GL Tables

General Ledger tables can be grossly classified into following 5 categories. Here are few important tables in each
category.
Ledgers Tables:
GL_LEDGERS: Stores information about the ledgers defined in the Accounting Setup Manager and the ledger sets
defined in the Ledger Set form. Each row includes the ledger or ledger set name, short name, description, ledger
currency, calendar, period type, chart of accounts, and other information.
GL_CODE_COMBINATIONS: Stores valid account combinations for each Accounting Flexfield structure within your
Oracle General Ledger application.
Period Tables:
GL_PERIODS: Stores information about the accounting periods you define using the Accounting Calendar form.
GL_PERIOD_SETS: Stores the calendars you define using the Accounting Calendar form.
GL_PERIOD_TYPES: Stores the period types you define using the Period Types form. Each row includes the period
type name, the number of periods per fiscal year, and other information.
Journal Tables:
GL_JE_BATCHES: Stores journal entry batches. Each row includes the batch name, description, status, running
total debits and credits, and other information.
GL_JE_HEADERS: Stores journal entries. There is a one-to-many relationship between journal entry batches and
journal entries. Each row in this table includes the associated batch ID, the journal entry name and description, and
other information about the journal entry.
GL_JE_LINES: Stores the journal entry lines that you enter in the Enter Journals form. There is a one-to-many
relationship between journal entries and journal entry lines. Each row in this table stores the associated journal entry
header ID, the line number, the associated code combination ID, and the debits or credits associated with the journal
line.
GL_JE_SOURCES: Stores journal entry source names and descriptions. Each journal entry in your Oracle General
Ledger application is assigned a source name to indicate how it was created. This table corresponds to the Journal
Sources form.
GL_JE_CATEGORIES: Stores journal entry categories. Each row includes the category name and description.
Conversion and consolidation tables:
GL_CONSOLIDATION: Stores information about your consolidation mappings. Each row includes a mapping’s ID,
name, description, and other information. This table corresponds to the first window of the Consolidation Mappings
form. You need one row for each consolidation mapping you define.
GL_CONSOLIDATION_ACCOUNTS: Stores the account ranges that you enter when you consolidate balances
using the Transfer Consolidation Data form. This table corresponds to the Account Ranges window of the Transfer
Consolidation Data form.
GL_DAILY_RATES: Stores the daily conversion rates for foreign currency transactions. It replaces the
GL_DAILY_CONVERSION_RATES table. It stores the rate to use when converting between two currencies for a
given conversion date and conversion type.
GL_DAILY_BALANCES: Stores daily aggregate balances for detail and summary balance sheet accounts in sets of
books with average balances enabled.
Budgeting tables:
GL_BUDGET_TYPES: Stores information about budget types. Oracle General Ledger supports only one budget
type, ‘STANDARD’. Therefore, this table always contains only one row.
GL_BUDGET_ASSIGNMENTS: Stores the accounts that are assigned to each budget organization. Each row
includes the currency assigned to the account and the entry code for the account. The entry code is either ‘E’ for
entered or ‘C’ for calculated. This table corresponds to the Account Assignments window of the Define Budget
Organization form.
GL_BUDGET_INTERIM: It is used internally by Oracle General Ledger applications to post budget balances to the
GL_BALANCES table. Rows are added to this table whenever you run the budget posting program. The budget
posting program updates the appropriate budget balances in GL_BALANCES based on the rows in this table, and
then deletes the rows in this table that it used.
Interface Tables:
GL_INTERFACE: It is used to import journal entry batches through Journal Import. You insert rows in this table and
then use the Import Journals window to create journal batches.
GL_INTERFACE_CONTROL: It is used to control Journal Import execution. Whenever you start Journal Import from
the Import Journals form, a row is inserted into this table for each source and group id that you specified. When
Journal Import completes, it deletes these rows from the table.
GL_BUDGET_INTERFACE: It is used to upload budget data into your Oracle General Ledger application from a
spreadsheet program or other external source. Each row includes one fiscal year’s worth of budget amounts for an
account.
Few Concepts on General Ledger
What is General Ledger?
The Oracle General Ledger is the central repository of accounting information. The main purpose of a general ledger
system is to record financial activity of a company and to produce financial and management reports to help people
inside and outside the organization make decisions.
General Ledger Accounting Cycle:
1. Open period
2. Create/reverse journal entries
3. Post
4. Review
5. Revalue
6. Translate
7. Consolidate
8. Review/correct balances
9. Run accounting reports
10. Close accounting period
What are Set of Books?
A set of books determines the functional currency, account structure, and accounting calendar for each company or
group of companies. It is replaced by the Ledger Sets in R12.
Set of Books consists of the following Three elements
 Chart of Accounts: COA can be designed to match the Organizational Structure and dimensions of the
business.
 Currency: GL enables to define one currency as Functional Currency and use other currencies for transactions.
 Calendar: Calendar has to be defined to control the accounting year and its periods.
Types of Journal Entries:
Within Oracle General Ledger, you can work with the following types of journal entries:
Manual Journal Entries
The basic journal entry type is used for most accounting transactions. Examples include adjustments and
reclassifications.
Reversing Journal Entries
Reversing journal entries are created by reversing an existing journal entry. You can reverse any journal entry and
post it to the current or any future open accounting period.
Recurring Journal Entries
Recurring journal entries are defined once, then are repeated for each subsequent accounting period you generate.
You can use recurring journal entries to define automatic consolidating and eliminating entries. Examples include
intercompany debt, bad debt expense, and periodic accruals.
Mass Allocations
Mass Allocations are journal entries that utilize a single journal entry formula to allocate balances across a group of
cost centers, departments, divisions or other segments. Examples include rent expense allocated by headcount or
administrative costs allocated by machine labor hours.
Foreign Currency Concepts:
The three key foreign currency concepts in Oracle General Ledger are:
Conversion
Conversion refers to foreign currency transactions that are immediately converted at the time of entry to the functional
currency of the set of books in which the transaction takes place.
Revaluation
Revaluation adjusts liability or asset accounts that may be materially understated or overstated at the end of a period
due to a fluctuation in the exchange rate between the time the transaction was entered and the end of the period.
Translation
Translation refers to the act of restating an entire set of books or balances for a company from the functional currency
to a foreign currency.
What are Financial Statement Generator Reports (FSG)?
Oracle General Ledger’s Financial Statement Generator (FSG) is a powerful and flexible tool you can use to build
your own custom reports without programming. You can define custom financial reports, such as income statements
and balance sheets, online with complete control over the rows, columns, and content of your report. You can control
account assignments, headings, descriptions, format, and calculations in addition to the actual content. The reusable
report components make building reports quick and easy. You can copy a report component from one report, make
minor edits, then apply the report component to a new report without having to create a new report from scratch.
What is Applications Desktop Integrator(ADI)?
Applications Desktop Integrator combines the power of Oracle General Ledger journal entry, budgeting, and report
creation, submission, publishing, and analysis within an Excel spreadsheet environment.
Journal Components:
Every journal entry in Oracle General Ledger has three components.
 Every journal entry belongs to a batch. You create a batch of journal entries by entering a name, control total and
description for the batch.
 This step is optional. If you do not enter batch information, Oracle General Ledger automatically creates one
batch for each journal entry, defaulting the name and the latest open period.
 All journal entries in a batch share the same period.
 Entering a batch control total and description are optional.
 If you do not enter a batch name, you must recall the journal entry by date.
 Batch information is stored in the GL_JE_BATCHES table.
Journal Header Information
 The header information identifies common details for a single journal entry, such as name, effective date, source,
category, currency, description, and control total.
 Group related lines into journal entries
 All lines in a journal entry must share the same currency and category.
 If no journal entry-level information is entered, Oracle General Ledger assigns a default name, category, and the
functional currency.
 Header information is stored in the GL_JE_HEADERS table.
Journal Line Information
 Journal lines specify the accounting information for the journal entry.
 Total debits must equal total credits for a journal entry for all journal entries except budget journal entries and
statistical journal entries.
 Description for each line can be entered optionally.
 Information for journal entry lines is stored in the GL_JE_LINES table.
Journal Posting Methods:
You have three methods to post journal batches.
Batch Posting: Navigate to the Post Journals window to post a group of journal batches.
(N) Journals > Post
Manual Posting: Select the More Actions button from either the Journals window or the Batch window to post a
journal batch at the time of entry. This option is available only if the profile option Journals: Allow Posting During
Journal Entry has been set to Yes.
When you post journals, Oracle General Ledger posts all journals in a batch. You cannot post individual journal
entries in a batch.
(N) Journals > Enter (B) More Actions
Automatic Posting: Run the AutoPost program to post journal batches automatically based on a schedule you
define.
(N) Setup > Journals > AutoPost
Few Interesting Questions on Oracle GL Journals Entry

Is There a Report That Displays Information of One Specific Journal Entry Unposted/Posted?
No. General Ledger reports display information of journal batches posted or unposted. However, you can use the
below sql query to find information of a particular journal entry.

select b.je_batch_id batch_id ,

h.je_header_id header_id ,
 l.je_line_num line ,

l.code_combination_id ccid ,

g.segment1 || '.' || g.segment2 || '.' || g.segment3 ||

'.' || g.segment4 || '.' || g.segment5 || '.' || g.segment6 ||

'.' || g.segment7 || '.' || g.segment8 || '.' || g.segment9 ||

'.' || g.segment10 combination ,

l.entered_dr entered_dr,

l.entered_cr entered_cr,

l.accounted_dr accounted_dr,

l.accounted_cr accounted_cr,

l.status

from gl_je_lines l,

gl_je_headers h,

gl_je_batches b,

gl_code_combinations g

where b.je_batch_id = h.je_batch_id

and h.je_header_id = &je_header_id

and l.je_header_id = h.je_header_id

and h.je_batch_id = b.je_batch_id

and l.code_combination_id = g.code_combination_id

order by h.je_header_id, l.je_line_num;

Can a Posted General Ledger Journal Entry be deleted?

After a journal entry is posted, it cannot be deleted. Posted journal entries cannot be deleted because that would
eliminate the audit trail. To nullify the accounting effect of the posted journal entry, you can reverse it.
When can not a journal batch be deleted or modified?
A journal batch cannot be deleted or modified under the following circumstances:
a. The source is frozen
b. Funds have been reserved for the batch
c. Funds are in the process of being reserved for the batch
d. The batch is in the process of being posted
e. The batch is posted
f. The batch is approved
g. The batch is in the process of being approved
A journal batch should not be updated if it comes from a sub-ledger.
Changing accounting information in a journal that originated in a sub-module will unsynchronize the accounting
information between the ledger and the sub-ledger. Instead of changing the sub-ledger journal, define a new journal
to adjust the accounting information if necessary.
A journal batch that has funds reversed cannot be updated because the funds would not be re-reserved
appropriately.
Which report shows details of a posted journal batch?
Journals – General (180 Char) and Journals – General (132 Char)
Is possible to restrict users from entering negative amounts in journal lines?
Unfortunately, it is not possible to restrict users from entering negative amounts in journal entry lines.
How to set up journal approval in General Ledger?
This is set up using Oracle Workflow Builder. The basics steps to setup Journal Approval are as below
a) Enable Journal Approval at the Ledger level
b) Setup Journal Sources for Journal Approval
c) Configure the profile options that control how the approval list will be built
d) Define Employees and Supervisors
e) Define Approval limits for approvers
f) Associate the employees to Oracle Apps users
g) Optional Workflow Configuration
For more information refer metalink notes: ID 176459.1 & ID 278349.1
How do you attach an Excel spreadsheet to a journal entry in Oracle General Ledger?
1. Query the Journal that needs the spreadsheet attachment.
2. Click on the paperclip on the tool bar.
3. Fill the following fields in the Attachment form.
Category – Choose Journal from LOV
Description – optional
Data Type – OLE Object from the LOV
4. Right click on the large white portion of the Attachment form choose ‘Insert Object’ from the drop box.
5. When the Insert Object Form appears check “create from file” and click on “Browse” to choose the file that should
be attached from the directory structure.
6. Save.
How do you easily copy a journal entry from one set of books to another?
There is no standard feature to copy journal entries between sets of books. However, there are some alternatives.
Refer Metalink note: ID 204082.1
How to prevent user’s ability to reverse unposted journals?
For 11i, there is not a method to prevent users from reversing unposted journals. This is intended functionality to
incorporate the maximum flexibility that users may require. However you can limit user access to journal reversals
through user menus set up in Sys Admin responsibility.
This functionality changed in R12 – see Note 734848.1 In Release 12, a batch must be posted before it can be
reversed.
How do you automatically generate a reversal journal entry for a journal category in the previous accounting
period?
If you routinely generate and post large numbers of journal reversals as part of your month end closing and opening
procedures, you can save time and reduce entry errors by using Automatic Journal Reversal to automatically
generate and post your journal reversals.
First you define journal reversal criteria for journal categories. Journal reversal criteria let you specify the reversal
method, period and date. You can also choose to enable automatic generation and posting of journals.
When you create a journal entry you want to automatically reverse, specify a journal category that has assigned
reversal criteria. Your journal will be reversed based on the method, period and date criteria you defined for that
journal category.
In Release 12, a reversal journal that is Unposted cannot be modified. Why?
This is the expected functionality in Release 12. However the profile GL: Edit Reverse Journals can be set to allow
the modification. Refer metalink note: ID 567641.1
Reversing journal was deleted from the system, how can you still reverse the original journal?
General Ledger does not allow you to reverse a journal entry twice. . Refer metalink note: ID 145043.1 for details.
A journal entry with a source set up for automatic reversal is not reversed. Why?
General Ledger automatically submits the AutoReverse program when a period is opened if the profile option, GL:
Launch AutoReverse After Open Period, is set to Yes. If a journal is created after the period has already been
opened, then the AutoReverse program will need to be submitted manually.
A journal has been created and is unposted. The following period has a reversing journal for the original
journal and it is posted. Why it is so?
This is currently the functionality of the application to allow the reversing journal to be posted even if the original
journal is not.