Setting Up General Ledger > Overview > General Ledger Components
  
General Ledger Components
The GL account is the base unit in the general ledger. Create as many different types of GL account as are required for your business environment.
Posting is executed during predefined GL periods within the framework of the GL calendar year. Analysis of transactions is further refined using sub-accounts, cost centers, projects, and supplementary analysis fields (SAF).
Transactions are recorded in daybooks, which can enable temporary postings through links to accounting layers. The general ledger mask allows you to combine accounts, sub-accounts, and cost centers in a predefined posting framework.
The following table summarizes GL components. Define each of these components in turn to set up the general ledger.

General Ledger Components
 
Component
Description
GL Account
Plan the different types of accounts required for the chart of accounts. Define accounts for cash, bank, inventory, sales, fixed assets, open items, cross-company control, customer control, customer payments, supplier control, supplier payments, or WIP control.
System Account
This is a category of account that is required by the system, such as rounding accounts and exchange rate difference accounts.
When the GL type is system account, you must specify which system subtype applies.
Sub‑account, Cost Center, and Project
These elements provide finer detail in financial reporting. Balances in sub‑accounts and cost centers can be listed separately or summarized under account codes.
Supplementary Analysis Field (SAF)
SAFs provide reporting data on specific customer or supplier items within GL accounts. SAFs can be used to provide costings on a particular service before you create a purchase order for the service.
GL Mask
The GL mask is a matrix of your accounts. The GL mask allows you to combine accounts, sub-accounts, and cost centers in a predefined posting framework.
GL Period
You must define a GL calendar year and GL periods before you can post transactions. Periods have start and end dates that do not have to correspond with calendar months. All entities in a domain share the same GL calendar year, but each entity can manage the opening and closing of periods separately.
Daybook
Daybooks contain transaction posting lines and control the posting of transactions because each daybook must be linked to an accounting layer. The system provides a range of daybook types, which lets you group transactions by type, such as banking, revaluation, or consolidation, or by payment type, such as supplier or customer payments. Journal entries are automatically entered in the daybooks with which they are associated. Daybooks also control the numbering of invoices and credit notes, in addition to GL transaction numbers.
Period Mark
Period marks are automatically generated by the system and let you trace transactions by period. The mark is an attribute of the posting and appears in posting reports.
Accounting Layer
Accounting layers provide ways of segregating transactions within a single GL account. The posting of transactions is controlled by associating daybook types with one of three system-defined accounting layers: official, management, and transient.
• If a daybook is associated with the official layer, transactions are immediately posted to the general ledger.
• Management layers provide different types of GAAP reports within one organization.
• Transient accounting layers enable temporary posting for review or analysis, before official posting.
Unit of Measure
Units of measure are the values used in transactions that involve any type of quantifiable unit.