GNM_RCS_Accruals_Reports_TS

Guardian News & Media

GNM RCS

Accruals reports

Technical specification

Prepared by O3 Team Limited

Authors Nigel Robson

Creation date 24/10/2013

Document Ref. GNM_RCS_Accruals_Reports_TS.docx

Version draft for review

• 1. Introduction

     1. Purpose

The document GNM_RCS_Financial_Reporting_FS.docx is the functional specification that describes what business functions RCS supports in relation to financial reporting.

This document is one of a set of technical specifications that provide details of how those functions are implemented in RCS.

• 1. Scope

This document focusses on the accruals reports in RCS. Separate documents deal with all other aspects of financial reporting in RCS including prepayments, spend analysis, the transactions list, and delayed payments.

This document is intended as a high-level technical document outlining how the relevant business functions are implemented in terms of software modules.

Importantly, this document does not aim to provide the level of detail that would be required in a programming specification in areas such as program structure, detailed business rules, data integrity, validation, locking considerations, data security, and calls to/from other software modules, performance considerations, and so forth.

For details of program logic and coding, the reader should refer to the program files themselves.

• 1. Commission & other payment accruals report

     1. Requesting the report

The report is run from this menu option: Finance → Accruals + prepayments → Commission + other payment accruals

This menu option opens screen rcs_reports_040_pc.fmb.

When the screen opens the user chooses the financial period they wish to report on. A list is available.

Pressing “Finish” saves the request to the REPORT_REQUESTS table. The request is picked up by an asynchronous database job that processes the request and emails the report to the requestor.

• 1. Report process

The software that is executed to produce the report is a package procedure called:

rcs_acrl_010.run_report

This report lists all commission and expense payments that were not sent as payment instructions to either to Oracle AP or Payroll on or before the end of the accrual period specified in the request.

Only items whose date (publication date or date agreed or date entered in that order) fall within the accrual ageing period limit are reported. This limit is defined in a system parameter and at the time of writing is set to 24 periods i.e. 2 financial years including the period being reported.

The accrual amount shown on the report is the entire amount of the fee (or estimate) converted to GBP.

• 1. Report output

The report output file lists the data in comma separated values (csv) format and is emailed to the requestor of the report. The file contains these columns:

Legal entity, Cost centre, Account, Product, <Spare>, Analysis 1, Analysis 2, Project, Payee, Type, Description, Reference, Agreed on, Entered on, Published on, Despatched to accounts, Paid on, Agreed fee, Agreed currency, UK equiv fee

• 1. Contract accruals report

     1. Requesting the report

The report is run from this menu option: Finance → Accruals + prepayments → Contract accruals

This menu option opens screen rcs_reports_250_pc.fmb.

Having chosen the Contract accruals report the user presses “Next>>” to enter the financial period to be reported on:

Pressing “Finish” saves the request to the REPORT_REQUESTS table. The request is picked up by an asynchronous database job that processes the request and emails the report to the requestor.

• 1. Report process

The software that is executed to produce the report is a package procedure called:

rcs_acrl_020.run_report

The report identifies two sets of contract data to be reported:

• • All transactions scheduled against contracts that were due to be sent but were not sent as payment instructions to either to Oracle AP or Payroll on or before the end of the period being accrued; and

  • All contract fees that have yet to be scheduled as transactions where the fees were at least in part due on or before the end of the accrual period specified in the request.

The calculation of the fee is somewhat complex:

• • The amount accrued is the proportion of the fee that applies to the accrual period i.e. the overlap between the accrual period and the period that the fee covers;

  • The amount is converted to GBP if necessary.

• 1. Report output

The report output file lists the data in comma separated values (csv) format and is emailed to the requestor of the report. The file contains these columns:

Contributor, Reference, Format, RCS ID, Contract start, Contract end, Financial Period start, Financial Period end, Due to pay on, Payment period start, Payment period end, Sent to AP on, Rate, Fees, Currency, GBP, Accrual/Prepayment, Payment type, Payment description, Estimate?, On hold?, Legal entity, Cost centre, Account, Product, <Spare>, Analysis 1, Analysis 2, Project, Contract comments, Reason for delay

• 1. Syndication accruals report

     1. Requesting the report

The report is run from this menu option: Finance → Accruals + prepayments → Contract accruals

This menu option opens screen rcs_reports_250_pc.fmb.

Having chosen the Syndication contract accruals report the user presses “Next>>” to enter the financial period to be reported on:

Pressing “Finish” saves the request to the REPORT_REQUESTS table. The request is picked up by an asynchronous database job that processes the request and emails the report to the requestor.

• 1. Report process

The software that is executed to produce the report is a package procedure called:

rcs_acrl_030.run_report

This report identifies all of the syndication invoices that are due to be sent to Oracle AR for the licensing of content to Customers where the invoices relate (at least in part) to the period being accrued for, and where the invoice was not sent to Oracle AR on or before the last date of the period.

The calculation of the fee is much the same as the calculation used for the Editorial contracts:

• • The amount accrued is the proportion of the invoice fee that applies to the accrual period i.e. the overlap between the accrual period and the period that the invoice covers; and

  • The amount is converted to GBP if necessary.

• 1. Report output

The report output file lists the data in comma separated values (csv) format and is emailed to the requestor of the report. The file contains these columns:

Customer, Contract, Contract start, Contract end, Invoice, Invoice line, Financial period, Financial period start, Financial period end, Due to invoice on, Payment period start, Payment period end, Sent to AR on, Description, Fees, Currency, Estimate?, GBP, Accrual/Prepayment, Legal entity, Cost centre, Account, Product, <Spare>, Analysis 1, Analysis 2, Project, Contract comments

End of Document