Accounting Setup Manager

Concepts
An Oracle White Paper
October 2007
 Accounting Setup Manager Concepts

Table of Contents

Introduction....................................................................3
1. What is the Accounting Setup Manager?...................3
2. Accounting Setup Manager Concepts........................4
Ledgers....................................................................4
Conversion Levels for Secondary Ledgers:..............6
Conversion Levels for Reporting Currency Ledgers:
.................................................................................6
3. ASM Implementation Considerations
.....................................................................................10
Legal Entities.........................................................10

Subledger Accounting Methods.............................11

Setup Steps............................................................12
Completing an Accounting Setup..........................13
4. Technical Overview .................................................14
ASM Main Underlying Tables..................................14
Conclusion....................................................................17

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 Accounting Setup Manager Concepts

Introduction
Oracle Accounting Setup Manager (ASM) is the new
configuration tool for accounting setups in Oracle General
Ledger in the Release 12 of Oracle E-Business suite.
This paper provides information to help familiarize the users of
Oracle E-Business Suite with the new setup tool for the
definition of ledgers and accounting setups
as well as with some implementation considerations regarding
the assignment of legal entities to ledgers and the use of
subledger accounting methods. It will also describe the
underlying tables for the Accounting Setup Manager user
interface.

1. What is the Accounting Setup Manager?

It is one of the main features of the Ledger Architecture

introduced in Release 12, which replaces the Set of Books form
using a web-based interface.

Accounting Setup Manager or ASM is the central place where

all the accounting setup is defined and maintained for:
– Legal Entities

– Ledgers
– Reporting Currencies
– Balancing Segment Value assignment
– Sequencing (Accounting and Reporting)
-- Other accounting options like retained earnings account,
suspense account, currency conversion type, etc.

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2. Accounting Setup Manager Concepts
In release 12 the following concepts are introduced:
Ledgers: sets of books are now called ledgers.
Reporting Currencies: this is the new implementation of
reporting sets of books.
Inter and Intra Company Balancing: inter – across multiple
legal entities and intra – within a legal entity. A new product
called Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS) now
handles intercompany transactions but the Intracompany
setup and the definition of intercompany accounts can be
done via ASM.
Accounting and Reporting Sequencing: additional ways to
assign document numbers to journal entries to satisfy legal
requirements as gapless journal numbers. There are 2 types
of sequencing that can be setup via ASM: Accounting
sequencing and Reporting Sequencing.
Subledger Accounting Method: determines the accounting
standards to be followed according to industry or local
country laws. The default Accounting Method is Accrual
accounting.
Legal Entities: This is not new in Release 12 but that has had
some changes. The modeling of legal entities can be done as
one legal entity per ledger or multiple legal entities in one
ledger depending on business needs. It is not mandatory to
have a legal entity. Legal entities are mandatory if Oracle
Subledgers require a legal environment or if AGIS is going to
be used.

Ledgers
Ledgers are defined by 4Cs as opposed to 3 in previous
releases:
Chart of Accounts
Calendar
Currency
AcCounting Method

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The 4Cs must be defined prior to starting an accounting setup.
ASM does not provide access to the forms to perform that
setup.
The setup for the first 3Cs is still done in General Ledger.
The setup for the Accounting Method, if one different than
the default is to be used, is done via the Accounting Methods
Builder.
Please review the Oracle Subledger Accounting
Implementation Guide for more information.

There are 3 types of ledgers: Primary and Secondary ledgers

and reporting currency ledgers.
Primary Ledger or PL:
It is the main ledger and has the most detail of information.
It can have more than one secondary ledger assigned.

Secondary Ledger or SL:

It is optional and differs in one or more of the 4Cs from the
PL.
It provides an additional accounting representation of the PL
to comply with legal requirements.
The SL can only be assigned to one PL.

Reporting Currency or RC:

Used when the only element that differs from the PL is the
Currency.
It is stored in the tables as a ledger but does not need to be
setup as a ledger via ASM.
Primary and secondary ledgers can have RCs assigned.
If a RC has not been assigned to a PL/SL, when Translation is
run in a ledger the reporting currency is automatically added
to the ledger setup.

The secondary and reporting currency ledgers store additional

accounting representations of the information present in the

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primary ledger. There are different levels of detail in which this
information is stored, which are called Conversion levels.

Conversion Levels for Secondary Ledgers:

Secondary ledgers have the following four conversion levels:
Subledger Journals level: This level maintains subledger
journals, general ledger journal entries, and balances in the
additional accounting representation. SLA creates the
information directly into the SL for sources/categories that
use SLA. For other sources/categories that do not use SLA,
the GL Posting program creates the information in the SL.
Journal level: This level maintains primary ledger journal
entries and balances in an additional accounting
representation. Every time a journal is posted in the Primary
ledger, it gets created in the Secondary Ledger. Posting in
the Secondary ledger happens in a separate step. It can be
determined which journal sources/categories will be
replicated when posting takes place. This is done in ASM in
the Journal Conversion Rules.
Balances level: This level maintains primary ledger
balances in another accounting representation. It uses the
Consolidation program to transfer balances from the PL to
the SL.
Adjustment only level: This type of ledger only provides
an incomplete accounting representation holding only
adjustments, which can be manual GL adjustment entries, or
automated adjustments from SLA. The chart of accounts,
accounting calendar, and currency must be the same as the
primary ledger.

Note: Journals can be entered directly into any type of

secondary ledger.

Conversion Levels for Reporting Currency Ledgers:

Reporting currencies have the following three conversion
levels:

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Subledger level: Use SLA and the GL Posting programs.
This level is equivalent to full MRC. A subledger level RC can
only be assigned to primary ledgers.
Journal level: The GL journals only are replicated via the
Posting program. The journal created for the RC is created
within the same batch of the primary ledger journal batch
and is automatically posted. This level is the equivalent of
thin MRC.
Balances level: Use the GL Translation program to
maintain balances in the reporting currency.

Note: Journals can be entered directly into the subledger

and journal level reporting currencies.

Following is a graphical representation of the conversion levels

discussed above for secondary and reporting currency ledgers:

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3. ASM Implementation Considerations

Legal Entities
Legal entities are used to provide a legal environment for
Oracle financial subledgers or transactions that require a legal
entity context.
The general rule is to have a primary ledger per legal entity.
If legal entities differ in any of the 4Cs or require different
ledger processing options like: average daily balances, journal
approval, or sequencing a different primary ledger is required.
Legal requirements will also drive the decision of how many
legal entities per primary ledger should be assigned.
Assigning balancing segment values to legal entities is strongly
recommended to make easier the identification of transactions

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and for reporting purposes. Assignment of balancing segment
values to legal entities is required for Intercompany accounting.

Subledger Accounting Methods

The subledger accounting method is required if using Oracle
Subledger Accounting.
A subledger level secondary ledger requires a subledger
accounting method for both the primary ledger and the
secondary ledgers.
The accounting method can be changed at any time. It will only
affect new journals.
Additional accounting methods may be defined. This is done in
Subledger Accounting.
There is optional information needed when an accounting
method is selected in ASM, for instance: Entered Currency
Balancing Account, Balance Subledger Entries by Ledger
Currency. The screen shot belows shows the fields under the
Subledger Accounting section.

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Setup Steps
The accounting setup manager allows creating an accounting
setup including the tasks below. The items in bold are required:
1. Create/assign a legal entity if required.
2. Assign a ledger name, a chart of accounts,
accounting calendar-period type, currency and
accounting method.
3. Complete ledger options: retained earnings account,
first ever open period, subledger accounting options,
suspense account, rounding difference account, enable
intracompany, journal approval, journal tax, rate type,
cumulative translation adjustment account, enable
journal reconciliation, budgetary control.
4. Define and assign operating units to the primary ledger.
5. Complete reporting currencies.
6. Define intercompany accounts.

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 7. Define intracompany balancing rules.
8. Define sequencing options.
9. Specify the ledger attributes for one or more secondary
ledgers.
10. Assign balancing segment values to legal entities.
11. Assign balancing segment values to ledgers.
12. Complete accounting setup.

The navigation steps to access the ASM in General Ledger are:

Setup : Financials : Accounting Setup Manager: Accounting
Setups

Completing an Accounting Setup

An accounting setup needs to be complete before it can be
used.
When clicking on the ‘Complete’ button in ASM, a message
appears to confirm whether the setup should be saved. If the
response is ‘Yes’, the General Ledger Accounting Setup
Program is launched automatically. This is a new program in
Release 12, which is a flattening program introduced to pre-
calculate data that can be used to speed up queries and data
processing.
The General Ledger Accounting Setup program performs the
necessary validations to make the setup components of an
accounting setup ready for transaction processing and journal
entry.
The following message appears in ASM when the program in
launched:
Confirmation
JavaScript enabled browser required. You have just completed the
accounting setup: <primary ledger name example: CN1 PL (Corp)
(USD)>. The General Ledger Accounting Setup Program has been
submitted. Please review concurrent request id, <request id>. Make
sure this request completes successfully before you enter
transactions.

Upon completion, some components cannot be deleted: legal

entities, balancing segment values, and reporting currencies.
This program creates the following Data Access Sets:

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 a. One for the Primary Ledger and the Reporting
Currencies.
b. One for the Reporting Currencies
c. One for each Secondary ledger
d. One for a ledger set

The General Ledger Accounting Setup program is also launched

upon:
- The creation of a ledger set
- The creation of a data access set
Once the setup program has completed successfully it is
necessary to define the following profile options:
‘GL: Data Access Set’ replaces the ‘GL: Set of Books’ name
profile option of previous releases.
This profile option can be assigned to a single ledger or a ledger
set. This profile option is used by GL responsibilities.
The Oracle subledgers use the profile option ‘GL Ledger Name’
to determine the ledger a subledger responsibility will have
access to.
The ‘SLA: Enable Data Access Security in Subledgers’ profile
option determines whether the General Ledger Data Access Set
security mechanism is applied for a subledger application
responsibility when viewing, reporting, or creating subledger
journal entries associated with a given ledger.

4. Technical Overview

There are several new tables with ASM. Following is a

description of the tables and what they store.

ASM Main Underlying Tables

• GL_LEDGERS: Replaces GL_SETS_OF_BOOKS. The field
set_of_books_id is now called ledger_id. A backward compatible
view called Gl_Set_Of_Books was created.
•GL_LEDGERS_CONFIGURATIONS: stores every accounting
setup.

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•GL_LEDGER_CONFIG_DETAILS: Keeps track of various
configuration steps and statuses.
•GL_LEDGER_RELATIONSHIPS: stores all ledger relationships
such as PL to RC and PL to SL.
•GL_JE_INCLUSION_RULES: stores Source-category conversion
rules.
•GL_LE_VALUE_SETS and GL_LEGAL_ENTITIES_BSVS: store
Balancing segment value (BSV) assignments to legal entities.
•GL_LEDGER_NORM_SEG_VALS: stores BSV assignments to
ledgers. Every BSV or balancing segment value assigned to the
legal entity is also assigned to the ledger. If no values are
assigned to the legal entity, then all values are valid for the
legal entity.
Each event could result in multiple tables getting updated. E.g.
If you add a new ledger to a ledger set, then in addition to the
ledger set tables, the data access set tables that store data to
access the ledger set would also get updated.
Following is a graphical representation of the tables used in
ASM:

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Other tables:
GL_ACCESS_SET_ASSIGNMENTS and GL_ACCESS_SET_LEDGERS
store flattened information to improve security checks on data
access sets that contain privileges for ledger sets or parent
segment values.
GL_LEDGER_SET_ASSIGNMENTS stores flattened information to
speed up queries on ledger sets that contain other ledger sets.
GL_LEDGER_SEGMENT_VALUES stores information on balancing
segment value assignments to ledgers. If a parent segment
value is assigned, it will be expanded and stored as detail
segment values.
GL_SEG_VAL_HIERARCHIES stores parent and child segment
value mappings based on the segment value hierarchy.
Programs like MassAllocation and FSG use this data.

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Conclusion
This document covered the main concepts of Accounting Setup
Manager, some implementation considerations and the underlying
tables for this accounting setup interface.

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White Paper Title
[Month] 2006
Author: [OPTIONAL]
Contributing Authors: [OPTIONAL]

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