Oracle Applications: Period - End Processing in Oracle Inventory

Business Requirements

The period close process for Oracle Inventory enables summarising of costs related to inventory and manufacturing for a given accounting period. These costs are then transferred to the General Ledger for posting.

Steps

Oracle Inventory and Oracle Cost Management provide the required features to effect the necessary period-end procedures to:

Reconcile the inventory and work in process costs and values.
Transfer inventory and manufacturing costs to the General Ledger.
Transfer summary or detail accounting information to the general ledger.
Independently open and close periods for each inventory organisation.
Perform interim transfers to the General Ledger without closing the period.
Maintain the same set of periods and fiscal calendar as for the General Ledger.

Attention: For period-end adjustment purposes, it may be appropriate to hold more than one period open per inventory organisation at the same time, although at other times, having only one period open at a time ensures that transactions are correctly dated and posted to the correct accounting period.

Procedures

The following steps are taken in performing period-end processing for Oracle Inventory:

Complete All Transactions for the Period Being Closed

Ensure that all issues, receipts, and adjustments have been entered and verify that no hard copy records exist or are awaiting data entry, e.g. packing slips in receiving.
Optional Report - Cycle Count Report

This report will highlight any unconfirmed ad-hoc Stocktakes.

Check Inventory and Work in Process Transaction Interfaces

Check the Interface Managers window to ensure that there are no background or concurrent programs unprocessed.

Check all three selections, Transactions Interface, Internal Transactions, and Demand Interface, and fix any rejected transactions.

The interface managers that need to be run are as follows:

Material Transaction Manager
Material Cost Transaction
Move Transaction Manager
Resource Cost Transaction Manager
Check the Reservation Managers window
Demand Reservation Manager

Check Oracle Order Management Transaction Processes

Ensure all sales order (Pick Release) issues through Oracle Order Management have been completed and transferred successfully to Oracle Inventory.

Attention : If orders have not been released, they do not have to be completed.

Review Inventory Transactions

Before closing a period, review all of the transactions for the period that have a high dollar value and/or a high transaction quantity. Verify that the correct accounts have been charged. Correcting incorrect account charges before closing the period is easier than writing manual journal entries to resolve them later.

Balance the Perpetual Inventory

Check that the perpetual inventory value up to the end of the period being closed matches the value reported in the General Ledger. This balancing is usually effected automatically, but one of the following three sources may create a problem:

Other inventory journal entries

Journal entries from products other than Oracle Inventory, that update the inventory accounts.

Charges to improper accounts

For example, material issued from a sub-inventory to a miscellaneous account, but one of the sub-inventory accounts was used as that miscellaneous account.

Transactions after period end reports

This occurs when the period-end inventory valuation reports are submitted before all transactions for the period have been completed.

Use the Historical Inventory Balance Report to obtain period valuation information before the extra transactions.

The following reports can be run to help with these reviews:

Inventory Value Report

Use the Inventory Value Report to show quantity, valuation, and detailed item information for the sub-inventories specified.

Period Close Value Summary Report

Use the Period Close Value Summary to see summary balances for sub-inventories. If you run this report for a closed accounting period, the report displays the sub-inventory values at the end of that period. If you run the report for an open period, the report displays the sub-inventory value at the point in time you run the report. You can see more sub-inventory balance detail by running the Inventory Value Report, or the Elemental Inventory Value Report.

Material Account Distribution Detail Report

Use the Material Account Distribution Detail Report to view the accounts charged for inventory transactions. Review inventory transaction values transferred to the general ledger by GL batch.

Material Account Distribution Summary Report

Use the Material Account Distribution Summary report to review inventory accounting activity. If you detect unusual accounts or amounts, use the Material Account Distribution Detail report to print the transaction in detail.

Use the Material Account Distribution Summary Report to verify inventory account activity against inventory valuation increases or decreases for the accounting period. Finally, use this report to reconcile an account across several periods.

Validate the Work in Process Inventory

If Oracle Work in Process is installed, check the work in process inventory balances against transactions with the WIP Account Distribution Report, by summary or detail.

The WIP Account Distribution Report details account information for work in process cost transactions, including resource, overhead and outside processing charges, cost updates, and period close and job close variances. The system groups your transactions by job or schedule, by transaction type, and orders your transactions by earliest transaction date. You can list detailed account information for specific accounts, general ledger batches, or both to help you reconcile your general ledger.

This report does not list material cost transactions such as issues, completions, and scrap. You can list this information using the Material Account Distribution reports in Oracle Inventory.

Transfer Summary or Detail Transactions

If time permits, run the Transfer transactions to GL process up to the period end date before closing the period. Closing a period automatically executes the general ledger transfer, but the process can be run without closing the period, using the General Ledger Transfer window. Since a period, once closed, cannot be reopened, running this process prior to closing the period facilitates proofing of the interfaces transactions, and any adjustments to the period can be made via new inventory transactions as required.

Attention: The Transfer transactions to GL Process must be run for each Inventory Organisation.

Attention: If this step was by-passed, and the period was closed, a GL Transfer would automatically be initiated, but no adjustments to that period could then be entered, since transactions cannot be posted to a closed period, and a closed period cannot be re-opened.

View the General Ledger Transfer History to ensure that all transactions have been successfully transferred to the General Ledger. Navigate to the General Ledger Transfer window and search for all transfers with a status of Error.

Close the current Oracle Payables and Oracle Purchasing Periods

Complete all steps required to close Oracle Payables and Oracle Purchasing. Oracle Payables is closed prior to Oracle Purchasing to enable running of purchase accruals to accrue expenses on un-invoiced receipts.

If Oracle Purchasing or Oracle Inventory are closed, a receipt cannot be entered for that period. However, as a manual procedure, Oracle Purchasing should be closed before Oracle Inventory.

Close the Current Inventory Period

Closing the inventory period using the Inventory Accounting Periods window automatically transfers summary transactions to the general ledger interface table.

Attention: This process needs to be actioned for each Inventory Organisation defined.

Prior to closing the inventory period, click on the Pending button to display pending transactions. This will display transactions under the following statuses:

Resolution Required: displays the number of unprocessed material transactions, uncosted material transactions, and pending WIP costing transactions existing in this period. These must be resolved before the period is closed.

Resolution Recommended: Displays the number of pending receiving transactions, pending material transactions, and pending shop floor move transactions existing in this period. You can close the accounting period, however, after it is closed these transactions cannot be processed.

The period close performs the following:

Closes the open period for Oracle Inventory and Oracle Work in Process.
Creates summary or detail inventory accounting entries in the GL interface.
Creates summary or detail work in process accounting entries in the GL interface.
Calculates period-end sub-inventory balances.

For each sub-inventory, the period close period adds the net transaction value for the current period to the previous period’s ending value. This creates the period-end value for the current period. The period-end values by sub-inventory can be viewed via the Period Close Enquiry form, or reported with the Period Close Summary Report.

The period close process automatically transfers all job costs and variances by general ledger account. Discrete jobs and certain non-standard jobs are closed separately. Job close performs the necessary accounting for each job, including variance calculations. For expense non-standard jobs, the period close process writes off any remaining balances and transfers any period costs to the general ledger.

Warning: Closing an inventory period permanently closes the period and no further transactions can be charged to that period.

Open the Next Inventory Period

Open the next inventory period using the Inventory Accounting Periods window.