There are many considerations and this article will only focus on the number of segments rather than the segment values which will be handled in a later post.

Some of the considerations are:

• Oracle System requirements
• Legal reporting requirements
• Financial management reporting needs
• Globalisation needs (some countries have special requirements)
• Consolidation needs (some segments may have to be used globally)
• Security needs

Oracle System Requirements

Oracle E-Business suite requires the following segments:

• Balancing
• Natural Account
• Cost Center (for Fixed Assets)

Optionally you can also have:

• Intercompany
• Management (for security)
• Secondary Tracking (for extra year-end tracking)

Usage details can be found in the General Ledger Implementation Guide.

All other requirements vary so below is a few do’s and don’ts:

Do’s

The User Guide details the Oracle requirements for a segment however in addition to that I recommend this:

• Keep it simple – your users will have to type it in a lot of times
• Focus on financial reporting requirements and needs
• Identify segments likely to be consolidated and make global usage rules for these
• Have same number of segments globally (to ease documentation and customisations)
• Have same segment names globally (to ease documentation and customisations)

Don’ts

Could be a very long list but I’ll keep it to the typical errors I have seen in implementations:

• Have too many segments (impacts usability and performance)
• Use of subledger reporting segments like:
  • Product or Item (sales reporting in the GL)
  • Customer (sales reporting in the GL)
  • Project (project accounting in the GL)
• Dual purpose segments (like one segment for both product and department)
• Think you can change the COA after go-live: you cannot

Subledger reporting segments are often driven by the requirement for global reporting on subledger data where the use of the GL and consolidations could provide this.

However implications are huge ranging from simple performance problems to feeble attempts to maintain a customer hierarchy in the GL.

Keep in mind the GL is for financial reporting and not for subledger reporting.

By putting subledger reporting in the GL you will also implicit impose limitations of the GL on your subledger which can cause unintended problems like need for custom segment validation and worst case will limit your business as your subledger reporting needs cannot be accomplished in the GL.

In very rare cases combined purpose segments can be justified but the values must be mutual exclusive as any overlapping will cause problems and is in fact a need for an additional segment.

An Example

Most mid to large scale business could have a structure like this:

• Company (Balancing)
• Department (Cost Center)
• Account (Natural Account)
• Analysis 1
• Analysis 2
• Intercompany (same segment values as Company)

Company, Department and Account segments are self explanatory.

Company and Account is for legal reporting.

Account, Department, Analysis 1 and 2 is used to support management reporting requirements.

Note there is a dual purpose for the Account segment in both legal and management reporting and sometimes this is remedied by adding a separate sub-account segment for the sole purpose of management reporting.

The intercompany segment is used for tracking the source of an intercompany transaction.

Keep the analysis segments to a finite number of values so if any subledger information is to be contained within these use summary levels like product line, customer group and similar as these values are unlikely to change over time.

Technical and performance

Two tables are the focus for performance:

• GL_CODE_COMBINATIONS – stores unique segment values as a single unique value combination id: CCID
• GL_BALANCES – stores summarised GL journals for each CCID

GL_CODE_COMBINATIONS

The content of this table expands for every new segment value combination entered per COA:

So looking at the example above – if we have the following segments and number of segment values:

Overview

In GL there has been a number of changes:

• Terminology Changes
  • Set of Books (SOB) is now Ledgers
  • Multiple Reporting Currencies (MRC) is now Reporting Currencies
  • Global Intercompany System (GIS) is now Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS)
• Obsolete
  • Global Accounting Engine (AX) replaced by Subledger Accounting
  • MRC as a workaround – now fully integrated as Reporting Currencies
• Accounting Setup manager – New central management of legal entities and legers
• Legal Entities – now really used
• Ledgers – new name and setup for SOBs
• Ledger sets – ledger grouping and security feature
• Reporting Currencies – MRC has now been cleaned up and is better integrated
• Period rates – now all daily rates and managed in same way
• Revaluation and Translation – changed functionality
• Journal Reconciliation
• Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS) – changed functionality

Accounting Setup Manager

The new Accounting Setup Manager simplifies and centralizes accounting-related setup for common financial components that are shared across financial applications. From a central location, you can define your legal entities and their accounting context, such as the ledgers and reporting currencies that perform the accounting for your legal entities.

The setup steps are:

• Legal Entity
• Primary Ledger
• Reporting Currencies
• Balancing Segment Value Assignments
• Subledger Accounting Options
• Operating Units
• Intercompany Accounts
• Intercompany Balancing Rules
• Sequencing
• Secondary Ledgers

Each of the setup steps is a number of sub screens where some are described later.

Legal Entities

Legal Entities part of Accounting Setup Manager now holds important information for both tax and VAT reporting.

General

Registrations

This is where you would put in information for the Corporations Office

Establishments

List of all locations

Balancing Segments

This is a new important feature that the balancing segment now relates to the legal entity.

Primary Ledger

Ledgers are mostly the same as the old Set Of Books however the setup screens has changed a bit.

Definition

Nothing really new here except for the OFA screen.

Options

Similar to the old screens in a new wrapping.

Advanced Options

Again similar to old days except for the new Journal Reconciliation option.

Ledger Sets and Data Access Sets

The Ledger Set is a great new feature which lets you manage multiple ledgers as one – a especially useful feature for faster closing. However the ledgers must share the following information:

• Chart of accounts
• Calendar/period type combination

You can open/close periods for multiple ledgers at once, run recurring journals that update balances for multiple ledgers. So it goes way beyond report sets or cross COA FSG reports.

Ledger Set

Strange though – this is a non-OFA screen…having thought that all new features was pushed to OFA.

Similar to the Ledger Set the Data Access Set provides security at same level so ledgers must still share the following information:

• Chart of accounts
• Calendar/period type combination

The security can be at the following levels:

• Full Ledger – access to the whole COA
• Balancing Segment Value – access to specific balancing segment values
• Management Segment Value – access to specific management segment values

Note the Management Segment is a new segment qualifier. If you what your cost centre to be secured and used in Data Access sets enable the Cost Centre segment as a Management Segment. Remember if your COA has been used there is a specific procedure for doing this to avoid corruption.

Data Access Set

The system always generate a Data Access Set with same name and full access for each:

• Primary Ledger
• Secondary ledger
• Ledger Set
• Reporting Currency (also creates a Reporting Currency + Source Ledger Data Access Set)

Data Access Set security can be combined with Segment Value Security Rules and will work as a logical AND so only where the two overlaps access will be allowed.

Reporting Currencies

The reporting currency definition is now comprised from the R11i options for reporting sets of books and the MRC profile options.

Period Rates

Period Rates Replaced by Daily Rates and all new OAF screens.

Currency Rates Manager:

Revaluation and Translation

Revaluation sets are now usable across ledgers that share a common chart of accounts. In some cases, you may need to enter the secondary tracking segment for revaluation sets involving a secondary tracking segment before running revaluations with upgraded templates.

General Ledger modifies revaluation templates to use corresponding daily rates for those that used period rates prior to the upgrade.

Journal Reconciliation

Journals can now be reconciled if an account has been marked as such.

The is a useful feature for clearing accounts or tax accounts which should balance to zero.

Account Setup

Note this is a cash clearing account which is a good candidate for journal reconciliation.

So in this case you would enable the segment qualifier “Reconcile” to “Yes”.

Journal Entry

Note the new “Reconciliation Reference” field. This is used both for automatic and manual reconciliation.

Unreconciled Lines

Search for unreconciled journal lines using the parameters above.

Reconcile Journal

No journals to reconcile here – but you see the point?