General Ledger Interface
The General Ledger Interface is an optional module which provides a means for posting employee pay components, leave liability movement and related oncosts to the General Ledger. The interface caters for a number of different General Ledger Systems.
Prerequisites
- Set the Prevar window *PEOPLE_GLOPTIONS to reflect the type of interface file to be created. There are three types available:
- Variable Length, .csv file - default
- Fixed Record Length (no delimiters)
- EBCIDIC (no conversion)
- Ensure that the Include/Exclude in Costing field in the Allow/Deduct Codes window is setup and the Include in Costing field in the Hours Type Codes is setup.
- Determine if the General Ledger Accruals process or the Equalisation Method is to be used.
- If using the Accruals and Reversals process, Program Control window GLACC must be set to reflect this method.
- If using the Equalisation process, Program Control window GLEQU is set to activate the process.
Establishing the General Ledger
There are two main areas that must be established before you can use the Preceda General Ledger Interface. They are:
- Administration Reference Tables where you define the costing structure of your organization and the types of payroll transactions that are to be included in costing.
- General Ledger Reference Tables, where you define the rules for generating, printing and posting transactions.
Reference Table Setup
- Setup the relevant Level Codes.
- Setup Hours Types and/or Allowance/Deductions Codes.
- Program Control window LVACC must be setup if including Leave Liability movement calculations in the General Ledger processing.
- Setup Leave Accrual Methods to reflect the number of years of employment required before the calculation is performed.
- Setup Department Codes. (optional)
- Setup Account Numbers. This is the costing account numbers and not the General Ledger account numbers.
G/L Reference Setup
- Setup the General Ledger Parameter windows, including a record in the Disbursement file to facilitate the posting of transactions.
- Setup the Disbursement window to facilitate the posting of transactions.
- Setup the GL Primary Post Payroll window to cover the actual dollar values of the employee's pay components.
- Setup G/L Primary Post Tax window, Group Tax.
- Setup Payroll Tax % Record window, Payroll Tax.
- Setup Annual Leave Oncosts. (optional)
- Setup Long Service Leave Oncosts. (optional)
- Setup G/L Workcare Oncosts. (optional)
- Setup the six General Oncosts.
- Setup G/L Parameters % to be Posted.
- Setup G/L Parameters Inflation Rate.
- Setup G/L Parameters Nominal Bond Rate.
- Setup G/L Parameters Probability Factor - LSL.
- Setup the General Ledger Parameter windows, including a record in the Disbursement file to facilitate the posting of transactions.
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- If Leave Liability Movement calculation is required, Program Control window LVACC can be setup to select the Leave Types that liability will be calculated on. This window can be set to process automatically or offer optional processing, whether Gross (excluding Leave Taken) or Net (including Leave Taken) is posted and the amount to be posted when an employee is transferred.
- If Leave Liability Movement calculation is required for Long Service Leave, the field Years Before Accruing Liability can be set in the relevant Leave Accrual Method window to indicate the number of years before Leave Liability movement calculations should take place.
- The rate entered into the Pay Rate to use field in the Leave Accrual Method setup governs the rate that Leave Liability is calculated.
- If Leave Liability is to be calculated for Long Service Leave using the Australian Accounting Standard AASB119, set the parameters as required. If the following windows are not populated, Preceda's standard Leave Liability calculation methods for LSL are used.
- If Leave Liability is to be calculated for Annual, Sick and User Defined Leave Types using the Australian Accounting Standards, set the parameters as required in the G/L Parameter % to be Posted. If this window is not populated, Preceda's standard Leave Liability methods for Annual, Sick and User Defined Leave are used.
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- The Preceda General Ledger interface includes the means for calculating the movement of Leave Liability and pass these amounts to the General Ledger.
- Leave Liability movement Calculations may optionally be performed for all Leave Types, including User Defined Leave.
- This movement can be posted in Gross or Net amounts.
- These calculations are performed at an employee level and take into account the amount of leave owing and/or taken by an employee, as well as changes to pay rates, split costings, termination and reinstatement.
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Most salary awards and agreements suggest that the actual liability for an employee's long service leave need not be accrued until a specified number of years has passed. This process can be controlled by the Years Before Accruing Liability field in the Leave Accrual Method window.
If a value is entered into this field, liability movement calculations are not performed for the employee's long service leave records until the employment period is greater than the number of years entered.
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It is possible to control the running of Leave Liability movement calculations so that it is not needed to process them each time the General Ledger is updated.
Leave Liability movement calculation is controlled by the use of Program Control switches which:
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Defines the types of leave that liability movement calculations are to be performed;
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Controls the window to process liability movement so that it is a mandatory function.
To make use of this function, the following steps are needed:
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Setup Program Control window LVACC to indicate the Leave Type that will be used to calculate liability. Set the window to process automatically or offer window al processing and define what is to happen if an employee is transferred during the Payrun.
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If the calculation is required for Long Service Leave, the Years Before Accruing Liability in the Leave Accrual Method window can be set to indicate the number of years before Leave Liability movement calculations should take place.
- Setup the relevant options in the General Ledger Interface window.
- If transferring records from another system and this is to be the first run in Preceda, the value of the first accrual can be controlled.
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Example:
The first time the process is run, assume that the employee has a liability of $1000.00, based on the leave accrual held in the current leave entitlement (PEPACC) file multiplied by their pay rate.
The leave liability process compares that value to a stored value held in a file called PLLM9000.
If this is the first time the process is run, the value in PLLM9000 is zero, so the total liability of $1000.00 is posted to the General Ledger and the value of $1000.00 is stored in the PLLM9000 file.
But if transferring records from another payroll system or initiating the system, and this is the first run in Preceda, a $value can be manually entered. This adjustment is made in the employee's Leave Entitlements window and can be a negative value, if appropriate.
- When the process is run, Preceda creates historical records in the PLLM9000 file for comparison and only then would the movement be processed.
During the next Payrun, there may be additional leave accruals calculated, which increases thevalue, or paid leave, which reduces the value, in the employee's current leave entitlement file PEPACC.
- Program Control window LVACC, position 24 controls the Gross - (not including the value of leave taken) or the Net value transferred to the PLLM9000 file.
- When the next Open Period File Update process is run, the current accrual in the current lease entitlement file (PEPACC) is compared to what is saved in PLLM9000. Depending on the setting in LVACC, the difference in GROSS, or the difference in NET, which could be increased or decreased, is posted.
- Changing from Gross Method to the Net Method will cause balancing issues.
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If an employee changes a level, e.g. from one department to another department between payruns, the controls must be set in place to ensure that Preceda carries out the process correctly.
Program Control window LVACC Position 25 controls this scenario:
- If set to N on transfer, the leave liability process would create reversing entries for the old level and new liability entries for the new level.
- If set to Y on transfer, the leave liability process would transfer the old leave liability balance to the new costing level without a change to the new costing level's profit and loss account.
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When an employee is terminated and the leave paid out, the value in PLLM9000 is reduced to zero.
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The Leave Liability Extract and Download Leave Liability Extract are provided to assist with the background from which the leave liability movement was generated.
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- Complete at least one Payrun. A transaction file called PAY46 is generated and contains all the Payrun transactions.
- Complete a Close Payrun. A transaction file called GLPAY46 is generated based on the transactions from the PAY46 file that are to be included. Once Close Payrun is complete, the transactions can be processed through the General Ledger Interface to generate posting transactions for the General Ledger system.
- A separate number is allocated to each Payrun, which is called a Batch Number. Multiple Payruns (batches) can be included in one processing cycle. Posting transactions will be generated for the categories that have been established.
- Hours Codes and Allowance/Deduction codes in the Primary Posting Tables
- The oncosts of Group Tax, Payroll Tax, Annual Leave, Long Service Leave, Worker's Compensation and/or the six General Oncosts
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Accruals can be generated using one of two methods. The stage when the generate accruals process is done depends on the method chosen. The method of accrual is set in the Program Control window GLACC.
There are ten stages associated with the General Ledger Interface processing cycle using the Accruals and Reversals process. The window to generate accruals can be performed as either Step 5 or Step 8 in the list below.
- General Ledger Parameters Table
- At least one Preceda Payroll Close must be completed.
- Update the GL Posting Period File.
- Print the Open Period File. (optional)
- Generate G/L Accruals - using the Accruals Process Chart #1.
- Close G/L Posting PTD File.
- Print the Closed Period File. (optional)
- Generate Accruals at Period End - using the Accruals Process Chart #2.
- Create G/L Interface File in the format compatible with your General Ledger system.
- Download the interface file.
Some stages can be bypassed, repeated or re-run based on the Processing Cycle diagram.
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This optional enhancement is designed to allow users to send the cost of monthly paid employees across the General Ledger on a weekly basis, eliminating spikes in the data reported.
- If this process is activated, the standard Preceda General ledger Accruals process cannot be used.
When using this method, it is possible to do the following:
- Nominate the number of weeks in each calendar month to be used when posting monthly salaries to the General Ledger by using the G/L Equalisation Percentage window.
- Enter an equalisation percentage to be applied to each calendar month using the G/L Equalisation Percentage window.
- Nominate the Level 1 code to which this equalisation process will apply using the G/L Equalisation Included Levels window.
- Nominate the Hours Types and Allowance/Deduction Codes that are NOT to have the equalisation percentage applied for each nominated Level 1 Code using the G/L Equalisation Included Levels window.
- How the Equalisation Process Works