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GENERAL LEDGERENQUIRIES & REPORTS

Edition 2January 2001


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Title:

Author:

Date:

General Ledger Enquiries & Reports

Yvonne Johnston

January 2001

This second edition is an extensive re-writing of the first

edition by Alison Bellamy, released in

November 1999.

Thanks to Dominic Abbey, Administrator of the Department of Computer Science for allowing the use

of one of that department's accounts as an example in the screen shots incorporated in this document.


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GENERAL

LEDGER

ENQUIRIES & REPORTSContents

Introduction................................................................................................................. 4

Introduction................................................................................................................. 4

Oracle General Ledger - Keywords and concepts...................................................... 5Balances.................................................................................................................5

General Ledger Enquiries .......................................................................................... 7Account Detail ........................................................................................................ 7Account Summary .................................................................................................. 7

Making GL enquiries using the 'Funds Available' screen........................................ 9

Account Enquiry ....................................................................................................... 13Enquiring on 'Actuals'........................................................................................15Enquiring on 'Encumbrances' ........................................................................... 19Enquiring on 'Budgets' ......................................................................................21

Reports in Oracle General Ledger ........................................................................... 27A guide to understanding the balances report .................................................. 33

Appendix I Getting Help ........................................................................................34

Appendix II - The Toolbar........................................................................................ 35

Appendix III Keyboard Shortcuts ......................................................................... 36


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Oracle General Ledger - Keywords and

concepts

Financial data is stored in Oracle General Ledger as transactions orbalances.

Transactions

All transactional data enters the General Ledger in the form of a journal. Data from other

Oracle Financials modules (for example Accounts Payable - AP) and from non-Oracle

Financials feeder systems (e.g. payroll) is imported into the General Ledger as a journal.

These journals are then posted to the general ledger on a daily basis. Note: Entries made in

other modules (e.g. AP) do not automatically update the General Ledger.

Balances

The journals which update the transactions data also update the balances held in the General

Ledger. Balances are stored at account code combination level i.e. using all 6 account code

segments (account, source, analysis, optional, unit and company). These balances can be

viewed as detailed accounts. Balances are also stored at summary account level. At UCL we

use summary accounts to provide balance information at account segment (i.e. the first, four-

character segment) level.

There are 3 types of balances held in Oracle General Ledger and they are all completely

separate and different from each other:

1. Actual Balances. These are updated by actual transactions such as purchase invoices,

salaries, expense claims and sales invoices and receipts.

2. Encumbrance Balances. These arise from commitments incurred when Purchase

Orders are raised and approved. When the purchase invoice relating to that PO is

matched and approved the encumbrance is reversed and an 'actual' transaction is

created. Thus the encumbrance balance is reduced while the actual balance is

increased.

3. Budget Balances. Budget balances are updated by the entries made in budget

journals. (See 'Enquiring on Budgets').

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General Ledger Enquiries

The most efficient way to obtain General Ledger Account information is by performing an on

screen enquiry.

There are several useful enquiry forms and all use a similar convention for entering account

parameter details.

The following pop-up box appears in all enquiry forms where you have to enter account

parameters:

List of values

What you should enter here depends on what you want to see - detail or summary

information?

Account Detail

If you want to view data held at account code combination level then either enter in the

precise combination you need or enter the segment(s) you are interested in viewing and the

query will return all code combinations using those segments.

Account Summary

If you wish to view a balance (and drill down to transactions) at the account segment level

only, then enter the required account code(s) in the 'Low' and 'High' account boxes and enter

the character 'T' in all the other boxes. The 'T' stands for total and what this means is that all

other segments are totalled while the account is shown in detail. In fact, when performing

such an enquiry you actually need only enter the 'T' in the 'Source' boxes as the system knows

from that that you intend to total on all the other subsequent segments too. Please note that the

'T must be upper case.

TIP: You can get a full listing of all account codes available to you by using the pick list

/list of values This can be accessed by pressing the button shown, or using cntrl & L

on your keyboard.

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Making GL enquiries using the 'Funds

Available' screen

The 'Funds Available' screen provides top-level information on an account or an account codecombination. It shows the budget available for the year, the actual expenditure (net of any

income) incurred year to date, any outstanding commitments recorded on the system and thus

the funds available for future expenditure. You cannot drill down from this type of enquiry.

To open the Funds Available' screen, navigate as follows:

And click on 'Funds' to show the following form:

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Enter the required parameters and tab to the Account field. The following box will appear:

Enter the parameters required. If the balance on the whole account is required, enter 'T' in all

the segments other than the account segment.

The following shows the enquiry result:

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If you wish to enquire on all the account code combinations for one account then enter the

low & high parameters for the other segments

The following shows the enquiry result:

Clicking on the up/down arrows will give further combinations and balances if available.

Alternatively, where there is more data than can be viewed on one screen, the data can be

exported to a spreadsheet where it can easily be manipulated as required. This can be done by

clicking on 'Action' and then selecting 'Export'. (Please see Newfis documentation onExporting to Excel in order to ensure that your PC is set up to export to Excel directly)

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The following shows the exported data together with the totalling (in bold) performed in

Excel.

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Account Enquiry

If you require more detailed information about account balances and transactions then you

need to use the account enquiry form.

Navigate to Account as shown:

Choose the required start and end periods from the List of Values or delete and

manually enter the relevant periods.

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Please note that the To field will automatically change to display the same period as the From

field, therefore if you wish to enquire on more than one period you must ensure you change

this date.


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Enquiring on 'Actuals'

The 'radio button' is set to 'Actuals' by default so if you wish to enquire on actuals, leave it as

it is.

Click or tab down to the 'Accounts' section of the form. The usual pop-up box will appear for

you to enter the account parameters.

The example below is an enquiry at summary account level so 'T' is input in the source fields:

This produces the following:

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You can then look at the balance by clicking on Show Balances':

Clicking on 'Detail Balances' will show balances at account code combination level:

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Transactional information can then be drilled-down to. For example, if the 4th line of the

above is selected and 'Journal Details' clicked then the following is returned:

Clicking on 'Drilldown to Payables' for one line shows:

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Alternatively, if on the original 'Account Enquiry' form, 'Show Journal Details' had been

selected, then all transactions making up the balance on the summary account would be called

up:

This clearly can result in a lot of data being returned, but it is useful if exported to Excel

where it can be manipulated using spreadsheet functionality.

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Enquiring on 'Encumbrances'

(For the purposes of this document, it is assumed that 'encumbrances' are synonymous with

'commitments'.

In fact, there are 2 types of encumbrance - 'commitment' and 'obligation'. Obligations arisefrom timing differences between the different stages of Accounts Payable invoice entry and

authorisation. From hereon, reference will be made only to 'commitment' - which arises from

the issuing of an approved Purchase Order. (For simplicity, we will ignore the existence of

'obligations'.)

To enquire on encumbrances from the account enquiry screen, select 'Encumbrance' by

clicking on the radio button. Under 'Encumbrance Type' enter 'Commitment'.

Clicking on 'Show Balances' shows balances by accounting period:

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Clicking on 'Detail Balances' will show the breakdown by account code combination for any

selected month:

Clicking on 'Journal Details' will show the transactions in the form of GL batch details:

The entries show both the recording of commitments (Entered Debits) from Purchasing and

the reversal of previous commitments (Entered Credits) from Accounts Payable when the PO

has been matched with the purchase invoice.

Unfortunately when enquiring on commitments, you cannot now drill down any further. This

is why the 'Drilldown' button is greyed out. This is a deficiency in the Oracle Financials

product itself the rectification of which Oracle are treating as a product enhancement. They

are not offering a fix for our current version and are only expecting that this deficiency will

be fixed in the latest release (Release 11i) to which UCL will not be upgrading in the shortterm.

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Enquiring on 'Budgets'

Background on Budgeting in Oracle General Ledger

UCL has chosen to make use of some of the budgeting functionality available in Oracle

General Ledger. The current set up is as follows:

There are two types of budgets - College and Department. It is intended that the Department

budget is maintained within departments (each migrated department being set up as a separate

budget organisation which has exclusive, password controlled access to its departmental

budget data). Departmental budgeting will be the subject matter of forthcoming

documentation and is not being covered in this document.

The College budget is set and allocated centrally. Any changes to it must be made by the

Planning & Management Accounts section of Finance Division who will put through budget

journals on request. There are 2 types of College budget entries:

1. Budget allocation for the year. These are allocations made to departments for their

share of recurrent grant, overheads or endowment fund income etc.. Such budget entries

are put through to the accounting periods September to July. These allocations are now

budget entries whereas, under the old UCL accounting system (FAS), which did not

make use of budgeting, they were put through as actuals.

2. Unspent budget carried forward. Also, under the old UCL accounting system (FAS),

certain accounts were designated as 'carry forward' accounts and the unspent balance on

such accounts at year-end was carried forward into the next year as an actual balance.

Using budgeting functionality, such carried forward balances are now treated, more

correctly, as budget balances. At the end of each financial year, the balance for carry

forward is calculated as the budget balance less the net expenditure balance (ie net of anyincome credited to that account) as at 31 July. The unspent budget is carried forward to

the August accounting period (ie the first accounting period of the new financial year).

Only entries relating to the carry forward budget should go through in that period.

All budget entries go though to analysis code ZZZ which should only be used for budgets

(not for actuals or encumbrances).

One aspect of budgeting in Oracle General Ledger that sometimes causes confusion is that

positive and negative values of budget balances and entries are the opposite way around from

what most people expect. This confusion arises because budget entries and balances are not

seen as being distinct from actuals whereas they are an entirely separate type of entry/balance.

With actual entries and balances, a credit entry (a negative amount) represents income while

a debit entry (a positive amount) represents expenditure.

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With budgets a debit entry (positive) allocates funds to an account. What that means,

effectively, is that you can debit actual transactions up to this amount before you run out of

funds. Please try not to view a budget allocation as income, as this is where the root of theconfusion lies.


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When viewed in this light, the arithmetic can be seen to be logical:

e.g. Unspent budget brought forward 10,000

Budget allocation for year 25,000

Total available budget 35,000

Income credited to date - 2,000

Expenditure debited to date 20,000

Net expenditure 18,000

Total available (budget minus actual) 35,000-18,000=17,000

(a negative amount would therefore represent an overspend).

This example ignores commitments (encumbrances) for simplicity sake.

Performing a budget enquiry

There are 2 ways of doing this. The first is to use the account enquiry screen:

Ensure that the radio button is set to 'Budget'. You will be required to select a budget (either

'College' or 'Department')

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From this form you can either 'Show Balances' and drill down further (in a manner similar to

when you enquire on 'Actuals') or you can 'Show Journal Details' thus:

The second, alternative way to enquire on budgets is to use the 'Budget Enquiry' form.

Navigation from the main menu is as follows:

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The Budget Enquiry screen:

Select the budget you want to enquire on and the relevant dates and account(s).

NOTE: You can only perform a budget enquiry on summary accounts. You cannot perform

them on detail accounts (ie at account code combination level).

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Click on 'Detail Accounts' to obtain:

And on 'Budget Journals' to see more information:

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Select 'Single Request'

You will need to enter the name of the request (report) you wish to run. Those available to

you can be seen by calling up a list of values. (The most useful reports all begin with UCL, so

you could limit the list by entering UCL% in the 'Find' box).

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UCL Balances Report. This report is one which has been specially written for UCL use. It is

like the hard copy balances report which is sent out each month. The only difference is in the

formatting of the report. The advantage of running this report on-line is that it can be run at

any time and will give the latest balances available (and not just the balance at the previous

month-end).

UCL Transaction Report. Also specially written for UCL and similar to the hard copy

report but can be run on-line. There are system performance problems with this report which

mean that if the report is run for multiple periods it may take a while to run (times of 35 to 40

minutes are not uncommon). In order to prevent users clogging up the entire system by

running several such requests at once, any multiple period transaction report request will be

placed in a queue so that only one such request is ever running at one time. As the system

performance problem is dependent on the number of periods selected, a separate request has

been created to allow users to run this report for a single period only. These requests do not

go into a queue.

Note Both the balances and the transaction reports can only be run for one financial year at a

time. You cannot run a report covering more than one financial year.

UCL General Ledger and UCL Account Analysis reports are both Oracle standard reports.

The UCL prefix simply means that they have been adapted to work in connection with the

'Security Rules' that limit the codes to which users can have access. As such the reports are

less useful than the customised reports (above). The 'Account Analysis' report shows

transactions going through an account for any given period. It is considerably faster to run

than the UCL transactions report but that is because it is retrieving less data. The 'General

Ledger' report contains similar transactional data to the Account Analysis report but also

shows opening and closing balances. Please note that these two reports can only report on one

balance type at a time. Separate reports have to be run to show budget, encumbrance and

actual amounts.

Entering Account Parameters

Unlike account enquiries where you can leave certain account parameter fields unfilled, when

you are listing account parameters for reports you must fill in all fields of the parameter box.

Wildcards ('%' in Oracle) cannot be used here. You must enter account segments in the form

of 'low' and 'high' values.

e.g.:

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UCL List of Accounts


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This report lists all accounts to which a user has access under their relevant security rule. It

shows the account code, account description, default source code and default unit code.

Running and Printing reports

The example below shows the running and printing of the UCL Balance report for account

CL60. The parameters are selected:

Click on 'OK'.

Click on 'Submit Request'

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The request screen appears as below:

Clicking (not too frequently) on 'Refresh' will indicate the status of the request.

Once the request is completed, you can print the output. However, you are strongly advised

to 'View Output' first to check the length of the report. (Selecting this will enable you to

view the report via your web browser).

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Provided your printer has been registered to print from NewFIS, you can print out your report

by clicking on 'Special' on the toolbar and selecting 'Reprint' and specifying the no. of copies

required, the printer to use and the page format.e.g.:

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A guide to understanding the balances report

Please note that the balances report incorporates all three types of balance.

The first three columns show budget balances. 'Budget b/fwd' shows the unspent budget

brought forward from the previous year. 'Budget For Year' shows the budget allocation for theyear and 'Amount Available' shows the total budget available.

The next three columns (columns 4 to 6) show actualbalances. 'To Date b/fwd' shows the net

income/expenditure balance at the beginning of the period specified in the date parameters.

'For Month' shows the net income/expenditure movement for the period(s) specified in the

date parameters. 'To Date c/fwd' shows the net income/expenditure balance at the end of the

period specified in the date parameters.

The 7th

column 'Outstanding Commitments to date' shows the encumbrancebalance at the

end of the period specified in the date parameters.

'Balance Available' is the sum of the budget available minus net expenditure minus

outstanding commitments

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Appendix I Getting Help

At any point during your work, it is possible to access Help pages related to the work you aredoing. Click on the Help menu and select Window Help. Your web browser will open and

display the Help pages which are related to the Window which was open. If this page does not

answer the queries you have, try clicking on the Contents or Index links at the top of the

screen.

If you wish to read all of the pages for a particular subject, use the Next and Previous links to

navigate through the topic.

If you are confused by any of the jargon used by Oracle, either on the Help pages or in the

Oracle Financials application itself, try looking for the word in the Glossary. Note: this

Glossary does not provide details of the differences between American and English

Accountancy terms, and is not a fully comprehensive list.

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Contents

Link: Displaysthe contentslist for the

pages relatedto the windowwhich was

Index Link:Displays thefull Index ofHelp Pages

Click on thelinks to take

you to therelevantpage


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Appendix II - The Toolbar

Status Bar provides information about

your actions and brief error messages

Navigate To... --open the Navigator

window.

Zoom --invoke a custom-defined Zoom.

Save --save any pending changes in the

current form.

Save and Proceed --save any pending

changes and prepare the form for the entry

of the next record.

Print... --print the current screen or in

special cases, display a list of reports to

print.

Clear Form --clear all pending changes in

the current form. Clears all child windows

but does not close them.

Switch Between Summary & Detail --

switch between the summary and detail

view of the current record.

Find... --open Query Find window to

select records.

New Record --create a new record.

Delete Record --delete the current record

from the database.

Clear Record --clear the current record

from the window.

Folder Tools --open the Folder tool

palette.

Translations... --open the Translations

window.

Attachments... --open the Attachments

window to update or view the current

attachment or add a new attachment.

or

No Attachments --open the Attachments

window to create a new attachment.

List of Values/Pick List... --show the list

of values for the current field.

Edit Field... --open the Editor window for

the current field.

Window Help--open help for the current

window.

Switch Responsibility... --display the

Responsibilities window only displayed

when the Navigator window is active.

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Appendix III Keyboard Shortcuts

To get a list of Keyboard Shortcuts while using Oracle Applications, click on the Help menu

and choose Keyboard Help

Block Menu Ctrl & B Function 5 Shift & Ctrl & F5

Clear Block F7 Function 6 Shift & Ctrl & F6

Clear Field F5 Function 7 Shift & Ctrl & F7

Clear Form F8 Function 8 Shift & Ctrl & F8

Clear Record F6 Function 9 Shift & Ctrl & F9

Commit Ctrl & S Insert Record Ctrl & Down

Copy Ctrl & C List of Values (Pick List) Ctrl & L

Count Query F12 Next Block Shift & PageDown

Cut Ctrl & X Next Field Tab

Delete Record Ctrl & Up Next Primary Key Shift & F7

Display Error Shift & Ctrl & E Next record Down

Down Down Next Set of Records Shift & F8

Duplicate Field Shift & F5 Paste Ctrl & V

Duplicate Record Shift & F6 Previous Block Shift & PageUp

Edit Ctrl & E Previous Field Shift & Tab

Enter Query F11 Previous Record Up

Execute Query Ctrl & F11 Print Ctrl & P

Exit F4 Return Return

Function 0 Shift & Ctrl & F10 Scroll Down PageDown

Function 1 Shift & Ctrl & F1 Scroll Up PageUp

Function 2 Shift & Ctrl & F2 Show Keyboard Shortcuts Ctrl & K

Function 3 Shift & Ctrl & F3 Up Up

Function 4 Shift & Ctrl & F4 Update Record Ctrl & U

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