What is General Ledger?

The Oracle General Ledger is the central repository of accounting information.

The main purpose of a general ledger system is to record financial activity of
a company and to produce financial and management reports to help people
inside and outside the organization make decisions.
General Ledger Accounting Cycle:
1. Open period
2. Create/reverse journal entries
3. Post
4. Review
5. Revalue
6. Translate
7. Consolidate
8. Review/correct balances
9. Run accounting reports
10.Close accounting period
What are Set of Books?
A set of books determines the functional currency, account structure, and
accounting calendar for each company or group of companies. It is replaced
by the Ledger Sets in R12.
Set of Books consists of the following Three elements
Chart of Accounts: COA can be designed to match the Organizational
Structure and dimensions of the business.
Currency: GL enables to define one currency as Functional Currency
and use other currencies for transactions.
Calendar: Calendar has to be defined to control the accounting year
and its periods.
What is ledger?
Ledger is replaced with set of books in R12 ,determines determines the
functional currency, account structure, accounting calendar and accounting
convention for each company or group of companies. It is replaced by the
Ledger Sets in R12.
Set of Books consists of the following three elements
Chart of Accounts: COA can be designed to match the Organizational
Structure and dimensions of the business.
Currency: GL enables to define one currency as Functional Currency
and use other currencies for transactions.
Calendar: Calendar has to be defined to control the accounting year
and its periods.
Accounting Convention: this one has to defined to control the
accounting method.
Types of Journal Entries:
Within Oracle General Ledger, you can work with the following types of
journal entries:
Manual Journal Entries
The basic journal entry type is used for most accounting transactions.
Examples include adjustments and reclassifications.
Reversing Journal Entries
Reversing journal entries are created by reversing an existing journal entry.
You can reverse any journal entry and post it to the current or any future
open accounting period.
Recurring Journal Entries
Recurring journal entries are defined once, then are repeated for each
subsequent accounting period you generate. You can use recurring journal

entries to define automatic consolidating and eliminating entries. Examples

include intercompany debt, bad debt expense, and periodic accruals.
Mass Allocations
Mass Allocations are journal entries that utilize a single journal entry formula
to allocate balances across a group of cost centers, departments, divisions or
other segments. Examples include rent expense allocated by headcount or
administrative costs allocated by machine labor hours.
Foreign Currency Concepts:
The three key foreign currency concepts in Oracle General Ledger are:
Conversion
Conversion refers to foreign currency transactions that are immediately
converted at the time of entry to the functional currency of the set of books
in which the transaction takes place.
Revaluation
Revaluation adjusts liability or asset accounts that may be materially
understated or overstated at the end of a period due to a fluctuation in the
exchange rate between the time the transaction was entered and the end of
the period.
Translation
Translation refers to the act of restating an entire set of books or balances for
a company from the functional currency to a foreign currency.
What are Financial Statement Generator Reports (FSG)?
Oracle General Ledgers Financial Statement Generator (FSG) is a powerful
and flexible tool you can use to build your own custom reports without
programming. You can define custom financial reports, such as income
statements and balance sheets, online with complete control over the rows,
columns, and content of your report. You can control account assignments,
headings, descriptions, format, and calculations in addition to the actual
content. The reusable report components make building reports quick and
easy. You can copy a report component from one report, make minor edits,
then apply the report component to a new report without having to create a
new report from scratch.
What is Applications Desktop Integrator(ADI)?
Applications Desktop Integrator combines the power of Oracle General
Ledger journal entry, budgeting, and report creation, submission, publishing,
and analysis within an Excel spreadsheet environment.
Journal Components:
Every journal entry in Oracle General Ledger has three components.
Every journal entry belongs to a batch. You create a batch of journal
entries by entering a name, control total and description for the batch.
This step is optional. If you do not enter batch information, Oracle
General Ledger automatically creates one batch for each journal entry,
defaulting the name and the latest open period.
All journal entries in a batch share the same period.
Entering a batch control total and description are optional.
If you do not enter a batch name, you must recall the journal entry by
date.
Batch information is stored in the GL_JE_BATCHES table.
Journal Header Information
The header information identifies common details for a single journal
entry, such as name, effective date, source, category, currency,
description, and control total.
Group related lines into journal entries
All lines in a journal entry must share the same currency and category.
If no journal entry-level information is entered, Oracle General Ledger
assigns a default name, category, and the functional currency.

Header information is stored in the GL_JE_HEADERS table.

Journal Line Information
Journal lines specify the accounting information for the journal entry.
Total debits must equal total credits for a journal entry for all journal
entries except budget journal entries and statistical journal entries.
Description for each line can be entered optionally.
Information for journal entry lines is stored in the GL_JE_LINES table.

Journal Posting Methods:

You have three methods to post journal batches.
Batch Posting: Navigate to the Post Journals window to post a group of
journal batches.
(N) Journals > Post
Manual Posting: Select the More Actions button from either the Journals
window or the Batch window to post a journal batch at the time of entry. This
option is available only if the profile option Journals: Allow Posting During
Journal Entry has been set to Yes.
When you post journals, Oracle General Ledger posts all journals in a batch.
You cannot post individual journal entries in a batch.
(N) Journals > Enter (B) More Actions
Automatic Posting: Run the AutoPost program to post journal batches
automatically based on a schedule you define.
(N) Setup > Journals > AutoPost

GL Tables :
General Ledger tables can be grossly classified into following 5 categories.
Here are few important tables in each category.
Ledgers Tables:
GL_LEDGERS: Stores information about the ledgers defined in the
Accounting Setup Manager and the ledger sets defined in the Ledger Set
form. Each row includes the ledger or ledger set name, short name,
description, ledger currency, calendar, period type, chart of accounts, and
other information.
GL_CODE_COMBINATIONS: Stores valid account combinations for each
Accounting Flexfield structure within your Oracle General Ledger application.
Period Tables:
GL_PERIODS: Stores information about the accounting periods you define
using the Accounting Calendar form.
GL_PERIOD_SETS: Stores the calendars you define using the Accounting
Calendar form.
GL_PERIOD_TYPES: Stores the period types you define using the Period
Types form. Each row includes the period type name, the number of periods
per fiscal year, and other information.
Journal Tables:
GL_JE_BATCHES: Stores journal entry batches. Each row includes the batch
name, description, status, running total debits and credits, and other
information.
GL_JE_HEADERS: Stores journal entries. There is a one-to-many relationship
between journal entry batches and journal entries. Each row in this table
includes the associated batch ID, the journal entry name and description, and
other information about the journal entry.
GL_JE_LINES: Stores the journal entry lines that you enter in the Enter
Journals form. There is a one-to-many relationship between journal entries
and journal entry lines. Each row in this table stores the associated journal

entry header ID, the line number, the associated code combination ID, and
the debits or credits associated with the journal line.
GL_JE_SOURCES: Stores journal entry source names and descriptions. Each
journal entry in your Oracle General Ledger application is assigned a source
name to indicate how it was created. This table corresponds to the Journal
Sources form.
GL_JE_CATEGORIES: Stores journal entry categories. Each row includes the
category name and description.
Conversion and consolidation tables:
GL_CONSOLIDATION: Stores information about your consolidation
mappings. Each row includes a mappings ID, name, description, and other
information. This table corresponds to the first window of the Consolidation
Mappings form. You need one row for each consolidation mapping you define.
GL_CONSOLIDATION_ACCOUNTS: Stores the account ranges that you enter
when you consolidate balances using the Transfer Consolidation Data form.
This table corresponds to the Account Ranges window of the Transfer
Consolidation Data form.
GL_DAILY_RATES: Stores the daily conversion rates for foreign currency
transactions. It replaces the GL_DAILY_CONVERSION_RATES table. It stores the
rate to use when converting between two currencies for a given conversion
date and conversion type.
GL_DAILY_BALANCES: Stores daily aggregate balances for detail and
summary balance sheet accounts in sets of books with average balances
enabled.
Budgeting tables:
GL_BUDGET_TYPES: Stores information about budget types. Oracle General
Ledger supports only one budget type, STANDARD. Therefore, this table
always contains only one row.
GL_BUDGET_ASSIGNMENTS: Stores the accounts that are assigned to each
budget organization. Each row includes the currency assigned to the account
and the entry code for the account. The entry code is either E for entered or
C for calculated. This table corresponds to the Account Assignments window
of the Define Budget Organization form.
GL_BUDGET_INTERIM: It is used internally by Oracle General Ledger
applications to post budget balances to the GL_BALANCES table. Rows are
added to this table whenever you run the budget posting program. The
budget posting program updates the appropriate budget balances in
GL_BALANCES based on the rows in this table, and then deletes the rows in
this table that it used.
Interface Tables:
GL_INTERFACE: It is used to import journal entry batches through Journal
Import. You insert rows in this table and then use the Import Journals window
to create journal batches.
GL_INTERFACE_CONTROL: It is used to control Journal Import execution.
Whenever you start Journal Import from the Import Journals form, a row is
inserted into this table for each source and group id that you specified. When
Journal Import completes, it deletes these rows from the table.
GL_BUDGET_INTERFACE: It is used to upload budget data into your Oracle
General Ledger application from a spreadsheet program or other external
source