Ledger postings and budget checking

Ledger postings can be made in the Purchasing module. If commitment accounting is used, then when a purchase order is placed, a posting to the Commitment ledger can be made.

When receiving the goods or an invoice, this Commitment ledger posting is reversed, and a posting is made to the Actual ledger. These postings normally correlate with budget checking consumption of commitment and expenditure amounts.

Note:  Ledger postings and budget checking are separate functions and have no link in SunSystems. They work independently of each other, and may contain different amounts and periods. Therefore, care must be taken when extracting data for reporting purposes as the data may differ.

Data may be different between ledger postings and budget checking for several reasons.

For example, the period used for ledger postings is different to that used for budget checking. Ledger posting periods are defined in the Purchase Type (PTS) stages and are:

  • Order Period (period entered on the order)
  • Order Entry
  • Order Confirmation Period
  • Invoice Period (period entered on the invoice)
  • Invoice Matching Period
  • Invoice Confirmation Period.

The period used for budget checking is the period in which the budget is consumed. Using the navigation method, this can be one, two or many periods. So, if there is no available budget in the current period, but there is available budget in a previous period, budget checking may use this period.

The following is an example of a transaction being entered:

Stage Period Performed Budget Checking/Comments Budget Checking/Period Ledger Postings/Comments Ledger Postings/Period
Order Entry 01/200X No budget checking   No ledger posting  
Order Confirmation 02/200X Budget commitment amount increased No budget this period, but budget last period 01/200X Commitment ledger posting Stage defined on Purchase Type: If OE=01/200X If OC=02/200X
Invoice Entry 03/200X No budget checking   No ledger posting  
Invoice Matching 04/200X No budget checking   No ledger posting  
Invoice Confirmation 05/200X Budget commitment amount reduced Period = 02/200X Commitment reversal Stage defined on Purchase Type reversal: If OE=01/200X If OC=02/200X
Invoice Confirmation 05/200X Expenditure amount increased Period = 02/200X Actual ledger posting IE=03/200X IM=04/200X IC=05/200X
Note:  If budget checking data is required, then reports from the budget tables should be used. If financial reports are required, then reports from the ledgers can be used. However, great care must be taken if budget checking reports are obtained from the financial ledgers.