Do you know, there is on feature called “Cross Instance Data Transfer” in GL which enables you to transfer subsidiary data to your remote parent instance over your corporate intranet. How it sounds..

Normally big enterprises manage their business operations in different database instances which need an automated way to transfer data from remote subsidiary database instances to a central consolidation database instance.Therefore this feature can be utilized for transferring Instance data.

Lets understand what you can do with this:

• You can do automatic transfer of consolidation data from one instance to another using db links
• This will import and post consolidation journals in one step process.

Therefore, the Global Consolidation System(GCS) facilitates the consolidation of data from remote subsidiary ledger database instances to a central consolidation database instance. Using db links, Global Consolidation System allows you to automatically transfer consolidation data from one instance to another, as well as optionally import and post the data automatically in the consolidation database instance.

• You can also use the feature of notifying users of the transfer status using Workflow Notifications.

This feature automates the entire process and also includes workflow notifications providing notification of the cross instance consolidation status. Global companies with operations on multiple database instances can use this feature to consolidate their subsidiaries in a more efficient and automated manner.

the next question in mind is what about security of this feature?

• You create a specific user name for the central consolidation database instance with limited access to specific objects in the database
• Subsidiaries use this user name to define database links for cross instance data transfers

Therefore using this security, there is no need to re-enter your username and password every time you transfer consolidation data, saving time and redundancy. And, the username/password is now validated at the time you sign on to the EBS.

Reference Notes

• 186235.1 :About Oracle General Ledger Mini-pack 11i.GL.G
• Chapter 7, Global Consolidation System, Oracle General Ledger User Guide

While researching more on XBRL, I came across a nice site had extended list of question about XBRL, thought to bring this to everyone in Oracle Community.

1. Why should I care about XBRL?
2. What is XBRL?
3. Why should I learn about XBRL?
4. What is different about my financial reports now and using XBRL?
5. Why is the SEC involved with XBRL?
6. Is the SEC going to require my financial statements (and other filings) in XBRL format?
7. If so, when do you anticipate the SEC mandating XBRL?
8. Who is using XBRL today?
9. Why are they using this technology?
10. What is a taxonomy?
11. Are taxonomies country specific? Industry specific? Company specific?
12. Does my company need to develop its own taxonomy? If so, is this proprietary information?
13. What skills are required to create an XBRL filing?
14. It seems like the costs and burden of using XBRL are on the shoulders of financial report preparers, while all the benefits go to regulators and investors, which seems unfair. Is this the case?
15. What will it cost me to implement XBRL?
16. Does XBRL work? How do you know?
17. It seems like XBRL will be just another boon for consultants whom we have to hire to help us get the financial information into XBRL. Is that the case?
18. Is XBRL the only thing I will have to file, or will I continue to submit the current EDGAR type filings?
19. Clearly, XBRL is new and certain things will likely need to change with regard to financial reporting. What will need to change relating to financial reporting?
20. Are private companies going to have to use XBRL?
21. How will XBRL be audited?
22. What are the risks of moving to required filings to the SEC in XBRL and how are those risks being mitigated?
23. What are the benefits of adopting XBRL before the SEC requires it? What are the reasons not to adopt XBRL before the SEC requires it?
24. Is the public accounting profession ready for XBRL if it is mandated?
25. The adoption of XBRL will be a move from a “paper-based” reporting scheme, which is unstructured for the most part, to an “XBRL-based” reporting scheme, which uses structured information. That has got to cause some sort of impact on financial reporting, it seems. What will the impact be?
26. What impact will XBRL have on BI (Business Intelligence)?
27. How do I get started? How do I try XBRL?

Charlie co-author of the site , nicely answered these 27 questions in his 17 page documents.

Read this

• What CFOs need to Know about XBRL

If you are planning to rely on system Data for XBRL reporting…I would say ..test..test …test….if you are planning to do it first time..

Early next month Finance Controller and Auditors will be quite busy in arranging XBRL reporting ,specially if they are from Singapore based registrated company.

Here is link for details for “Preparing and Filing of Financial Statements (XBRL) for ACRA ” the local Govt body.

• http://www.acra.gov.sg/services/company/filing_of_financial_statement_in_xbrl_old.htm#xbrl6

Oracle E Business and Taxomony

The good is that ACRA have already made a Oracle qualified vendor for XBRL reporting, though there are very few reports which is compatible with ACRA taxonomy as reported.

Here are list of the some of Features that makes part of compatibility of ACRA.

Source : http://www.acra.gov.sg/Services/Company/Oracle_E_Business_Suite.htm

Suggested Reading

• XBRL & Reporting

Read this

• Dealing with Foreign Currency : “Conversion”
• Dealing with Foreign Currency : “Revaluation”
• Dealing with Foreign Currency :Translation

In some of the Oracle installation site, dealing with foreign currency is one of key area in the Business process, essentially required to have a full understanding about the product and there seeded functionality product offers. Apart from above three core process foreign Currency reports is equally important. Therefore this post just recap of seven report from GL.You can see more details in GL documentation.

• Foreign Currency General Ledger Report

This report is for each journal line entered in a foreign currency, the report prints the account affected, the description of the account segment value, the journal line amount in both your functional and foreign currency, and the beginning and ending account balances in both your functional and foreign currency. Very helpful..

• Foreign Currency Journals Report

This report review journal batches and associated journals for your posted, unposted or error journals entered in a foreign currency.

You can run this report with line or source item reference information to help identify the origin of journals created by Journal Import.

• Foreign Currency Detail Trial Balance Report

This report review actual General Ledger account balances and activity entered in a foreign currency.

• Foreign Currency Summary 1 Trial Balance

This report is used to review summarized GL balances and activity entered in a foreign currency. This also summarizes balances and activity by account segment value.

• Translation Trial Balance

This used to review your account balances and period activity after running translation.

• Foreign Account Analysis Report

This report is used to review source, category and reference information to trace your foreign currency transactions back to their original source.

You can run this report with entry, line or source item reference information to help identify the origin of journals created by Journal Import.

• Foreign Account Analysis Report with Payables Detail

This is used to review foreign currency balances and transactions for any accounts.

You can use this report to reconcile asset additions imported into General Ledger from Oracle Payables.

You can run this report, you must have Oracle Payables installed on your system and you must allow detail posting of invoices from Oracle Payables to General Ledger.

Reference Notes

• Note 131568.1:General Ledger Standard Reports in Oracle Applications
• Oracle General Ledger Reference Manual ,Standard Reports and Listings section.

Did you know in 11i with Family Pack E, a new flexfield qualifier has been added to enable you to nominate a segment in your chart of accounts to act as your secondary tracking segment.

This segment will be paired with the balancing segment when generating account balances for the Retained Earnings account, Unrealized Gains or Losses accounts, and the Cumulative Translation Adjustment account.

“Oracle define this feature as:
A segment in the chart of accounts can be designated as a secondary tracking segment, in addition to the balancing segment, to perform more detailed analysis within Oracle General Ledger. The secondary tracking segment is used in the revaluation, translation, and fiscal year-end close processes. The system will automatically maintain unrealized gain/loss, retained earnings, and cumulative translation adjustments by unique pairs of balancing segment and secondary tracking segment values.”

Therefore, you can use any segment, except the balancing segment or natural account segment, can be specified as the secondary tracking segment.

If you specified to use a Secondary Tracking Segment for Revaluation, the Unrealized Gains/Losses account will be tracked by the balancing segment and secondary tracking segment.

If you specified to use a Secondary Tracking Segment for Closing and Translation, the Retained Earnings account and the Cumulative Translation Adjustment (CTA) accounts will be tracked by both the balancing segment and secondary tracking segment.

This allows you to maintain accounting data at a finer level of detail for these accounts.

You should also note, Year-End Close refers to the standard process of closing out the year-to-date balances for your revenue and expense accounts to retained earnings when you open the first period of a new year. This does not apply to the Year-End Closing Journals feature. However, as per documentation you can achieve the same result using Income Statement Closing Journals by specifying different retained earnings accounts for a range of revenue and expense accounts.

You don’t get confused with secondary tracking segment is not a second balancing segment for journal entry. The control is still for only one balancing segment. The posting is effected only in the measure of the Retained Earnings Account effect (these accounts will also track for the secondary segment instead of just the balancing segment).

Usage with Secondary Segment

Lets try to understand with two example

Case 1:

If Secondary tracking segment/qualifier is to breakdown the retained earnings balance (brought forward) at the beginning of the new financial year. Here is an example how the system will breakdown the retained earnings.

If you enable Secondary tracking for the state segment:-
01.NY.3000.000 $60,000
01.CA.3000.000 $40,000

Without Secondary Tracking
01.00.3000.000 $100,000

Case 2:

Enabling Secondary and Translation Check box. The Retained Earnings Account and CTA Account will be tracked by the Pair of Balancing as well as Secondary Tracking Segment.

Suppose the following are the Entries made during the year:

Account USD Balance Cumulative Rate Translated INR
01.100.Revenue 1000 50 50,000 CR
01.100.Expense 500 50 25,000 DR
01.200.Revenue 2000 45 90,000 CR
01.200.Expense 750 50 35,000 DR

At the Year End Closing and Translation, the following pair of Accounts are created :

Account USD Balance Calculated Rate Translated INR
01.100.Retained Earnings 500 60 30,000 CR
01.200. Retained Earnings 1250 50 62,500 CR

Secondary Tracking Segment Benefits

• Secondary tracking segments provide better audit and analysis capabilities.

You now have more visibility into the detailed components of Retained Earnings, Cumulative Translation Adjustment, and Unrealized Gains and Losses. Instead of tracking these accounts by a balancing segment alone, you can track them by the balancing segment and another segment of your choice, such as Department, Line of Business, or Cost Center.

• A secondary tracking segment also provides better control and consistency of similar transactions because this option is set at the ledger level instead of through a profile option.
• By being able to nominate any segment other than your primary balancing segment or natural account segment to act as your secondary tracking segment, you have greater flexibility in tracking accounts by pairs of segments.

How to Set Up Secondary Tracking Segment

Very simple, what you have to do it you need to navigate to:

(N) Setup > Financials > Flexfields > Key > Segments (B) Segments

Now you can choose any segment, other than your balancing segment or natural account segment, to be your secondary tracking segment.

You can set the Secondary Tracking Segment flexfield qualifier for new or existing charts of accounts at any time.

If you are currently using the Revaluation by Cost Center feature and wish to retain it, you do not have to do anything, this is very important.

(N) Setup > Financials > Flexfields > Books > Define

There is a new Secondary Segment Tracking region in the ledger form. Enable the Closing and Translation option to maintain account balances generated from the Closing and Translation process. Enable the Revaluation option to track account balances generated from the Revaluation process at a finer level of detail.

Both of these options are optional and can be turned on together or separately.

Oracle recommended that the Closing/Translation option be enabled when the ledger is first defined. This option cannot be disabled in the future.
The Revaluation option can be turned on and off at any time, but for consistency in processing, the setting should remain consistent throughout the life of your ledger.

There is separate process, who want to enable this feature in there existing setup, you can Follow Note 261961.1 for Enabling this feature for an Existing SOB, which requires some pre-requisite steps.

Some of query that end user or Finance Core user might interested

(1) Is the Secondary tracking segment qualifier mandatory

No, it is not mandatory.

(2) What is the benefit for using it during my closing process?

Very same as Better Audit and Analysis,Better Control and Consistency, Greater Flexibility are main key benefits as discussed above.

(3)Enabling a segment for secondary tracking does mean that you will get a tallied trial balance?

Enabling a segment for secondary tracking does NOT mean that you will get a tallied trial balance. What it means is that for some of the transactions you will get additional details.

(4) Which Version of Oracle Can use this functionality?

• 11.5.5-11.5.9+ Patch 2930577
• 11.5.10/11.5.10.2
• R12

(5)Two Balancing Segments at a time…

The scenario is FICO would like to have balance sheet/trial balance balanced by entity (company) and division (responsibility center).Is there any way that we can have two segments in COA enabled as balancing segment?

The answer would be : you cannot have two balancing segments. Please have a look at the secondary Tracking segment feature if it suits your requirements.

(6) Any Limitation for this Functionlity?

You should not forgot secondary tracking segment does not support suspense adjustment, intercompany segment value balancing and rounding imbalnce processing.

Reference Note :

• Note 237968.1, the Secondary Tracking Segment qualifier is new to 11i with Family Pack E
• Note 261961.1 Enabling Secondary Tracking Segment for an Existing Set of Books
• Note 277888.1 Setup Checklist to Enable the Secondary Tracking Segment in Oracle General Ledger
• Note 268393.1 How Do Secondary Tracking Segment’s Features Work
• Note.268391.1 How to Enable Secondary Tracking Segment For A New SOB

Similar Post:

• Does the “Year End Close” is different than “Month end close” - Part -1

Extending the last discussion in one of my post for XBRL,one of my visitor mention ,there is a new site for discussions and professional networking on XBRL, thought to let this known to Oracle community. Interested one welcome to join & participate

XBRL Network

This is network of financial officers, accountants, security analysts, software engineers, investors, employers and employees who’s interest is in current developments and comments regarding XBRL. The site is very similar to Eddie’s Oracle community .

The url is :http://www.xbrlnetwork.com

The url is : http://xbrlnetwork.ning.com

Looking for more information Here are some link:

• Wikipedia definition and examples of XBRL:Wikipedia XBRL
• Worldwide XBRL organizations by country:XBRL International Jurisdictions
• What is XBRL
• How XBRL works
• Specifications
• Taxonomies

If you are still in R11i , you might be heard something like “XBRL“, which is technically known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an open specification for software that uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) data tags, together with a taxonomy, to describe business reporting, including financial information.

XBRL and XML

An XBRL taxonomy is a standard description and classification system for the contents of accounting reports, and both kind of reporting can be easily performed.

• Business Reporting
• Including important financial information

XBRL Financial Reporting Benefits

• Achieve greater transparency and auditability of your company’s financial information for better auditability.
• Directly integrated with FSG – enabling XBRL Financial Reporting at the source:
  • Reuse existing FSG reports and components
  • Link your unique chart of accounts to the standardized elements of an XBRL taxonomy
  • Submit your XBRL Financial Reports in all of the FSG output options

How to Set Up XBRL Financial Reporting in EBS

We can generate XBRL output with the FSG(Financial Statement Generator), you must load one or more taxonomies into your Oracle instance. Once loaded, you select the taxonomy to use for a row set then assign XBRL elements to FSG row definitions.

Take a note , you will get taxonomies available from a number of sources,one of such is at www.xbrl.org.

Download a Taxonomy to your Oracle Instance (Adopted from Documentation)

1. Create a new directory on the same server where the database is to be used for storing taxonomy files. The directory can be an existing directory but it is recommended you create a new one. Using SQL*PLUS run create directory xmldir as <directory name>.
2. Make the directory public for read access. Using SQL*PLUS run grant read on directory xmldir to public with grant option.
3. Place the taxonomy files (usually there are six) in the directory. You can transfer them using FTP, copy, or download from a url.
4. Determine if the codeset of the taxonomy files are in the same codeset as that used in the database. If they are not the same, you must convert the taxonomy files so that they use the same codeset as the database instance.

Loading XBRL Taxonomies

1. Launch the XBRL – Load Taxonomy program from the Submit Request window. The program has three parameters:

• Taxonomy Name: Enter a unique name for the taxonomy.
• Taxonomy xsd File Name: Enter the file name, with or without the .xsd extension.
• Taxonomy Description: Enter a description for the taxonomy.

2. If a taxonomy has imports (links to other taxonomies), you must load the imports first then load the parent taxonomy.

Oracle GL 11.5.10.2 and XBRL

XBRL Publisher is a module in XML Publisher which parses the XBRL taxonomies, extracts XML schema from Oracle Reports RDFs and XML Publisher data templates, defines mapping between taxonomy elements and elements in XML-output reports and at last generate XBRL report concurrents to create XBRL instances.

Reference Notes

• Note:239123.1 :XBRL Support in Oracle General Ledger
• Note 246050.1 :About Oracle Report Generator in Financials Family Pack E
• Note 277877.1 :Setup Checklist for eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) FSG reports
• Note:297280.1 :FSG Reports Using XML Publisher

Do you know, in R12 there is a new management segment qualifier for your chart of accounts. This would qualify a segment to be the management segment if that segment has management responsibility and you can facilitate setting of Read, Write access permissions while defining Data access set in GL.

With this new concept you can:

• Enables management reporting and analysis
• Provide a better controls access to specific MSVs based on management responsibility and this can be
  • prevents managers/line managers from viewing or updating data for cost centers, lines of businesses, product lines, etc. that are outside their responsibility
  • Secures access to ledgers and management segment values
  • Grants read only or read and write access to management segment values

This can be best understood as with this simple example,assume you Business COA is based out of three thing like

• line of business
• cost center
• product line

You can set Qualifier with any of the segement, The added benefit of using a management segment is that you can now secure management segment values using data access sets. So you can grant read only or read and write access to specific management segment values to prevent certain managers from viewing and updating data for cost centers, lines of business, or product lines outside of their management authority.

Defining and Designing your Management segment qualifier

Define a management segment if you want to perform management reporting and secure read and write access to segment values for the managementsegment. This segment can be any segment, except the balancing segment, natural account segment, or intercompany segment.

How it works

This can be understood as, lets we have four cost center like C0699,C0101,C0201,C0312 and these cost center have Vice President, director A, director B and Director C respectively.The Orginaztional Chart of cost center hierarchy is as figure below.

If you assign the cost center segment as the management segment, read and write access can be secured to certain management segment values based on the cost center manager.

In above example , Director A has read and write access to only cost center C101. Director A does not have access to Director B’s or Director C’s cost center or to the Vice President’s cost center. This will true for others when you set to other. This way you can secure Managment reporting.

If you have given Read/Write to Parent Cost center 0699 to the Vice President, on the other hand, would have full read and write access to cost center C0101,C0201 and C0312 which is the parent of the direct reports. Thus,in that case the VP has full access to all direct reports’ data.

Benefits of Management Reporting Security

The new management segment qualifier in combination with data access sets paves the way for management reporting and analysis.You can restrict access to different management segment values and assign them to different managers in your organization.

How this can be achieved in EBS

This can be achieved by setting three steps

1. Fisrt step you have to to find designate a Management Segment for Chart of Accounts
2. Then you have to define Data Access Set to Secure the above designate Specific Management Segment Values
3. Then you have to assign Data Access Set To Responsibility.
   That all, to make security takes effect for that responsibility.

Your Naviagation should be from Responsibility: General Ledger

Navigation: Setup : Financials : Data Access Sets

Data Access Set and Management segment Value

As we know in Release 12,data access sets control which ledgers can be accessed by different responsibilities. Data access sets can also limit a user from accessing certain balancing segment values or
management segment values or grant read–only or read and write access to data in a ledger.

GL automatically creates a data access set when you define a ledger or ledger set. This system-generated data access set provides full read and write access to ledgers. You can also provide more limited access to your ledgers and ledger sets by defining your own data access sets.

Suggested Reading

• Oracle® General Ledger User’s Guide Release 12 ,Part No. B31218-01

Oracle General Ledger is one of the core product of EBS suite, and this is Integrated with almost every segment within EBS.Here is a list of just some of the Financial ,manufacturing and Human Resource Management products that integrate with General Ledger. Typically the integration of General ledger in EBS can be best understood as:

The integration data information can be best understood as below:

Oracle Financial

• Oracle Payables sends invoices, payments, realized gain and loss on foreign currency, and invoice price variance to GL.
• Oracle Receivables sends invoices, payments, adjustments, debit memos, credit memos, cash, chargebacks, and realized gain and loss on foreign currency to GL.
• Oracle Assets sends capital and construction in process asset additions, cost adjustments, transfers, retirements, depreciation, and reclassifications to GL.
• Oracle Purchasing sends accruals or receipts not invoiced, purchase orders, final closes, and cancellations to GL.
• Oracle Projects sends cost distribution of labor and non-labor costs, and project revenue to GL.
• Oracle Treasury sends revaluation and accrual entries to GL.
• Oracle Property Manager sends revenues and expenses related to real estate to GL.
• Oracle Lease Management sends accounting distributions related to leases, such as bookings of contracts, accruals, asset dispositions, terminations, and adjustments for multi-GAAP contracts to GL.

Oracle HRMS and Payroll

• Oracle HR shares employee information with GL.
• Oracle Payroll sends salary, deductions, and tax information to GL.

Oracle Manufacturing:

In terms of manufacturing this is Integrated as:

• Oracle Inventory sends cycle counts, physical inventory adjustments, receiving transactions, delivery transactions, intercompany transfers, sales order issues, internal requisitions, sub-inventory transfers, and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) to GL.
• Work In Process(WIP) sends material issues or backflush from WIP to GL, along with completions, returns, resource and overhead transactions, and cost updates.
• Oracle Labor Distribution normally sends salary costs to GL.

Other Products

Oracle GL not only integrated with Application product, it does have capability to integrate with other products which is used for adhoc cum management Reporting, these tools are mostly.

• General Ledger’s integration with Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting (EPB) allows us to easily identify, analyze, model, budget, forecast, and report on information stored in our general ledger. Using Oracle GL to maintain and report on account balances throughout the accounting period, and use Financial Analyzer to analyze financial data, such as actual and budget balances, which is after closing the period. We can automatically transfer actual, budget, or encumbrance data, as well as functional, statistical, and foreign entered data from General Ledger to Financial Analyzer, which is on of requirement if company does have different management reporting approach. With financial Analyzer, we can perform sophisticated budgeting and modeling, make changes to budgets and write back budget data to a new budget in GL or to several budget versions for comparative reporting. We would also drill directly from EPB balances to balances and transactions in Oracle General Ledger. With this extended functionality your EPB users with immediate and direct access to GL data without having to run reports or account inquiries in GL, that makes process efficient without any extra step.
• Oracle Financial Services Applications (OFSA) is a product suite that helps financial services institutions assess enterprise performance. This integration allows the transfer of General Ledger balances to OFSA to reconcile OFSA instrument tables, calculate transfer pricing of non-interest balance sheet items, or perform allocations. The results of OFSA allocation and transfer pricing results can then be transferred back to GL for posting and reporting.
• The integration with Oracle Daily Business Intelligence (DBI) allows us to get a daily snapshot of company’s financial picture through its E-Business Suite Portals. This is achieved by over 200 pre-inbuilt Portals provide every user in the enterprise with the right information that they need, about every aspect of their business. This makes a centralized place to see the information spans across multiple applications in real time basis.
• The integration with Oracle Activity Based Management (OABM) allows you to perform complex analysis on costs that are collected in General Ledger in a separate analysis environment—apart from your GL data. OABM is optimized to support multi-layer complex cost assignment rules, activity hierarchies, and complex product and service definitions in terms of activities with complete activity definitions.

Thanks to David, who pointed me a node for process that makes Intercompany settlement easy.

For more details , here are the link:

• http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/intercompany-reconciliation-reports-just-got-interactive/
• http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/using-bip-for-interactive-reconciliation-reports/

A note on “Reconciliation process”

Reconciliation process is automated to easily reconcile intercompany receivables and intercompany payables account balances. The process helps user to identify account balances difference and to research the cause of difference. The reconciliation process supports drilldown to General Ledger journal details and subledger transaction details to investigate the reason of balance difference. The underline report have capablity to show:

• Details by Reconciliation Summary
• Details Reconciliation Summary by Source
• Details Reconciliation Summary by Journals