JD Edwards financials has two crucial files: the General Ledger (GL) Transaction File, and the Trial Balance File. The GL Transaction File is a detailed account of general journal transactions, while the Trial Balance File is similar to a spreadsheet with monthly balance columns; one line per account, per fiscal year, per ledger type. These two files should be in sync at all times. If the Trial Balance File is out of balance or out of sync to the Transaction File, your JD Edwards financial statements will be wrong.
During a recent client project, the client’s Trial Balance File was not lining up with their GL Transaction File and they couldn’t figure out why. This is an issue that we have certainly seen before, as it can be easy for things to slip under the radar and throw the GL and Trial Balance Files out of sync, thus wreaking havoc on your financials. Here are a few of the reasons your GL Transaction and Trial Balance Files could be out of balance.
In the post process, JDE takes the amount from the GL and uses that amount to update the appropriate balance in the Trial Balance File as well as create an automatic offset. If a post job is cancelled in the middle of running, however, it won’t be able to complete the Trial Balance File update or create the automatic offsets.
A cancelled posting job is typically the result of human intervention. For example, in the client project we were working on we found that their nightly post jobs were being delayed and were still running when the team started work the next day. They couldn’t start operations while those files were still posting, so team members were cancelling the post jobs before they were complete in order to get the day started. Once that was identified as the cause for the unbalanced files, they were able to make changes to the nightly schedule so all the jobs finished in time, preventing the files from being unbalanced in the future.
While cancelled post jobs is human error more often than not, there are occasional instances when JDE can’t create the automatic offsets and the batch will fail the post. Typically, however, the system will catch that and error the batch out instead of forcing it through and throwing your Trial Balance File out of balance. However, older versions of JDE require that a post job be single threaded, meaning that only on job can be running at a time. While that isn’t a concern for newer versions, if you are running an older version of JDE keep in mind that not running your posting jobs single threaded can put your Trial Balance out of balance.
Another situation that can put your Trial Balance out of balance is manipulating data in the GL Transaction file in order to get an entry to post. Sometimes an entry with a prior period general ledger date may not be posted in the period recorded, but won't be found until a later period. The temptation is to go into the Transaction File and change GL dates. We always recommend against this because if not done correctly, the change can cause integrity issues. It is far better to post the entry as is in the prior period and then book the correcting entries needed to adjust to the desired outcome.
There are two things that need to happen during the month end close to ensure that your files are balanced. The first is to make sure that all GL Transaction Files are posted. The second is to make sure that the companies within the Trial Balance File are balanced. We recommend running JD Edwards integrity reports throughout the month to catch these errors before month end, giving you more time to analyze the error and determine the correction.
If you have your financials set up correctly, the GL Transaction file and Trial Balance should stay in sync and in balance, allowing you to complete efficient, error-free month end closes.
Could your JD Edwards system use some assistance from an experienced JD Edwards team? Contact us.
No Comments Yet
Let us know what you think