Re: JBA ML - Month end procedures

[Jeff_Klipa/Harvard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Since all A/R transactions are date stamped based on the current period in the
Inventory Calendar, the Month-End Closing must begin by closing the Inventory
Calendar and incrementing that calendar to the Next Period...  (Inventory is the
only application that requires you to do the Year-End Close manually (3/INC)...
All the others applications are "smart" enough to calculate when the year should
roll forward during the normal Month-End close...)  Since the IT Department is
responsible for running our Inventory Month-End Close, we wrote some routines to
automate our Inventory Month-End Close...  I grew very tired very quickly of
running the close by hand for 14 plants every month...  And now I see in a
recent release GEAC have made 2/INC eligible to run in Machine Manager...  Thank
goodness...

Please note here that once the Inventory calendar has been incremented to the
next period, all inventory transactions obviously can continue uninterrupted
regardless of whether or not any of the financial applications have
closed/opened yet or not...  Even AFI extracts can be performed without fear of
posting to the wrong G/L period...  It is based on the Inventory Calendar period
at the time the transaction is originally posted...  For some reason A/R
postings don't go to the future period they go to the currently open A/R
period...  At least that's what I was told...  All I know for sure is they don't
want their A/R numbers changing while they are trying to close A/R...

Since A/R uses the Inventory Calendar one of the next logical steps is to Close
A/R and Open A/R in the next period...  OUR Inventory Close usually runs late
evening on the last Sunday of every month (we operate on a 4-4-5 fiscal
calendar)...  But the A/R, A/P, C/S and G/L closings take the better part of the
rest of the week to finalize...  During that time period the only transactions
that WE have to prevent users from running on our system are INVOICE POSTINGS to
A/R...  (Until the A/R calendar is rolled forward...).  (There are actually 4
specific tasks we "DISABLE" - see below.)  That's OUR system, YOUR system may
have different restrictions...

We cannot trust the users to remember NOT to Print/Post A/R Invoices so we had
to come up with a bullet proof way to make sure nobody Oopsed an Invoice into
A/R between the time we incremented the Inventory calendar and before accounting
had a chance to close/open the A/R calendar...

Here's what I have been doing...

I set up an automated job to go into the file IPGAMF4/APG35PHY and change the
Version number on 4 custom tasks I created from 93 to 03...  This will
effectively disable the user options which let them perform the restricted tasks
in JBA...  These tasks will be changed back to 93 from 03 after the Finance
department says that the next A/R period is open and ready for use...  (I gave
them a menu option to "Re-Enable Invoicing)...   The program to call on these
task definitions is called DISABLED and simply displays a screen informing the
users that the task they are trying to run is temporarily disabled and lists a
phone # to call if they want to discuss it with someone...  (We have a help desk
# we publish)...

Here are the tasks involved...  They are the same task # as the vanilla task's
so they will be run in place of vanilla when their version # = '03' and they
will not run when their version number reverts back to '93'...  Thus re-enabling
the vanilla tasks...
APSR35         APPL35 RLSL35 FUNC35 CUSC35 MNDS35
  O            OE         93           3030         XXX      Invoice Print
(DISABLED)
  O            OE         93           3040         XXX      Invoice Reprint
(DISABLED)
  O            SL          93           1010         XXX     Post invoices /
credit notes
  O            SL          93           1040         XXX     Post sales /
nominal journals
(Environment code XXX would be your default environment code...)

So it's all automagic for us...  I simply monitor the closes from home on Sunday
 evenings to make sure no errors occur and the rest is automated (and bullet
proof)...
If you have other tasks you need disabled you can use the same method...  The
logic may seem strange to the uninitiated but believe me it works like a
charm...
I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about this method...

Hth, Good luck...
Jeff Klipa
Harvard Industries, Inc.
jaklipa@harvardind.com

----- Original Message -----
From: <Jim_Hawkins@tsss.com>
To: <jbausers-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 4:58 AM
Subject: JBA ML - Month end procedures


> Our accountants have been relying on people not entering new transactions
> while they run reports and perform month end closes.  Since this is
> basically an honor system, frequently someone forgets and enters something.
> There must be a better way.
>
> What procedures are others doing to keep transactions from being posted
> during the month end close process?  Suggestions.
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Jim Hawkins
> IBM Certified Specialist AS/400 RPG IV Programmer
> Programmer/Analyst
> Eimo Americas