UPDATE GENERAL LEDGER BEGINNING BALANCES

Use the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances process to update the beginning balances in the general ledger for a specific fiscal year. You can always generate the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report before you run the process so you can preview the results before you actually update the tables. The process updates beginning balances for all types of account/organization combinations. It also updates balances for account/reference number combinations if you use reference numbers for data entry.

In addition, you can have the process change the status of the fiscal year to C (Closed). If a fiscal year is closed, no data entry is allowed for that year. Note, however, that you can change the status of a fiscal year from Closed back to Open on the Manage Fiscal Years screen, if necessary.

If you are going to close the fiscal year, you must also select either Actual or Target in Closing Rate Type. After you run the update process, that information is then available on the Manage Fiscal Years screen. Costpoint uses the closing rate type written when you run the Update Prior Year History process to create project history.

Because the update process can significantly affect your financial reports, you should generate the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report and retain it as part of the system audit trail. You must generate the report before you actually update the data tables. For proper review and possible corrections, you can always generate this report without starting the update process.

The Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report provides a current listing of the beginning balances before the update occurs, the changes to be applied to the beginning balances, and the new beginning balances that will result when the update is processed. You can sort the report by account or organization, and you can generate it for all balances or for changed balances only. The report automatically includes project and reference number data, as applicable.

You must generate the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report in the same session in which you run the update process. The printing status of the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report for the current session automatically displays in the Report Status group box as "Report Not Printed" or "Report Printed."

Run the update process as part of the normal closing procedures at the completion of a fiscal year, after the bulk of the year-end adjustments have been made. You can run this process as often as necessary. You should also run it whenever you make an adjustment to a prior fiscal year.

If you make an adjustment in a fiscal year prior to the current fiscal year, you must run the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances process for each subsequent fiscal year in sequential order to ensure that the general ledger beginning balances for the current fiscal year are updated correctly. For example, if you make a journal entry for fiscal year 2009 and your current fiscal year is 2011, run the process for fiscal year 2009 and then for fiscal year 2010.

Complete the update process successfully before creating project history in the Update Project Prior Year History screen.

If you want the update process to close the fiscal year, you must first close all periods in the fiscal year by running the Close Periods process.

You must specify the retained earnings account on the Configure General Ledger Settings screen before you begin the update process. You must also link the retained earnings account at the balance sheet level for each active organization, and the account itself must be active. (You specify balance sheet levels on the Manage Organization Structures screen). Costpoint does not validate that the date ranges of the retained earnings account match the dates of the fiscal year.

Location

Identification

Use the fields in this block to create a new parameter ID or to retrieve a previously saved parameter ID. A parameter ID represents a set of screen selection parameters. After you have saved a parameter ID and its related parameters, you can retrieve them using Query.

You can use the retrieved parameters to produce reports and run processes more efficiently and with greater consistency. The saved parameters are also useful and necessary when you want to run the process as part of a batch job. Many users save a unique set of parameters for each different way they run a report or process. When you select a previously saved parameter ID or parameter description, the associated saved screen selection parameters automatically display as selection defaults. The page setup and print options are also included in the saved parameter ID if there are any. You can change any of the associated selection defaults as necessary.

Parameter ID

Enter, or click to select, a parameter ID of up to 15 alphanumeric characters. Choose characters for your parameter ID that help identify the type of selections you made in the screen, such as PERIOD or QUARTERLY.

When you save your record, all the selections made in the screen are stored with the parameter ID. Later, you can retrieve the parameter using Query.

You can use the parameter to run the process more efficiently because you can select the parameter ID with its previously defined screen selections. After the default selections display in the screen, you can override the defaults.

Description

Enter, or click to select, a parameter description of up to 30 alphanumeric characters.

Selection Ranges

Fiscal Year

Enter the fiscal year from which you need to bring forward ending balances, or use Lookup to select it. You can only enter open fiscal years.

Fiscal Year to be Updated

This non-editable field displays the fiscal year for which Costpoint will update the beginning balances. That fiscal year is the next year in the sequence of fiscal years established on the Manage Fiscal Years screen. Confirm that this year is correct before you run the update process.

For example, if the 2009 fiscal year just ended and you want to update beginning balances for the 2010 fiscal year, you enter 2009 in Fiscal Year, and Costpoint displays 2010 in Fiscal Year to be Updated, assuming that 2010 is the next fiscal year sequentially on the Manage Fiscal Years screen.

Options

Print Options

Print Subtotals

Select this check box to display subtotals on the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances Report.

Show

Changed Balances Only, All Balances

Select either All Balances or Changed Balances Only to indicate if you want the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report to display all balances or only balances that have changed.

Set Fiscal Year Status to Closed

Select this check box if you want the update process to set the status of the fiscal year to Closed.

To close the fiscal year using the update process, you must close all periods for the selected fiscal year before you run the process.

You cannot enter data in closed fiscal years. Note, however, that you can change the status of a fiscal year from Closed back to Open on the Manage Fiscal Years screen, if necessary.

Closing Rate Type

If you select Set Fiscal Year Status to Closed, select the closing rate type for the carry-forward of project indirect burden for the fiscal year from which you need to bring forward ending balances. The options are Target and Actual. (Note that you must always update the general ledger beginning balances using this process before you can update prior year history for projects in the Update Project Prior Year History screen.)

Costpoint stores target and actual indirect rates for each fiscal year in the Projects folder, and it stores indirect burden amounts project. When you run the Update Project Prior Year History process to create this history, Costpoint uses the closing rate type for the fiscal year. (Open fiscal years do not have a closing rate type assigned.)

If you do not select Set Fiscal Year Status to Closed, this field is not available.

Sort By

1st Sort

Select the primary sort for the report from the drop-down list: Account or Organization.

Update Beginning Balances

Costpoint displays a message that asks you to confirm that you want to run the update process. If you select OK, Costpoint generates the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report and then runs the update process.

When the update process starts, a DO NOT INTERRUPT message displays, along with a counter that indicates the number of records processed.

Additional Processing Information

When you post system journals, Costpoint stores the resulting data in several key tables. That data provides the basis for financial statements and other reports and inquiries that present posted data at both summary and detail levels. The discussion below is a high-level overview of the general processes involved in updating the general ledger beginning balances.

During posting, Costpoint collects transactions from the journals, assigns them unique sequence numbers, and stores them, as appropriate, in the following key tables:         

Transaction Posting Detail (GL_DETL)

This table holds detail information for each transaction posted to the general ledger. As an example, Costpoint stores each line from an AP voucher as an individual row in this table. Detail information appropriate to the posting source, such as the check number, invoice number, timesheet date, and so on, is retained in this table. Account/organization/project data and beginning balance information are not stored in this table. However, reference number detail data is stored in this table.

Transaction Posting Summary (GL_POST_SUM)

Costpoint stores summary information in this table when you post to the general ledger. Costpoint accumulates data from the Transaction Posting Detail table for each unique combination of account, organization, project, fiscal year, period, subperiod, journal type, and journal sequence number and saves that summary information in this table. Detail information, such as check number or purchase order number, is not stored in this table.

Costpoint stores beginning balance information in this table (Journal Code = BEG, Pd = 0, and Subpd = 0) when you enter beginning balances for your first fiscal year during initialization. After initialization, Costpoint updates the beginning balances in this table when you run the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances process.

Financial Statement Summary Account Balances (FS_SUM)

This table also contains summary information but at a higher level than the Transaction Posting Summary table. When you post to the general ledger, Costpoint accumulates data from the Transaction Posting Detail table for each unique combination of account and organization and stores it in this table incrementally for each accounting period (for each fiscal year). Each additional posting for an account/organization combination changes the stored period total, regardless of the journal source.

Reference Summary (REF_SUM)

If you use reference numbers during data entry, this table, which stores reference number data, is updated in the same manner as the Financial Statement Summary Account Balances table. When you post to the general ledger, Costpoint accumulates data from the Transaction Posting Detail table for each unique combination of account and reference number and stores it in this table incrementally for each accounting period (for each fiscal year). Each additional posting for account/reference number combination changes the stored period total, regardless of the journal source.

Accounts and Organizations

Although it is not specifically detailed in the process descriptions that follow, Costpoint brings forward beginning balances for both currency amounts and hours from the selected fiscal year to the next fiscal year. However, the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report does not include hours data.

When you generate the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report, the following occurs:

  1. Costpoint summarizes the amounts (and hours) from the Transaction Posting Summary table for the fiscal year to be updated . Amounts are flagged in this table with Journal Code = BEG, Pd = 0, and Subpd = 0. This data provides the old balances from the fiscal year to be updated. (Note that there might not be prior balances for some or all accounts.)

  2.  Costpoint creates worktables in which to store preliminary data.

  3. Costpoint summarizes amounts for income and expense accounts for the selected fiscal year from the Financial Statement Summary Account Balances table. The summarization occurs at the balance sheet level specified for each organization (as specified in the Balance Sheet Level field of the Manage Organization Structures screen) for account types I, E, and N. The summarized amounts provide the amounts needed to adjust the retained earnings accounts. If charges were made to income, expense, and non-labor accounts for organizations above the balance sheet level, the retained earnings amount summary does not include these amounts. Hours are not summarized for I, E, and N account types.

  4. Costpoint summarizes ending balances for the balance sheet accounts by account/organization/project for the selected fiscal year from the Transaction Posting Summary table. This summarization occurs for account types A, L, and S.

  5. Costpoint adds the retained earnings amounts calculated in step 3 to the previously computed ending balances by organization, as applicable. (The retained earnings account is specified in the Account field in the Retained Earnings Info group box of the Configure General Ledger Settings screen.)

  6. Costpoint generates the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report from data in the worktables. The report displays previous balances, new balances, and changes. Special report pages for project/organization/account information and/or account/reference number information are included also.

When the update process runs, the following occurs:

  1. For the selected fiscal year, Costpoint sets beginning balance amounts to zero in the Transaction Posting Summary table.

  2. For the fiscal year to be updated, Costpoint creates new beginning balance records for the new hours and amounts (computed for the worktables) in the Transaction Posting Summary table.

  3. For the fiscal year to be updated, Costpoint either creates new beginning balance records for the new hours and amounts OR updates existing beginning balance records in the Financial Statement Summary Account Balances table. This data is summarized by account and organization and is stored in the Beg Amt and Beg Hrs fields of this table.

The table row is not overwritten during this phase of the procedure.

Reference Numbers

If you use reference numbers for data entry, the following additional steps take place. Costpoint the following general steps before starting the update:

  1. Costpoint summarizes the amounts (and hours) from the Reference Summary table for the fiscal year to be updated . Amounts are flagged in this table with Journal Code = BEG, Pd = 0, and Subpd = 0. This data provides the old balances from the fiscal year to be updated. (Note that there might not be prior balances for some or all accounts.)

  2.  Costpoint creates worktables in which to store preliminary data.

  3. Costpoint summarizes amounts for income and expense accounts for the selected fiscal year from the Reference Summary table. The summarization occurs at the transaction level for each account by reference number for account types I, E, and N. The summarized amounts provide the amounts needed to adjust the retained earnings accounts/reference number. Hours are not summarized for I, E, and N account types.

  4. Costpoint summarizes ending balances for the balance sheet accounts by account/reference number for the selected fiscal year from the Reference Summary table. This summarization occurs for account types A, L, and S.

  5. Costpoint adds the retained earnings amounts calculated in step 3 to the previously computed ending balances by account/reference number, as applicable. (The retained earnings account is specified in the Account field in the Retained Earnings Info group box of the Configure General Ledger Settings screen.)

  6. Costpoint generates the Update General Ledger Beginning Balances report from data in the worktables. The report displays previous balances, new balances, and changes. Special report pages for account/reference number information are included also.

When the update process runs, Costpoint either creates new beginning balance records for the new hours and amounts or updates existing beginning balance records in the Reference Summary table. This data is summarized by account and reference number and is stored in the Beg Amt and Beg Hrs fields of this table.

The table row is not overwritten during this phase of the procedure.