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Benefits of the General Ledger (GL) Review System

Prior to implementation of the General Ledger Review System, departments reviewed printed copies of their general ledger and certified their general ledgers by completing a paper Certification Log. The General Ledger Review System offers several new, time-saving options:

• Electronic Review - Making the review electronic allows for the system to do some of the work previously done manually (see features below). In addition, it reduces the need for paper - saving resources and reducing filing space. Even if a department decides to continue manual review, the certification is still captured electronically, ensuring that it won't get lost in a shuffle of paper.
• Ongoing Annotation - Departments no longer must wait until the end of the month to perform their review and certification of the ledgers. Annotation enables reviewers to review the general ledger during the month, thereby eliminating the peak in workload at the end of the month.

  Reviewers click an icon indicating whether a transaction is valid or invalid and add notes to help them track actions taken to correct invalid transactions. Note: Payroll is reviewed and certified offline and is therefore excluded from online annotation and review.

• Auto-annotation - This option allows you to have qualifying transactions automatically annotated. Auto-annotation may be applied regardless of the transaction amount, provided the transaction meets the criteria (see the GL Review Training Materials for details).
• Separation of Duties Checking - One of the criteria for auto-annotation is that there is more than one responsible person reviewing a transaction before it goes through. If a transaction does not qualify for auto-annotation, then the GL Review System prevents the approver of the document from also annotating the transaction.
• Statistical Sampling - The majority of the line items (i.e., charges and credits) posted to the general ledger are less than $2,500 yet they account for a small percent of the overall dollars spent. As a result, a lot of effort can be spent reviewing low dollar transactions.

  Statistical sampling provides a method whereby departments with many low value transactions may save significant effort by reviewing a randomly selected sample instead of all low value charges and credits. A department using the statistical sampling option would only be required to review those transactions under $2,500 that were selected by the system. An option is provided to specify document types, origin codes, or object codes that could be excluded from statistical sampling. Note: It is a good idea to exclude from statistical sampling those transactions that are likely to be invalid or that should be reviewed more closely (i.e., GLIB feed transactions). All transactions excluded from statistical sampling will require a full review.

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