Recurring Journals

• Define recurring journal formulas for transactions that you repeat every accounting period, such as accruals, depreciation charges, and allocations. Your formulas can be simple or complex. Each formula can use fixed amounts and/or account balances, including standard, end–of–day, or average balances, actual or budget amounts, statistics, and period–to–date or year–to–date balances from the current period, prior period, or same period last year.
• You can quickly create new recurring formulas by copying and modifying existing formulas.
• You can define recurring journal formulas for your functional currency, foreign currencies which have a fixed relationship with your functional currency, and statistical currency.
• You can use recurring journals to create three types of journal entries:

1. Skeleton Journal Entries: Skeleton entries affect the same accounts each period, but have different posting amounts. After you generate skeleton journal entries, you can edit the unposted journal batch using the Enter Journals form and enter the journal line amounts.
   Skeleton journal entries are useful with statistical information whenever you want to record journals for actual transactions based on statistical amounts, such as headcount, units sold, inflation rates, or other growth factors. For example, if you want
   to enter headcount for each cost center every period, you can define a skeleton entry with your headcount accounts. After you generate the skeleton entries, enter the actual headcount amounts before posting the batch.
2. Standard Recurring Journal Entries: Standard recurring journal entries use the same accounts and amounts each period.
3. Recurring Journal Formula Entries: Formula entries use formulas to calculate journal amounts that vary from period to period.

Creating Recurring Journal Formula Batches : To define a recurring journal formula entry, you must create a recurring journal formula batch. Your batch can contain a single recurring journal entry definition, or you can group related recurring journals into the same batch.

To create a recurring journal batch:
1. Navigate to the Define Recurring Journal Formula window.
2. Enter a Name and optional Description for the recurring journal batch.
3. If you want to copy entries from an existing recurring journal batch to your new batch, choose AutoCopy Batch.
4. Create recurring journal entries for the batch. If you copied entries, modify them, if necessary.
5. Save the work.
6. Generate recurring journals.
7. Review and post your generated recurring journal batches.

You can use Automatic Journal Scheduling to generate your recurring journals according to a specific shedule you define.

Creating Recurring Journal Entries: To create a recurring journal formula entry for a batch:
1. Navigate to the Define Recurring Journal Formula window.
2. Enter or query the batch name.
3. Enter a Name for the recurring journal entry.
4. Enter the Category.
5. Enter the Currency. You can choose STAT, your functional currency, or a foreign currency which has a fixed relationship to your functional currency.
6. Enter a range of Effective Dates that includes only those periods for which you want the recurring journal entry to be used.

[Recurring journal entries will only be created when you choose to generate them for a date that falls within the Effective Dates range.'

7. Choose Lines to enter the account you want General Ledger to update when you generate your recurring journals, as well as the formula to use.

Entering Recurring Journal Entry Lines: You can define an unlimited number of journal entry lines for each recurring journal entry. The journal entry lines specify the accounts to
update with the recurring journals. Each line also contains the amount to post to the designated account, or a formula to calculate the journal amounts.

To enter a recurring journal entry line:
1. Navigate to the Define Recurring Journal Formula window.
2. Enter or query the batch name and the journal entry name.
3. Choose Lines.
4. Enter a Line number to set the order of your recurring journal entry lines. You can indicate an automatic offsetting line for your recurring journal entry by entering the line number 9999.
5. Enter the Account you want General Ledger to update when you generate and post your recurring journals.
6. Enter an optional Line Description for the recurring entry line.
7. Enter a Formula for the line.
8. Enter the remaining lines for the recurring journal entry. Remember that you can use line number 9999 as the automatic offsetting line for each recurring journal entry.
9. Save your work.

To enter an automatic offsetting line: You can enter a recurring journal entry line and have General Ledger calculate and insert the balancing amount for the recurring journal
entry automatically. This is useful for allocation-type entries.
1. Enter one or more lines for the recurring journal entry.
2. Enter 9999 as the line number for the automatic offsetting line.
3. Enter an Account for the line but do not enter a formula. General Ledger will automatically calculate the amount for this journal entry line when you generate your recurring journal.
4. Save your work.

Entering Recurring Journal, Budget, and Eliminating Entry Formulas

• To enter a formula:
  1. Enter a Step number to specify the order in which you want to process the steps in your formula. Each formula can contain an unlimited number of steps.
  2. Enter a factor for the formula step. There are two types of factors
  you can use:
  • Enter a fixed Amount.
  • Specify an Account to use a balance in the formula calculation.
  You can use standard, end–of–day, or average balances in your formula lines.
  3. Specify the type of calculation you want to perform by entering a mathematical Operator for the formula step. The valid operators are based on EasyCalc – a General Ledger mathematical notation feature.
• To use an account balance in your formula:
  1. Enter the Account you want to include in your formula step. You can enter a summary account, but you cannot use accounts with parent values for which no summary account was created. General Ledger automatically maintains references to summary
  accounts in your formula lines even after the summary template which created the account is deleted and recreated.
  2. Choose a Balance Type of Actual or Budget. If you choose budget balances, you must specify the budget to use when you generate the recurring journal batch.
  3. Choose an Amount Type. Choose PTD to use the period–to–date balance of your account. Choose YTD to use year–to–date balances for income statement accounts and life–to–date totals for balance sheet accounts. If you have average balance processing enabled in your set of books, PATD (period average–to–date), YATD (year average–to–date), and EOD (end–of–day) will also appear in the Amount Type list of values.
  [You can mix standard and average amount types in the same recurring journal formula.]
  4. Choose a Currency Type of Monetary if the account balance is a currency account, or STAT if it is a statistical account.
  5. Choose the relative Period balance you want to use in your formula (Current Period, Same Period a Year Ago, or Previous Period). The relative period, combined with the amount type, determines the type of account balance your formula uses.

Amount Type -- Period -- Meaning
PTD -- Current Period -- Net activity of current period
YTD -- Current Period -- Ending balance of current period
PTD -- Previous Period -- Net activity of previous period
YTD -- Previous Period -- Ending balance of previous period
PTD -- Same Period as a Year Ago -- Net activity of year–ago period
YTD -- Same Period as a Year Ago -- Ending balance of year–ago period