Wednesday, November 2, 2016

AP- Accrual and Accounting FAQ

Q1. What is the difference between 'Accrue On Receipt' and 'Accrue at Period End'?

A:
Accrue On Receipt means that when a receipt is saved, accrual transactions are immediately recorded and sent to the general ledger interface. This is also known as "online" accruals. Accrue at Period End means that when a receipt is saved, the accrual transactions are not immediately recorded and sent to the general ledger; instead, the accounting entries are generated and sent at the end of the month by running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End Process.

All items with a destination type of either Inventory and Outside Processing are accrued on receipt. For items with a destination type of Expense, you have the option of accruing on receipt or at period end.

 
Q2. Why are expense items typically accrued at period-end, and why are inventory
items always accrued on receipt?

A:
One should accrue on receipt if perpetual inventory is adopted to facilitate reconciliation between inventory valuation reports and accounting entries. Expense items typically are not accounted for on a daily basis, and most companies find it easier to account for and reconcile these expenses at month-end rather than at the time each individual expense is incurred.

When both inventory and expense items are accrued on receipt, the following problems may be encountered:
A) Receiving inspection balances will include both inventory assets and expenses, so at the end of the month, they will need to be manually reclassified.
B) The number of entries needed to research and reconcile the perpetual A/P Accrual Account(s) becomes significantly increased. Since the expense receipts could double the number of accrual accounting entries to process, the Accrual Reconciliation Report could take twice as long to run. The amount of time required by your staff to research any discrepancies would also increase.

 
Q3. Which Purchasing report should be used to review period-end accruals?

A:
The Uninvoiced Receipts Report should be used to view period-end accruals.

 
Q4. Which Purchasing report should be used to review online accruals?

A:
The Accrual Rebuild Reconciliation Report should be used to view accrual transactions for inventory items and expense items which are set to accrue on receipt (online accruals). These transactions can also be included on the Uninvoiced Receipts Report by setting the parameter 'Include Online Accruals' to Yes when submitting the report.

 
Q5. After entering receipts and running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End Process, the new journals do not appear in the General Ledger. Should the transactions automatically appear in GL after performing these steps?

A:
The transactions from Oracle Purchasing are only sent to the GL_INTERFACE table; in order to create the journals and see them in General Ledger, the Journal Import concurrent program must be run from a General Ledger responsibility. Be sure to review the output file from the Journal Import request to ensure that the records imported successfully.

Q6. How can one tell whether each journal in the general ledger is for period- end or on receipt (online) accruals?

A:
Period-end and online accrual entries may be contained in the same GL batch, but there will be separate journals created for each. Journals created by the Receipt Accruals - Period-End Process will have a category of 'Accrual'; journals created for online accruals with have a category of 'Receiving'. Here is some technical table-level information that may provide assistance: Table: GL_INTERFACE Column : USER_JE_SOURCE_NAME = Purchasing Column : USER_JE_CATEGORY_NAME = Accrual (for period-end accruals) - OR - USER_JE_CATEGORY_NAME = Receiving (for online accruals) Table: GL_JE_HEADERS Column : JE_SOURCE = Purchasing JE_CATEGORY = Accrual (for period-end accruals) - OR - JE_CATEGORY = Receiving (for online accruals)

Q7. Does the process of reversing journals for period-end accruals occur automatically in GL?

A:
The process of reversing the accrual journals does not occur automatically; they must be manually reversed in the general ledger.

Q8. For the Uninvoiced Receipts Report, what is the purpose of the parameter 'Accrued Receipts'?

A:
This parameter should be set to 'No' to see only the uninvoiced receipts which have not yet been accrued by running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End process. This parameter should be set to 'Yes' to see all uninvoiced receipts, including those which have been accrued by running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End Process.

Q9. Records are appearing on the Uninvoiced Receipts report for expense items which have been received but not invoiced. How can these records be removed from the report and kept from accruing each month?

A:
There are a couple of methods that can be used to remove records from the report and to keep them from accruing each month: A) Close the purchase order shipment line. Closing the purchase order at the Header or Line level will also have the same effect. On the Purchase Order Summary form, select Special -> Control, then 'Close'. NOTE: Selecting 'Cancel' will not keep receipts from accruing each month. Refer to question/answer #10 below for an explanation of this. B) Create an invoice in AP and match it to the purchase order for the entire received quantity. Some users choose to create a 'dummy' invoice for $0.00 in this case.

Q10. A purchase order shipment was received against, then canceled. It now appears on the Uninvoiced Receipts report and accrues each month when running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End process. Why is this happening?

A:
When a purchase order is canceled (whether at the header, line, or shipment level), only the unreceived quantity is actually canceled. Cancellation does not effect quantities already received, as an obligation still remains for these receipts. If the quantity received is equal to the quantity invoiced (billed), or if no receipts have been entered against the purchase order shipment, then cancellation sets the Canceled flag of the shipment to 'Yes' and the Closure Status to 'Closed'. In this case, no accrual transaction will be generated. If the quantity received is not equal to the quantity invoiced, then cancellation sets the Canceled flag of the shipment to 'Yes' and the Closure Status remains in its current status (i.e., not 'Closed'). The difference between quantity received and quantity invoiced will appear on the Uninvoiced Receipts report, and will continue to accrue each month until an invoice is matched for the entire received quantity, or until the received items are returned to the Supplier.

Q11. What is the difference between the Accrual Reconciliation Report and the Accrual Rebuild Reconciliation Report?

A:
The report is available as two (2) separate concurrent programs: the Accrual Reconciliation Report and the Accrual Rebuild Reconciliation Report. Both reports run using the same report definition file: POXACREC.rdf. When the Accrual Rebuild Reconciliation Report is selected, the following events occur: - The program will delete all records currently stored in the PO_ACCRUAL_RECONCILE_TEMP_ALL table - Accounting entries are selected from the appropriate sources (sub ledgers) based on the parameters entered at the time of report submission - The temporary table PO_ACCRUAL_RECONCILE_TEMP_ALL is repopulated with these accounting entries - Report output is generated based on this information When the Accrual Reconciliation Report is run, the report does not reselect the information from the sub ledgers; instead, it reports only on the data currently stored in the PO_ACCRUAL_RECONCILE_TEMP_ALL table. This feature saves time and decreases the performance impact on the system, because the accrual information does not have to be regenerated from the original sources every time the report is submitted. Typically, the Accrual Rebuild Reconciliation Report is run at the end of the period, and the Accrual Reconciliation Report is used for interim reporting. Note that the title showing on the report output remains the Accrual Reconciliation Report regardless of which process is actually submitted.

Q12. How do transactions which have subtotals of $0.00 get removed from the Accrual Reconciliation Report?

A:
When submitting the report, setting the following parameters as shown will allow for these transactions to not show on the report output: Include All Transactions = No Transaction Amount Tolerance = 0 (or higher)

Q13. Several transactions appear on the Accrual Reconciliation Report which were charged to the accrual account in error. Manual journal entries have already been created in GL to correct these transactions. How do these transactions now get removed from the report?

A:
In Oracle Purchasing, go to the Accrual Write-Offs form. Responsibility: Purchasing Super User Navigation: Accounting/Accrual Write Offs Select the lines that need to be removed from the report and save Then, run the Accrual Reconciliation Report again, setting the parameter 'Include Written-Off Transactions' to No. The written-off transactions will no longer be included in the report. NOTE: You can run the Accrual Write-Off Report to review the transactions that were written off; this can be used to support the manual journal entry created in the general ledger.

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