire current year (General Ledger Setup - Periods tab), for Commitment Accounting to function correctly.

The period for each transaction is based on the date supplied and depending on the source, is one of the following:

  • the purchase order line due date
  • the requisition due date
  • Business Objects - the date supplied in the XML input

If the date is in the future, and the period cannot be calculated, then the transaction is considered 'unallocated'.

The transaction period is based on the period end dates for the General Ledger. Any items for next year are calculated using the current year period end day/month.

When the Requisition or Purchase Order value is checked against the budget for the General Ledger account, it is the budget for the current year that is used. Therefore, if you are using Commitment Accounting and you need to change your current year budget for any reason, you should consider the implications of this particularly when reducing the budgets.

The General Ledger budget is only updated with the actual cost when the transaction is posted into the General Ledger. This means that real time monitoring of the actual costs is not available.

Uncommitted These options apply to the recording of uncommitted costs, arising from purchase order Requisitions.
Requisitions required Select this to monitor uncommitted costs.
Validate against budget Select this to validate requisitions against the ledger account's budget.
Retain completed transactions Select this to retain transactions once an uncommitted value becomes committed or a committed value becomes an actual cost.

The completed transactions are retained for the current year and removed at year end (i.e. when the Year end function is run in the GL Period End program).

Add to budget at year end Select this if the budget for the first period of a new year should be increased by any outstanding uncommitted value from the previous year.

For example:

If your budget for January of the new year is 1000 and you had unposted commitments from the previous year of 500, the budget for January would be 1500. If, however, you selected to Zeroise current year budgets (General Ledger Setup - Budgets tab), then the budget for January would only be the 500 carried over from the previous year.

Committed These options apply to the recording of committed costs, arising from Purchase orders.
Purchase orders required Select this if you require committed costs to be monitored.
Validate against budget Select this if this type of commitment should be validated against the ledger account's budget.
Retain completed transactions Select this to retain transactions once a committed value becomes an actual value. The completed transactions are retained for the current year and removed at year end (i.e. when the Year End function is run in the GL Period End program).
Add to budget at year end Select this if the budget for the first period of a new year should be increased by any outstanding committed value.
Warn if budget exceeded Select this if a warning is required when the value of a transaction causes the budget to be exceeded.

An error is displayed (regardless of your selection here) when the operator is disallowed from any activity exceeding a commitment budget (Security Activities).

Unallocated text Indicate the text to use to describe the values of committed and uncommitted costs for unallocated transactions.

These are transactions which cannot be allocated to a period for one of the following reasons:

  • The transactions do not have a due date.

  • The General Ledger period end dates are not defined.

Do you wish to record the commitments?

This message is displayed when you select the Save function and you have selected the option: Commitment Accounting Required.

It enables you to record the values of existing commitments against the applicable ledger codes.

Field Description
Yes

Select this to create the commitment files using the GL Commitment Takeon program and to allocate existing committed and uncommitted values for current requisitions and purchase orders against the applicable ledger codes.

No

Select this to save your selections on the Commitments tab, but not record existing committed and uncommitted values from current requisitions and purchase orders against the applicable ledger codes.

You typically select this option if you want to record values for commitment accounting from this point onwards and ignore historical information.

Cancel

Select this to return to the previous screen.

Do you wish to clear the commitments?

This message is displayed when you select the Save function and you deselected the option: Commitment Accounting Required.

It enables you to delete the values of existing commitments against the applicable ledger codes.

Field Description
Yes

Select this to remove all commitment accounting information held on file.

No

Select this to retain historical commitment accounting information against the ledger codes.

You typically select this option if you no longer require commitment accounting, but you want to retain existing commitment accounting information against the ledger codes.

The following occurs:

  • The Commitment Accounting Required is re-enabled, but the system does not continue to record commitment accounting information.

  • The Commitment master and Commitment transaction files are retained.

  • Your other options are not saved.

Journals

Field Description
Journal options  
Authorization of journals before posting required

Select this if captured using the GL Journal Entry or GL Entries Import programs must be authorized before they can be posted.

[Note]

This does not apply to:

  • sub-module journals (i.e. Ledger journals created for sub module transactions).

  • journals automatically posted by the GL Period End program such as the reversal of provisional journals or the setting of expense accounts to zero at year end.

To enable an operator to authorize journals, the activity: GL Journal authorize must be set to Allowed for that operator (Operator Maintenance - Security).

Authorization of sub module journals before posting required Select this if you want ledger journals created for sub module transactions to be authorized before they can be posted.

If you select this option, then you will be unable to select the Post GL journal option for any sub-module (General Ledger Integration). In effect, you will be unable to use the full real time General Ledger facility, as all sub-module ledger journals will have to be authorized and manually posted to the General Ledger using the GL Journal Entry program.

This option is not enabled if you selected the option Post GL journal against any sub-module (General Ledger Integration - General Ledger tab). The reason is that the system cannot automatically post journals if they require authorization first.

Limit view of journals to capturer

Select this to restrict operators to viewing only those journals that they created.

In addition, if you want to restrict operators to printing only their own journals, then you select this option and against the operator you allow the activity: GL Journals print (Operator Maintenance - Security).

[Note]
Next journal number by period

Select this to enable General Ledger journal numbering by period.

You would typically select this option if you process more than 99999 journals in any single ledger year or to comply with regulatory requirements.

If you do not select this option, then General Ledger journals are numbered from 0 through to 99999 regardless of the ledger period.

[Note]

Although you can select this option at any time during a period or year, it is preferable not to do so until immediately after a period or year end. The reason for this is that the system does not allow duplication of journal numbers within a specific period.

For example

Your ledger is currently in Period 2 and journal numbers 1 to 30 have been used for this period.

You select this option and set the next journal number for period 2 to be 1.

However, the system ignores this because journal number 1 already exists for period 2, so it uses 31 as the next journal number.

Similarly, if you have already processed journals 20 to 30 for period 2 and you set the next journal number for period 2 to be 1, then journal numbers 1 to 19 will be allocated for journals for period 2, but thereafter journal numbering starts from 31.

When you select this option, you can select the Maintain Next Journal Number by Period function to enter the starting journal number to use in each period.

Maintain Next Journal Number by Period

Select this to define the next journal number to use for each accounting period.

This function is only enabled when you select the option: Next journal number by period.

Next Journal Numbers

You use the Maintain Next Journal Number by Period function to define the next journal number to use in each accounting period.

In addition, you can view the next journal number that will be assigned to the next manual entry created within the GL Journal Entry program for the year selected.

Field Description
Year

Indicate the year for which you want to maintain or view the next journal numbers.

You can select the previous, current or next ledger year.

Period 1 to Period 14

Enter the next journal number you want to use in each accounting period.

If you accept the default of zero, then journals for each accounting period are numbered from zero up to 99999. If, however, you enter 1 in each field, then journals are numbered from 1 to 99999 for each period.

You can only enter and view journal numbers for the number of accounting periods in the year that are defined for your company (Company Maintenance - General tab).

Save

Select this to save the numbers you entered and to return to the previous screen.

Cancel

Select this to ignore any journal numbers you entered and to return to the previous screen.

Structure

The options on this tab page will be used in a future release of the software and are therefore not yet enabled.

You use the GL Structure Definition program to indicate your requirements for structured General Ledger codes.