This section guides the user through the menu options that are available under the Fiscal Close - GL submenu.
This section guides the user through the menu options that are available under the Fiscal Close menu.
Fiscal periods may be “closed”, meaning that payments and cancel payments can no longer be entered for the closed period. By closing fiscal periods, it will be easier to balance Circulation reports to the general ledger.
This option allows you to close a fiscal period for account payment-related activity for a company/bill source combination. The Close Period option on the Fiscal Close - Sub menu allows you to close a fiscal period for subscriber activity (see Close Period (Subscriber)). Closing a period is optional, but it will prevent the back-dating of account payments across fiscal periods. It functions similarly to the Subscriber Fiscal Close option.
The Close Period option affects the following account payment-related options in Circulation:
Batch Payments—When entering a batch of payments, if a payment is prior to the most recent fiscal close date, the following message will appear: “Enter date after fiscal period close of [date] for company [company ID] bill source [bill source ID]”.
Lockbox Payments—A message will appear on the processing report if a payment has a date prior to the fiscal close date.
Cancel Payments—If a cancel payment is entered with a date prior to the fiscal close date, they system will automatically change the date to one day after the fiscal close date.
Account Billing—A warning will be displayed if an account billing is selected for a company/bill source combination that has not been closed for the period.
Other options on the Fiscal Close - Carr menu are standard Accounting and Reporting options that have been duplicated here for convenience.
Note: Suspended and unprocessed batches will prevent you from closing the fiscal period.
Once a period is closed, payments and cancel payments can no longer be entered for the period.
Select Close Period from the Fiscal Close - Acct menu to display the Account Fiscal Close screen.
Select Add and complete the following fields.
COMPANY
setup
Enter the company ID.
BILL SOURCE
setup
Enter the bill source ID.
PREVIOUS DATE
display
The previous fiscal close date is displayed.
CLOSE DATE
date
Enter the fiscal period close date.
Select Continue to close the fiscal period.
Circulation’s GL Interface Journal can be used to enter Circulation GL transactions manually into the general ledger system. However, some sites prefer to interface GL information automatically, via an ASCII file. This option, Export GL, exports GL transactions to a file in the /dti/exchange/cm directory. This file contains information from all programs that interface to the GL, including Account Billing Close, Subscriber Payment Processing, and Unearned Revenue. Information is appended, not written over; therefore, when you read this file into your general ledger system you should remove it from /dti/exchange/cm. See Appendix B for the file format.
Transactions can be exported by Export GL as often as you wish, and for any date range. Once transactions are exported, the records are marked as posted in Circulation, so that they will not be exported again. A Business Rule— Should general ledger transactions with a zero amount be exported? (General section) determines whether GL transactions that have zero amounts are exported.
Export GL is located on the Fiscal Close - GL menu. The GL Interface Journal and Audit GL Journal are also duplicated here for convenience.
Select Export GL from the Fiscal Close - GL menu to display the Export GL window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
EXPORT TYPE
predefined
Indicate whether GL transactions should be exported for a batch or a date range.
UPDATE
yes/no
If this checkbox is selected (the default), then GL transactions are updated with “Posted = yes” and “PostedDate = today”. If you run Export GL with this checkbox unselected, GL transactions will not be updated. Field security determines who has access to this checkbox.
UNPOSTED ONLY
yes/no
If Update is selected, this checkbox is automatically selected and skipped.
BATCH NUMBER
setup
If exporting transactions for a batch, enter the GL batch number here. Note that this is the number of the GL batch, not the name of a batch entered by a user.
COMPANY
setup
Enter a company or “*” to multi-select.
JOURNAL
predefined
If exporting transactions for a date range, enter the journal code (type of transaction) to export, or enter “*” to export all journal codes. Press F2 for a lookup of all available journal codes.
START DATE, END DATE
date
If exporting transactions for a date range, enter the start and end date of the period that should be exported.
SUMMARIZE
yes/no
Select this checkbox if you want to produce a summary version of the GL Export. This creates an export file of the total debit and credit entries per GL account for the defined period.
BY DATE
yes/no
Select this checkbox to sort GL records by GL company ID, journal code, GL transaction date, and GL account ID.
FILE FORMAT
setup
Specify the file map to use for this export. The standard format is “GLExport” (which has a File Map usage that is also named “GLExport”). Note: In order for the file-mapped format to be used, the Business Rule, Which file format should be used for the general ledger export?, must be set to “DTI Standard.”
FILE NAME
open (12)
Enter the file name the GL transactions should be exported to the /dti/exchange/cm directory. The default file name is cmgltran.d
Click OK and then Continue to export the general ledger transactions.
The Audit GL Transactions option allows GL transaction information to be exported for auditing purposes. For example, if a discrepancy in balancing is found, this option could be used to export the GL transactions that were posted on a specific date or in a specific batch or have a specific journal code (or, more likely, a combination of criteria).
This option uses file mapping. The file map usage of “AuditGLTrans” is used, and the file is exported to the /dti/exchange/cm directory.
In Graphical Accounting, select Fiscal Close | Fiscal Close-GL | Audit GL Trans.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
AUDIT TYPE
predefined
Indicate whether GL Transactions or Source Transactions should be searched. Note:
Currently, only the GL Transactions option is supported. Note:
The Source Transactions option will require that the Business Rule, Should a link to the source transaction be created when creating general ledger transactions? (General section), is set to “Yes” to create a GL transaction link (i.e., source information) every time a transaction is written to GL. The default setting is “No,” but it must be changed to “Yes” before Circulation will begin accumulating this information.
ALL GL ACCOUNTS
GL ACCOUNT
yes/no
setup
Select All GL Accounts or indicate which GL accounts to include in the search.
ALL POSTED BATCHES
STARTING POSTED BATCH
ENDING POSTED BATCH
yes/no
setup
setup
Select All Posted Batches or enter a range of batch sequence numbers from which to search.
ALL POSTED DATES
STARTING POSTED DATE
ENDING POSTED DATE
yes/no
date
date
Select All Posted Dates or enter a range of posted dates from which to search. This is the date on which the GL transaction was posted.
ALL GL TRAN DATES
STARTING GL TRAN DATE
ENDING GL TRAN DATE
yes/no
date
date
Select All GL Tran Dates or enter a range of GL tran dates from which to search. This is the date on which the transaction was entered into the GL.
JOURNAL
predefined
Select the journal code (type of transaction) to export, or enter “*” and multi-select journal codes.
SORT BY
predefined
Indicate whether the export should sort by GL Account, Posted Batch, GL Source, or GL Tran Date.
FILE FORMAT
setup
Specify the file map to use for this export. The file mapping usage is “AuditGLTran.” The data elements that can be used with this type of file map are given below.
FILE NAME
open (12)
Enter the name of the file to be exported to the /dti/exchange/cm directory.
Click OK and then Continue to export the information.
Fiscal periods may be “closed”, meaning that subscriber payments, refunds and auto renews can no longer be entered for the closed period. By closing fiscal periods, it will be easier to balance Circulation reports to the general ledger. Running Fiscal Close is optional.
Payments, including payments entered in Customer Service and Batch Payments, as well as payments imported via lockbox or Telemarketing Import
Cancel payments and NSFs
Auto renews
Refunds and refund writeoffs
Grace owed transactions and grace writeoffs
In order to close a fiscal period, all payment and refund batches for the period must be accepted, and payment processing must be run up to the last day of the period.
Fiscal periods are closed using the Close Period option, located on the Fiscal Close - Sub menu. Other than Close Period and Holding Acct Setup, the options on this menu are standard options duplicated here for convenience.
Once a period is closed, payments, auto renews, refunds and grace owed cannot be entered for the period.
Select Close Period from the Fiscal Close - Sub menu to display the Fiscal Close Date window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
PRODUCT
setup
Enter the product ID for which you are closing the fiscal period, or enter “*” and multi-select products.
PREVIOUS DATE
display
The last fiscal close date is displayed here.
CLOSE DATE
date
Enter the last date of the fiscal period that you are closing. Note that this date is not validated against the fiscal calendar.
CHANGE TRAN DATES
yes/no
Select this checkbox if you want to change the transaction date on all unprocessed payment transactions to the fiscal close date entered, plus one day.
Click OK and then Continue to close the fiscal period. Once the fiscal period is closed, payments, refunds, etc. can no longer be entered for that period.
