Changes in General Ledger 5.5

General Ledger 5.5 includes the following new features and improvements:

• The most sophisticated treatment of currency revaluation on the market.

  With this version, exchange gains and losses are treated as permanent or temporary, depending on the exchange Gain/Loss Accounting Method specified for your Sage 300 ERP system in the company profile.

  Under the Recognized Gain/Loss accounting method, fluctuations in exchange rates are considered to be permanent. Exchange gains and losses are recognized when foreign currency monetary items are revalued or settled using the exchange rate in effect.

  The Revaluation process:

  • Calculates new functional-currency values for each specified source currency using the specified exchange rates.
  • Creates a batch with revaluation transactions that will adjust the original functional-currency values to new functional-currency values for the specified account(s).
  • Uses posting dates to select open documents for revaluation, so that revaluation adjustments are posted to G/L accounts in the correct fiscal year/period.

  Note: Exchange gains and losses are included in the determination of net income for the current period. They appear on the income statement, and they are taxable immediately. They are not automatically reversed in the next fiscal period.

  When you select the Recognized Gain/Loss method, new labels for G/L account fields appear on the G/L Revaluation screen, as follows:

  • Unrealized Exchange Gain Account changes to Exchange Gain Account.
  • Unrealized Exchange Loss Account changes to Exchange Loss Account.

  To revalue a G/L account, you must assign revaluation codes for each currency used in the account.

  • Before upgrading to version 5.5, or later, from an earlier version, you should process and post your revaluation batches prior to upgrading General Ledger. You cannot activate General Ledger if you have unprocessed revaluation transactions.
  • If you decide to switch to the Recognized Gain/Loss accounting method, later, you should post any batches you created under the Unrealized and Realized Gain/Loss accounting method.

  For steps for changing the accounting method, see Switching the Accounting Method for Foreign Currency Translation .

  The most sophisticated treatment of currency revaluation on the market.
• Keep more segments, account structures, budgets, and years of history.

  Information Stored by Product Edition

  	Sage 300 Standard ERP	Sage 300 Advanced ERP	Sage 300 Premium ERP
  Account Segments	up to 3 accounts segments	up to 4 account segments	no change
  Account Structures	up to 3 account structures	up to 4 account structures	no change
  Budgets	up to 2 budgets	up to 3 budgets	no change
  Years of History	keep 7 years of history	keep 7 years of history	no change

• Custom account groups.

  Sage 300 Standard ERP lets you define custom account groups. This feature was previously supported in only Sage 300 Advanced ERP and Sage 300 Premium ERP.

• No separate license for G/L Security.

  You do not need a separate license for G/L Security. (See About General Ledger Security.) Since version 5.5, it is installed with General Ledger and is activated when you activate General Ledger.

  To use G/L Security, select the Use G/L Security option on the Account tab of G/L Options, then close and reopen your company database. You can then use the G/L Account Permissions screen, which becomes available in the G/L Accounts folder, to assign permissions.

• Rollup accounts.

  If you use Sage 300 Premium ERP, you can designate an account as a rollup account to which you can add member accounts. You can create multiple levels of account relationships. For more information, see About Rollup Accounts.

  The following reports have been updated to include rollup information:

  • G/L Chart of Accounts Report
    • The Rollup Accounts report is an additional selection in the Report Format field on the Chart of Accounts report; it displays all rollup accounts and their directly-related rollup member accounts.
    • The Rollup Accounts/Rollup Accounts report on the Chart of Accounts report displays the member accounts only if it has parent rollup accounts.
    • The Fiscal Set Comparison Report has an option to include rolled up amounts.
  • G/L Transactions Listing Report
  • G/L Trial Balance Report
    • Rollup commands in FRAMT, FRAMTA, FRDEBIT, FRCREDIT. The rollup command has a prefix of R (for example, FRAMT("RBALP").
    • New consolidation switch: RD (for rollup account detail) to show only the top-level rollup accounts within the selected range.

  The following screens let you display rollup amounts:

  • G/L Account History Inquiry Screen
  • G/L Source Currency Inquiry Screen
  • G/L Transaction History Screen
  • G/L Fiscal Set Comparison Screen
  • G/L Budget Maintenance Screen

  For instructions on creating rollup accounts, see Adding a Rollup Account.

• New Financial Reporter reports.
  Balance Sheet summaries

  • Balsum01.xls: Summary of the balance sheet as amounts and as a percentage of total assets/liabilities, printed on separate pages.
  • Balsum02.xls: Summary of the balance sheet as amounts and as a percentage of total assets/liabilities, with a graph on a separate page.
  • Balsum03.xls: Summary of the balance sheet for the period specified.
  • Balsum04.xls: Summary of the balance sheet for the current and previous years.
  • Balsum05.xls: Summary of the actual and budgeted balance sheet for the current year.
  Financial Analysis statements

  • Finratio01.xls: Financial ratios for the current period, grouped into five main categories.
  • Finratio02.xls: Financial ratios of the company and financial ratios of an average company in the same industry (benchmarks), and variances between those ratios.
  • Finratio03.xls: Financial ratios of the company, compares them with benchmarks, and displays the results in graphical format.
  • Finratio04.xls: Financial ratios of the company for the current and previous years, and variances between them.
  • Finratio05.xls: Financial ratios of the company for the current and previous years, and benchmarks, displayed in graphical format.
  • Forecast.xls: Cforecasts and to perform what-if analyses, with a summary of the income statement and balance sheet for the current and previous years.
  Income Statement summaries

  • Incsum01.xls: Summary of the income statement as amounts, and, on separate pages, displays all amounts as a percentage of sales reveneue.
  • Incsum02.xls: Summary of the income statement in the regular format (as amounts), displaying percentages of total revenue in graphical format.
  • Incsum03.xls: Summary of the income statement for a specified period.
  • Incsum04.xls: Summary of the income statement for current and previous years.
  • Incsum05.xls: Summary of the actual and budgeted income statement for the current year.

  See Sample Financial Statements for further information about these new reports.

• Enhanced multi-user entry and posting.
  • You cannot post a batch if it is being edited by another user, or if data is being imported or generated for the batch.
  • Batches can be posted concurrently.
  • Multiple users can now add entries in the same batch. If multiple users add the same entry at the same time, General Ledger attempts to assign the entries to separate batches.
• Separate security authorizations for Journal Posting and Journal Entry.

  To enable clearer separation of duties, when a user is assigned Journal Posting rights only, the system will not automatically assign Journal Entry rights to them.

• New batch options for recurring entries.

  The G/L Create Recurring Entries Batch Screen has been enhanced to include options for creating the recurring entries in a new batch or appending to an existing batch.

• New Dashboard security authorization.

  Dashboard security authorization lets you customize the dashboard website. If you have access to G/L Dashboard, you can access any dashboard pages that are based on data stored in General Ledger.

  See the System Manager help for information about using dashboards.

Upgrading from an Earlier Version?

• If you are upgrading from version 5.3, see Changes in General Ledger 5.4.