PeopleSoft’s Account Reconciliation

Using PeopleSoft’s Account Reconciliation to enhance auditability and attain streamlined & accelerated Month End process.

To have a smooth month end closing is at the top of the finance team’s wish list. If the overall process is not streamlined and lacks discipline, it could be one of the most stressful and time-consuming activities. The overlooked activities rotate around identifying errors, correcting it and adding late journal entries if needed, etc. This means delayed financial statements, audit reports and delayed filing & disclosures.

Part of Month End activity is to verify if the subsystem transactions are matching with GL Chartfield level balances. The custom queries and configured Workcenter’s used can at times, lack drill down features to determine the base transactions. Even the external auditors would need to interrogate the supporting documents related to the transactions for audit purposes. So it again involves identifying details by browsing into system.

So, what does this mean for PeopleSoft Financials customers?

As part of the continuous improvement process, Oracle delivers a new or enhanced functionality for the PeopleSoft Financials application in every new PUM, one of them is Account Reconciliation.

PeopleSoft’s Account Reconciliation provides a configurable tool by which the user can configure and manage the account reconciliation process. Reconciliation of accounts can be performed quickly for each accounting period so that organizations can access supporting documentation required by external auditor or for internal purpose.

PeopleSoft Account Reconciliation can reconcile accounts between subsystems and General Ledger or use the functionality for transaction verification and compliance, to ensure that individual transactions are recorded properly and have adequate supporting documentation.

The reconciliation process has made the task very easy. It is configurable for combination of ChartFields to be reconciled. The reconciliation responsibility can be assigned to an individual or to groups, allowing the user to see the reconciliations for which they are responsible. Approval workflow facilitates the account reconciliation to allow for sign-off (or mass sign-off) to indicate that a ChartField value combination has been reconciled. User can capture and retain documentation associated with reconciliation.

PeopleSoft delivered Reconciliation Workbench facilitates, the review, ability to reconcile, maintain rules and approve activities. Furthermore, the Account Reconciliation dashboard tiles are provided to show reconciliation status and due dates at a glance, making it easy to plan and manage the task.

Reconciling GL with Sub-system modules is very critical and time-consuming activities and it is one of the audit requirements. PS 9.2 has features such as the ability to identify transactions that are not posted in sub-system at period end and identify accounting entries that are not posted in GL.

Further more, there is a drill down facility to see transactions that are yet to be posted in sub-system.

Kudos to Oracle PeopleSoft to have this truly helpful feature for the Month End activities.

About the author

Mahesh Kurdukar (India) has been part of the Version 1’s PeopleSoft India team for over 3 years and has over 18 years’ experience in PeopleSoft FSCM, working on projects across USA, APAC & UK.

If you have any questions or would like more information on the Version 1’s PeopleSoft Financials Account Reconciliation, please contact him at mahesh.kurdukar@version1.com.

Do look out for series of blogs in the near future.