Oracle White Paper

Recurring Journals in Oracle Fusion

General Ledger - Calculation Manager
Abhijit Dhakephalkar

Oracle Fusion General Ledger Product Management Team

Disclaimer
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information
purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any
material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The
development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracles products
remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

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Contents
Executive Overview ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Oracle Essbase .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Allocation Manager ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Recurring Journals......................................................................................................................................... 5
Skeleton Journal Entries:....................................................................................................................... 5
Standard Recurring Journal Entries....................................................................................................... 5
Recurring Journal Formula Entries ........................................................................................................ 5
Case Study 1: Recurring Formula Rule .................................................................................................. 6
Assumptions .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Goal ....................................................................................................................................................... 6
Configuration ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Run-Time Prompt Variable ..................................................................................................................... 12
Rule Set ................................................................................................................................................... 14
Generate Allocation ............................................................................................................................ 16

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Executive Overview
Oracle Fusion Applications are next generation applications that provide a new standard for innovation,
work, and adoption. Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) plays a strong role in this
strategy by integrating analytics into key operational processes. Oracle Enterprise Performance
Management (EPM) is a complete, open, and integrated suite of applications and tools that help
organizations gain better insight, make enhanced decisions, and drive superior results. Oracle EPM
technology is embedded throughout Oracle Fusion Applications. This includes the Allocation Manager
that leverages Oracle Essbase, the industry-leading multidimensional analysis engine.

Introduction
In Oracle Fusion Applications, the Allocation Manager is used for allocations and formula recurring
journals to provide a solution that improves usability and performance. The Allocation Manager
provides an allocation wizard that is easy to understand, and formula components that provide
functionality for recurring journal formulas using the features of Oracle Essbase. The Allocation Manager
also provides rule set functionality that allows users to group different rules and generate allocations.
The Allocation Manager is a powerful tool that provides flexibility, automation, intelligence, and control
in distributing costs and revenues across the enterprise.

Oracle Essbase
Oracle Essbase is seamlessly embedded within Oracle Fusion General Ledger and provides
multidimensional balances cubes. Every time a transaction or journal is posted in Oracle Fusion General
Ledger, the balances cubes are updated at the same time.

Figure 1. Allocations flow

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Balances are stored in cubes by dimensions. Example dimensions include the following:

Accounting Periods

Ledgers and Ledger Sets

Dimensions for the Chart of Account Segments

Scenario (Actual, Allocated, Total for Allocations, Budget)

Balance Amount (Beginning Balance, Period Activity, Ending Balance)

Amount Type (PTD, QTD, YTD)

Currency

Currency Type

Users can perform account analysis by pivoting on dimensions either online or through the Smart View
add-in to Microsoft Excel. Balances are also preaggregated in a balances cube at every level of
dimension and account hierarchy for rapid analysis. Preaggregation in a balances cube improves
performance.

Allocation Manager
The Allocation Manager is used to create allocation and other formulaic journal templates for
generating periodic journal entries automatically. Allocations are defined and generated on top of the
preaggregated balances in the balances cubes and provides the following benefits:

Immediate real-time access to financial balances for allocations.

Accelerated performance with highly scalable allocations.

Allocation components include run-time variables, rules, formulas, and rule sets. These components are
stored in Oracle Essbase. The Allocation Manager provides the following features:

Distributes revenues or costs with recursive allocation rules.

Creates complex formula rules using formula component.

Contains an Allocation Wizard to define allocation and formula rules.

Uses real-time check of rule definitions to validate correctness of rules.

Minimizes setup and maintenance with reusable components.

Simplifies allocation generation process by integrating with Enterprise Scheduler Service (ESS).

Groups rules together in rule sets to cascade allocations for processing efficiencies.

Creates primary, statistical, or foreign currency allocation and formula rules.

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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, actual amounts, statistics, and
period-to-date or year-to-date balances from the current period, prior period, or same period last year.
When you use account balances in your formulas, you can retrieve total balances, entered currency
balances, or statistical balances. You can quickly create new recurring formulas by copying and
modifying existing formulas. You can define single ledger or multiple ledger recurring journal formula
batches. For the multiple ledger recurring journals, you can create a recurring journal formula batch that
contains recurring journal entries for different ledgers. You can define recurring journal formulas for
your ledger currencies, entered currencies, and statistical currency.
Three Types of Journal Entries
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 for statistical information when 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.
In Oracle Fusion use the ADFdi Journal Entry Feature to address the requirement of Skeleton
Recurring Journal Entries. You can download the spreadsheet template once and create the
skeleton journal entry as per your requirement. Every period you can enter the amount for the
journal lines already available in the template and submit the batch. The recurring journal batch
will be created and posted automatically based on your selection.
Standard Recurring Journal Entries: Standard recurring journal entries use the same accounts and
amounts each period.
In Oracle Fusion use the ADFdi Journal Entry Feature to address the requirement of Standard
Recurring Journal Entries. You can download the spreadsheet template once and create standard
journal entry as per your requirement. Every period you can submit the batch. The recurring
journal batch is created and posted automatically based on your selection.

Recurring Journal Formula Entries: Formula entries use formulas to calculate journal amounts that
vary from period to period.

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In Oracle Fusion you can define the formula recurring journals using the Allocation Manager and
the formula component in it.
This white paper discusses and demonstrates recurring journals and how to define, generate, and
schedule formula recurring journals. You can schedule recurring journals to be created automatically
every period using the following features:

Run-Time Prompt Variable

Define Formula Rule

Define Rule Set

Generate Allocations

Schedule Allocations

The demonstration assumes the user has a role that can access the Journals work area in Oracle Fusion
General Ledger and a duty that can access the Create Allocation Rules task.
Case Study 1: Recurring Formula Rule
Assumptions
The chart of accounts includes segments for company, department, account, sub-account, and
product.

Account 1210 is the trade receivables account.

The PTD period activity in account 1210 is 100,000 USD.

Goal
The goal is to create every month an allowance for bad debt based on 5% of the PTD period activity
in the trade receivables account.

Account 7730 is the bad debt expense account. Use account 1260 for the allowance for bad debt
account.

A formula rule needs to be defined to generate the following journal entry for period Apr-15 and
for each month after Apr-15.

DR 01.000.7730.0000.000

CR 01.000.1260.0000.000

5,000 USD
5,000 USD

Configuration
To create a formula rule to achieve the above goal, execute the following steps:
1. Navigate to Journals work area > Tasks.

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2. Click Create Allocation Rules. When the Allocation Manager opens in a new browser window, a
balances cube is highlighted based on the current data access set selected in the Journals work
area.
3. Expand the cube.
4. Select db, right click on the row, and select New.
5. Enter a rule name.
6. Click OK. The Rule Designer opens in a new tab.
7. Under New Objects, click, hold, and drag the Point of View object. Place it between the Begin
and End nodes in the Rule Designer.
8. Enter a caption.
9. Enter a variable dimension value.
10. Click in the Value field for Accounting Period.
11. Click Actions.
12. Select Variable.
13. Under Category, select Database.
14. Click Accounting_Period.
15. Click OK.
16. Enter the other member dimension values.
17. Click in the Value field for another dimension.
18. Click the Actions icon.
19. Select Member.
20. Select a member.
21. Click on the blue select arrow pointing right.
22. Click OK.
23. Repeat for all dimensions to include in the Point of View.
Note: In this scenario, the fixed dimension values are:

Ledger = Vision Operations (USA)

Company = 01

Department = 000

Sub-Account = 0000

Product dimension = 000

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Currency = USD

Currency Type = Total

24. Under New Objects, click, hold, and drag the Formula component.
25. Place it between the Point of View nodes in the Rule Designer.
26. Enter a caption.

Figure 1. Add Formula

27. Enter the Offset member.
28. Click Next.
Note: In this scenario, the offset is defined as account 1260, the allowance for bad debt. The offset is
child combination 01.000.1260.0000.000 when combined with the fixed member dimension values
in the Point of View.
29. Enter the formula member dimension value.
Note: In this scenario, if the formula member dimension value is defined as account 7730, the bad
debt expense is charged to child combination 01.000.7730.0000.000 when combined with the fixed
member dimension values in the Point of View.

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Figure 2. Define Offset and Formula Members

30. Click the formula field icon.
31. Select Member.

Figure 3. Define Formula

32. Select the Account dimension value, highlight the row, and click on the blue select value
pointing right.
Note: In this scenario, the goal is to calculate an allowance for bad debt based on the PTD period
activity in trade receivables account 1210. Trade receivable is child combination
01.000.1210.0000.000 when combined with the fixed member dimension values in the Point of
View.

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Figure 4. Define Formula Members

33. Repeat for the other formula member values.
34. Click OK after all formula members are selected.
Note: In this scenario, the following dimension values are selected and mandatory for the source in
a formula component.

Scenario = Actual

Balance Amount = Period Activity

Amount Type = PTD

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Figure 5. Define Formula Members (continued)

35. Multiply the formula expression by .05.

Figure 6. Define Formula Calculation

36. Click Save.
37. Click the Validate and Deploy.

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Run-Time Prompt Variable

Before defining a rule, the user can define a run-time prompt (RTP) variable. An RTP variable is an
optional component of a rule. When the user generates an allocation based on a rule with an RTP
variable, the user is prompted at run-time to specify a dimension member for which an RTP has been
defined to use in the allocation calculation. An example of an RTP variable is Accounting_Period that
prompts the user to specify what period to use in the allocation calculation. An RTP variable can be
created once and added to multiple rules.
To create an RTP variable, execute the following steps:
1. Navigate to Journals work area > Tasks.
2. Click Create Allocation Rules.

Figure 1. Create Allocation Rules

Once the Allocation Manager opens in a new browser window, a cube will be highlighted based on
the current data access set selected in the Journals work area.
3. Select Tools menu > Variables to define the run time prompt.

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Figure 2. Allocation Manager

4. Expand the cube.
5. Select db, right click on the row, and select New. The Variable Designer opens in a new tab.

Figure 3.Define New RTP Variable

6. Enter the variable header and value information.
Note: A default value must be entered and the variable name cannot contain any spaces.
Variable Header Information
Name

Accounting_Period

Type

Member

Variable Value Information

Dimension

AccountingPeriod

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Default
Value

Apr-11

RTP

<checked>

RTP Text

Enter Accounting
Period

Figure 4. Define RTP Variable Header and Value Information

7. Click Save. The RTP variable is ready for use.

Rule Set
Rule Sets can be created by combining two or more related rules so that they are launched sequentially.
To create a rule set, execute the following steps:
1. Navigate to the Journals work area.
2. Click on Create Allocation Rules under Tasks.
3. Once the Allocation Manager opens in a new browser window, expand to Rule Sets under the
highlighted cube, highlight the row, right click on the row, and select New from the menu.

Figure 1. Define New Allocation Rule Set

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4. Enter the rule set name and click on OK button.

5. The Ruleset Designer opens in a new tab. Expand to the db under the cube for which the rule set
will be created, expand the rules, and drag desired rules under the rule set.

Figure 2: Add Rules to Rule Set

6. Click on the row for the rule set, click on the Variables tab, and check on Merge Variables.
Note: Merge Variables means that common variables among all of the rules in the rule set are merged
so that the user only has to select the run-time prompt value once when submitting the Generate
Allocations process.

Figure 3: Add Rules to Rule Set

7. Click on the Save icon
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8. Click on the Validate and Deploy icon.

Generate Allocation
To generate allocation journal entries for the above case studies, perform the following steps:
1. Navigate to Journal work area > Tasks.
2. Click on Generate Allocations.

Figure 4. Generate Allocations

3. Select a rule or rule se.
4. Enter any run-time prompt values.

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Figure 5. Generate Allocation Parameters

5. Uncheck the Post Allocations checkbox if you are not automatically posting the generated
allocations.
6. Click Submit.
7. Generate Allocations process submits four processes consecutively that:
8. Calculate the allocation.
9. Write back the results to the GL_INTERFACE table
10. Import the journal batches.
11. Post the journal batch to Oracle Fusion General Ledger.

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Figure 6. Generate Allocation Processes

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Environment Strategy: Production, Test,

Development

Copyright 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

January 2016

This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This
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prior written permission.

Author: Abhijit Dhakephalkar

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