Period Close: Tips for Closing Payables (Fusion Cloud)

When closing the Payables period, there are some helpful reports to run that help in the reconciliation process. Even though there are plenty of other reports that can be used during period close, the Payables to Ledger Reconciliation report is the most helpful reconciliation tool available because it allows the user to drill into the differences between transactional and accounted activity. Once the user drills into the difference, they are able to see the exact transactions that are outstanding and can resolve any issues as needed, like so:

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But first, it’s important to understand the steps involved to close the module properly.

1. Ensure all invoices and payments have been fully processed. This eliminates maintenance during reconciling.
2. Run the Create Accounting process to ensure that any outstanding items on the Reconciliation report are not there because of items not being accounted for.
3. If any invoices are sitting in the interface table or need imported, push all imported invoices through and complete as necessary. Running the Import Invoices process will bring in invoices that have been sitting in the interface table or are needed for an even period balance.
4. Ensure all invoice approvals have been completed. If any are pending approval, they will still need to go through the remaining steps to process and account for them before closing the period.
5. Next, you will want to review some other helpful reports that are available to reconcile, such as Payables Invoice Register, Payments Register, or Matured Bills Payable Status report.
6. If conversion rates are being used for multi-currencies, be sure and run the Apply Missing Conversion Rates process. This ensures that all foreign currencies have conversion rates applied.
7. Run the Create Accounting process again. If you have had to complete any of the previous steps, it is best practice to run this process again to capture any new activity and post to the ledger.
8. Optionally, you can sweep any questionable transactions to the next period. This is only for the issues that cannot be resolved before closing the period and needs to be reviewed again at a later date.
9. Close the period. Then, run the Payables Period Close Exceptions report. This checks for anything that failed in the accounting process.
10. Open the new period.
11. Next, review the Payables to Ledger Reconciliation report. This will show anything that could have slipped through the cracks while running through the previous steps, and as mentioned before, will allow you to drill down and see what the exact issues are.
12. Review the Trial Balance. There are a few other reports that can be ran for reconciliation and they are all listed in the Period Close folder in the Reports and Analytics work area.
13. Run the Create Mass Additions process to push all invoices including capital assets to the Fixed Assets module.
14. Review the Account Analysis report to ensure only necessary transactions were posted to the GL.
15. And finally, run the desired tax withholding or 1099 reports.

Hopefully this has been helpful, but even with the abundance of reconciliation reports that are offered by Oracle, the close process can be tedious. Even so, I think we all can appreciate these reports and processes during this process as a way to make life a little bit easier.

In the upcoming weeks, I will be reviewing the close process for several other modules.