General Ledger

Use Costpoint General Ledger to configure your charging structure, financial statement and report formats, journal entries, and data entry controls for the Accounting domain.

Charging Structure

You can define your own account numbers, segments, and organizational structures, and hierarchies. In addition, you can use organization abbreviations to establish as complex a structure as you need, yet at the same time streamline your data entry through the use of simple abbreviations.

General Ledger contains numerous features that give you control of your accounting system. You determine which organizations can charge to specific accounts and when those accounts and organizations "expire." You establish how many accounting periods can remain open simultaneously. You determine a data-entry cutoff by setting certain accounting periods, or certain modules within a single accounting period, to a Not Available status.

Reference Numbers

Costpoint also provides two user-definable "reference numbers." You can use these reference numbers for virtually any type of matrix reporting structure or to capture additional transaction data for use in Costpoint or in other systems.

Multiple Report Formats

In General Ledger, you can maintain multiple user-defined financial statement formats for balance sheets, income statements, and statements of cash flows. Other summary or detailed reports are available by organization, alternate reporting structures, reference numbers, or financial statement line. These reports include the Trial Balance, Project and General Ledger Detail, and G/L Posting Summary. Some reports are also available by "reorganization," a user-defined alternate organization structure. Use project reports to see general ledger information consolidated at the project level. Use trend reports to print any financial report for any level of your organization, for comparison of time period actual versus budgeted costs, using budget information established in the budget screens. These reports offer numerous ways to print your financial information.

Recurring Journal Entries

You can set up journal entries with specific recurring or reversing information for each entry. Use the recurring or reversing capability to establish a cycle for each recurring entry (for example, monthly, quarterly, and so on) or to specify the future period in which a reversing entry should be made. This eliminates repeated manual entries and thus streamlines processing of regularly occurring entries.

If your firm's accounting operations policies include segregation of duties, perhaps to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or if your firm has otherwise decided to require that journal entries be approved, you can set up an internal process for approval of journal entries.