R12 and Oracle General Ledger

Oracle Release 12 of the E-Business Suite is also called the Global Business Release , as it has numerous enhancements designed to make it easier to do business on a global basis. A more flexible, centralized global accounting structure has been introduced which makes it easier to operate between and across operating units and legal entities. Overall, R12 contains 18 new modules and 2443 enhancements to existing functionality.

Note: This Document is compiled from Various Sources [Basically a Cut Copy Paste]

Accounting Setup Manager

The ledger is a basic concept in Release 12. The ledger replaces the 11i concept of a set of books. It represents an accounting representation for one or more legal entities or for a business need such as consolidation or management reporting. Companies can now clearly and efficiently model its legal entities and their accounting representations in Release 12. This seems to be a major area in getting success of the shared service center and single instance initiatives where many or all legal entities of an enterprise are accounted for in a single instance, and data, setup, and processing must be effectively secured but also possibly shared.

Now, legal Entities can be mapped to entire Ledgers or if you account for more than one legal entity within a ledger, you can map a legal entity to balancing segments within a ledger.

While a set of books is defined by 3‘s

1. chart of accounts 2. functional currency 3. accounting calendar,

The addition in this list the ledger is defined by a 4th C: the accounting method,

This 4th C allows you to assign and manage a specific accounting method for each ledger. Therefore, when a legal entity is subject to multiple reporting requirements, separate ledgers can be used to record the accounting information.

Accounting Setup Manager is a new feature that allows you to set up your common financial setup components from a central location.

What is Accounting Setup Manager

Accounting Setup Manager is a new feature that streamlines the setup and implementation of Oracle Financial Applications. The Accounting Setup Manager will facilitate the setup required for simultaneous accounting for multiple reporting requirements.

With the Accounting Setup Manager, you can perform and maintain the following common setup components from a central location:

Legal Entities Ledgers, primary and secondary

Operating Units, which are assigned to primary ledgers Reporting Currencies, which is an enhanced feature Sub ledger Accounting Options. This is where you define the accounting methods for

each legal entity sub ledger transaction and associate them to the ledger where the accounting will be stored.

Intercompany Accounts and Balancing Rules Accounting and Reporting Sequencing Both Intercompany and Sequencing

Sub ledger Accounting (SLA)

GL is integrated with SLA to enable a unified process to account for sub ledger transactions and post data to GL, and to provide a consistent view when drilling down from GL to sub ledger transactions.

Most of us are well aware that in Release 12 of Oracle Applications, Sub ledger Accounting (SLA) has been introduced, which is a Rule-based accounting engine, toolset & repository which is supporting most of Oracle business Suite modules. As we know driver for introduction this is to have an option of allowing multiple accounting representations for a single business event, resolving conflicts between corporate and local fiscal accounting requirements. The Functionality is somehow very similar to Global accounting engine, which oracle does offer for European reporting Needs

So what is Sub ledger accounting?

SLA is an intermediate step between sub ledger products and the Oracle General Ledger Journal entries are created in Sub ledger Accounting and then transferred to Oracle General

Ledger Each sub ledger transaction that requires accounting is represented by a complete and balanced

sub ledger journal entry stored in a common data model

Is this Module or what?

It is good to know, sub ledger Accounting is a Service, not an Application.

The high points of SLA would be:

There are no SLA responsibilities Users do not login to SLA SLA is a service provided to Oracle Applications SLA forms and programs are embedded within standard Oracle Application responsibilities SLA provides the following services to Oracle Applications Generation and storage of detailed accounting entries Storage of sub ledger balances (e.g. third party control account balances) Sub ledger accounting entries Sub ledger reporting (e.g. Sub ledger journal reports, open account balances listing)

What oracle application Module taking services for SLA?Most of modules which need accounting entry with finance use service of SLA Modules.

This new Product has many new functionality such as:

Journal Entry Setup and sequencing Date Effective Application accounting Definitions Multiple Accounting Representation Multi-period Accounting Summarization Options Draft and online accounting Replacement for disabled accounts Process category Accounting Transaction account Builder Accrual Reversal Accounting Accounted and Gain/Loss Amount calculations Application Accounting Definition Loader Enhanced Reporting Currency Functionality

The overall advantage of SLA can be summarized by oracle as below:

GL Flow with Sub ledger-Level Secondary Ledger

Let’s take a case, with a scenario with basic Finance module, you can find how tightly accounting model is separated with transaction model in release 12.

This is the typical flow within one product with SLA can be best described as:

Enhanced Foreign Currency Processing by Reporting made easy

GL has added new features and enhanced existing features to support foreign currency processing, they are mainly as:

In R12, MRC feature is enhanced with a feature call Reporting Currencies. That mean it will now support multiple currency representations of data from any source, including external systems, Oracle or non-Oracle sub ledgers, and Oracle General Ledger journals and balances.

The second one is in reporting to view balances view balances that were entered in your ledger currency separate from those balances that were entered and converted to the ledger currency. The change in R12 is that balances entered in the ledger currency are maintained separately from balances converted to the ledger currency for use in Reporting and Analysis.

Here’s an example. Assume we have a ledger and the ledger currency is USD.I enter and post two journals; one in 1,000 US Dollars, and another in 500 British Pounds that gets converted to 1200 US Dollars.

In Release 11i, I can review the 500 GBP and the 1200 USD that results from converting the 500 GBP, and the total 2200 USD which is the USD balance in the Cash Account. The $2200 is the sum of the $1000 entered in USD and the $1200 converted from the 500 British Pounds. However, I view that a 1000 USD were entered directly in USD.

In Release 12, I can view the 1000 USD by performing an account inquiry on the Cash account for balances entered only in the ledger currency. The amounts entered in foreign currencies that were converted to the ledger currency will not be included in the balance. Of course, if I want to retrieve all balances in USD, both the entered as well and the converted, I can still do that in Release 12.

Creating foreign currency recurring journals

In Release 11i, you could define recurring journals using the functional currency or STAT currency.

Now in Release 12, you can create recurring journals using foreign currencies. This is particularly useful if you need to create foreign currency journals that are recurring in nature. For example, assume a subsidiary that uses a different currency from its parent borrows money from the parent. The subsidiary can now generate a recurring entry to record monthly interest payable to the parent company in the parent’s currency.

Data Access to Multiple Legal Entities and Ledgers

You no longer have to constantly switch responsibilities in order to access the data in a different ledger. You can access multiple ledgers from a single responsibility as long as all ledgers share the same chart of accounts and calendar.

Simultaneous Opening and Closing of Periods for Multiple Ledgers

You no longer have to open and close periods for each ledger separately. You can now open and close periods across multiple ledgers simultaneously by submitting Open and Close Periods programs from the Submit Request form.

Simultaneous Currency Translation of Multiple Ledgers

You can run the Translation program for multiple ledgers simultaneously, if you are managing multiple ledgers.

Financial Reporting for Multiple Ledgers

Now with this feature you can run Financial Statement Generator (FSG) reports for multiple ledgers simultaneously. This is useful if you manage multiple ledgers and want to run a balance sheet or income statement report for all of your ledgers at the same time.

Cross-Ledger and Foreign Currency Allocations

You are able to allocate financial data from one or more ledgers to a different target ledger. This enables you to perform cross-ledger allocations, which is useful for purposes such as allocating corporate or regional expenses to local subsidiaries when each entity has its own ledger

Streamlined Automatic Posting

You can now share Auto Post Criteria sets across multiple ledgers that share the same chart of accounts and calendar and use the Auto Post Criteria sets to post journals across multiple ledgers simultaneously.

Streamlined Auto Reversal Criteria Setup Integrated Web-based

Auto Reversal Criteria Sets can also be shared across ledgers to reverse journals across multiple ledgers. This is enhanced by integrated Web-based Spreadsheet Interface.

Journal Copy

Now we can now copy entire journal batches. You can copy journal batches with any status. The system will create a new journal batch containing the same journal entries. You may also change the batch name, period, and/or effective date while copying the journal batch. After copying the journal batch, you may modify the un posted journals in the same manner as any manually created journals.

Streamlined Consolidation Mappings

You are able to define Chart of Accounts Mappings (formerly known as Consolidation Mappings) between two charts of accounts. Therefore, if you have multiple Consolidation Definitions for parent and subsidiary ledgers that share the same chart of accounts pair, and their mapping rules are the same, you only have to define a single Chart of Accounts Mapping.

The enhancement in R12 allows you to define mappings between charts of accounts instead of between sets of books, so that they can be shared across multiple Consolidation Definitions.

Therefore, if you have multiple Consolidation Definitions for parent and subsidiary ledgers that share the same chart of accounts pair, and their mapping rules are the same, you only have to define a single Chart of Accounts Mapping.

You can also secure access to chart of accounts mappings using definition access set security. This allows you to secure which users can view, modify, and/or use chart of account mappings in consolidation definitions.

Replacement for Disabled Accounts

Normally when an account is disabled, you can prevent transactions that include the account from erroring during journal import by defining a replacement account for the disabled account. Journal import replaces the disabled account with the replacement account and continue the journal import process if the replacement account is valid. This improves processing efficiency by preventing the journal import process from erroring and enabling the successful creation of the journal with minimal user intervention when an account has been disabled.

Data Access Security for Legal Entities and Ledgers

In R12, since you can access multiple legal entities and ledgers when you log into Oracle General Ledger using a single responsibility, Oracle General Ledger provides you with flexible ways to secure your data by legal entity, ledger, or even balancing segment values or management segment values. You are able to control whether a user can only view data, or whether they can also enter and modify data for a legal entity, ledger, balancing segment value or management segment value.

Management Reporting and Security

This can be best understood as: You can designate any segment (except the natural account segment) of your chart of accounts to be your management segment and use Oracle GL security model to secure the management segment for reporting and entry of management adjustments.

Prevent Reversal of Journals with Frozen Sources

You can no longer reverse journals from frozen sources defined in the journal sources form.

If the journal is created from a frozen source, the journal cannot be modified even if the source is subsequently unfrozen in the future.This provides streamlined data reconciliation with subsystems. Not being able to reverse journals that originated in sub ledgers will ensure that the account balances will always tie out with General Ledger. If you need to reverse a sub ledger journal, then you should do so in Sub ledger Accounting or the sub ledger application.

Prevent Reversal of Unposted Journals

You also can no longer reverse unposted journals. This ensures data integrity and better auditability. In the past when we allowed you to reverse unposted journals, there was a risk that the original journal could be deleted so you could end up reversing something that didn't exist. Now, all reversals can be tied back to the original posted journal.

Integrated Web-based Spreadsheet Interface

Through the integration with Web ADI, users can now leverage spreadsheet functionality in Oracle General Ledger via a web-based interface. The spreadsheet interface can be conveniently launched from a GL responsibility.

Using the Journal Wizard, we can leverage spreadsheet functionality to create actual, budget, or encumbrance journals. You can take advantage of spreadsheet data entry shortcuts such as copying and pasting or dragging and dropping ranges of cells, or even using formulas to calculate journal line amounts. You can then upload your journals to Oracle General Ledger. Before uploading, you can save and distribute your journal worksheets for approval.

We can also import data from text files into spreadsheets, where it can be further modified before uploading to Oracle. This functionality is useful when migrating data from legacy systems, or from any source that can produce delimited files.

Using the Budget Wizard, you can download budget amounts to a spreadsheet, modify the amounts, and then upload them back. You can also choose to download the actual amounts to compare it with the budget amount. Budget Wizard also allows you to plot graphs and do a graphical comparison on the amounts. Budget Wizard also provides budget notes. You can add descriptions to accounts and amounts in your budget and explain your budget within the budget worksheet, avoiding the clutter of external documentation.

Control Accounts

You are able to control data entry to an account by ensuring it only contains data from a specified journal source and to prevent users from entering data for the account either in other journal sources or manually within general ledger.

Security for Definitions

You can secure your setup and definitions by granting specific privileges to users to view, modify, and/or execute a definition. This enables you to control which of your users can view a definition, but not modify or execute it, or execute a definition without modifying it, or vice versa.

Following is a list of definitions that have this security available for:

1. Mass Allocation and Mass Budget Formulas 2. FSG Reports and Components 3. Accounting Calendars 4. Transaction Calendars 5. Auto Post Criteria Sets 6. Auto Reversal Criteria Sets 7. Budget Organizations 8. Chart of Accounts Mappings 9. Consolidation Definitions 10. Consolidation Sets 11. Elimination Sets 12. Ledger Sets 13. Recurring Journals and Budget Formulas 14. Rate Types 15. Revaluation

Revaluation in detail:

Let’s take some thoughts on Oracle GL Foreign Currency exposure. As we know three key terminologies most wildly used in GL that pertain to foreign currency. They are Conversion, Revaluation, and Translation. Here we review Revaluation in detail:

Revaluation - when, what & why?

Revaluation is used if, and only if, you have foreign currency transactions (i.e. Conversion of foreign currency transactions). Revaluation uses the Period Rates Table. The Revaluation Rate is simply 1/Period End Rate.

The Revaluation Process:

1.) Finds accounts within the range of accounts specified that have all or a portion of their balance derived from foreign currency transactions;

2.) Takes the foreign currency portion of the account balance and revalues it using the Revaluation Rate from the Period Rates Table;

3.) Figures the difference between the current cumulative functional balance of these foreign transactions and the revalued functional currency balance calculated using the Revaluation Rate;

4.) Creates an unposted journal batch to adjust the account balance to the new revalued balance calculated using the Revaluation Rate. The offsetting account is an Unrealized Gain/Loss account specified when running the Revaluation process.

Don’t be confused by the fact that the Revaluation process revalues transactions entered using Daily Rates with rates from the Period Rate table; the rate it is using is simply the "Daily Rate" on the last day of the month stored in the Period Rate Table.

The purposes of Revaluation is to "true-up" liability or asset accounts that may be materially understated or overstated at month-end using an exchange rate at month- end. This understatement or overstatement is caused by an unacceptable fluctuation in the exchange rate between the time the transaction was entered into and the period of interest for reporting, usually at a month-end. Revaluation is only necessary while the obligation remains unsettled (example ..the invoice is still unpaid or the receivable uncollected). The Realized Gain/Loss will be recorded at the time the obligation is settled.

Take a note revaluation can be done on any account, but typically, this is done for balance sheet accounts, whose balance is made up of opentransactions (ie. Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable).

Revaluation is typically done for reporting purposes only; therefore, the journal entries produced as a result should be reversed in the following period.

Although Revaluation is intended to be used when transacting in currencies because of fluctuating Forex rate in the unstable economies, more and more company who is operating in Multinational environment , normally using this functionality by creating Journal Entries to reconcile their foreign subsidiary intercompany account.

The idea being that they are getting translated balances from their subsidiaries that do not balance to their intercompany due to using different rates throughout the month to record intercompany transactions.

Revaluation is used to revalue all these transaction at the same rate the foreign subsidiary used to translate their intercompany balance.

How to specifying PTD or YTD Revaluation

We can use the setting in the profile option 'GL: Income Statement Accounts Revaluation Rule'.

The following values are available:

PTD: Only PTD balances will be revalued for income statement accounts.

When you select PTD, the Revaluation program only revalues the PTD balances of your income statement accounts but continues to revalue YTD balances for balance sheet accounts.

YTD: Only YTD balances will be revalued for income statement accounts.When you select YTD, then the revaluation program behaves as it did before, revaluing YTD balances for both your income statement andbalance sheet accounts.

Formula Used By Revaluation Calculation

YTD:

REVALUATION ACCOUNT AMOUNT= ((begin_balance_dr + period_net_dr - begin_balance_cr -period_net_cr) * revaluation_rate)LESS(begin_balance_dr_beq + period_net_dr_beq - begin_balance_cr_beq - period_net_cr_beq)

PTD

REVALUATION ACCOUNT AMOUNT = ((period_net_dr - period_net_cr) * revaluation_rate))LESS(period_net_dr_beq - period_net_cr_beq)

Sequence for Reporting

Maintaining two sequences have been introduced, accounting and reporting sequencing.

In R12, to cater the need for legal compliance some other counties like Asia, Latin America, and Europe, two Journal Sequencing options have been provided. These are accounting and reporting sequence, in reality there is bit difference in these two terms.

Accounting SequenceThis is sequence used in GL journals when posted in GL, Sequence sub ledger journals when completed in Sub ledger Accounting.

What we have seen in Release 11i, we had document sequencing that sequentially numbered documents upon creation. Accounting Sequencing will automatically assign a sequence number to GL journal entries that are posted in GL. There's also an option to sequence sub ledger journals when they are completed in SLA Accounting.

Reporting SequenceThis sequence is used in GL Journals when you close a GL Period. Sequence sub ledger Journals when you complete the accounting in SLA .

These two Sequences can be assign mutually exclusive sequences based on:

Ledgers or Reporting Currencies Journal sources Journal categories Balance types

The benefits of using these sequences are summarized:

a) Legal Compliance made easy: The one biggest advantage of it will now addresses business requirements in many countries, such as Europe & Asia. Therefore it allows fiscal authorities to verify the completeness of a company's accounting records.

b) Flexibility get enhanced: With this it provides greater flexibility in choosing different journal sequencing options, as mention above, these can be based out of these different criteria, such as by ledgers, reporting currencies, journal sources, journal categories, and balance types.

c) No Localization Required: Somehow related to (a) discussed above, earlier it the local reporting need was catered by localization, which now is part of GL activity.

Where to define the sequence:

You can define the accounting sequence in the context of a ledger in Accounting Setup Manager. There is another way i.e. Accounting Sequencing menu function which we can create and manage our sequencing rules.

For Accounting Sequences which is internally a posting event, the GL journals are sequenced when they are posted in GL and Sub ledger journals are sequenced when completed in SLA. For Reporting Sequences (period close event), GL journals and sub ledger journals are sequenced when a GL period is closed. You can see both can be appear in the Journal screen as below.

Journal Line Reconciliation

Journal Line Reconciliation enables you to reconcile journal lines that should net to zero, such as suspense accounts, or payroll and tax payable accounts for countries, such as Norway, Germany, or France.

Enhanced Intercompany

In R12 there are many improvements to intercompany accounting. R11i Global Intercompany System (GIS) has been replaced with an exciting new product called Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS). We also extended intercompany balancing support to include encumbrance journals

R12 GIS Module seems some of the old features and functionality have been greatly enhanced with addition of some more new features introduced. The point which should be noted here is, R11i GIS get new name commonly known as "Advanced Global Intercompany System" in short 'AGIS'. The difference is the prefix 'A', therefore will take a close microscopic view on feature that makes 11i GIS into Advanced GIS of R12. Here are the candidate features:

Ability to create invoices (AR and AP)Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System can create invoices in payables and receivables sub ledger from intercompany transactions.

Using Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System user can enter transactions for multiple recipients within a single batch. This allows user to submit intercompany transactions from one initiator to one or more recipients in a single batch.

Proration of transaction distribution amounts

When user allocates more than one distribution account in a batch that has multiple recipient transactions, Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System can automatically prorate the distribution amounts based on the recipient transaction amounts. The proration of amounts is also used by Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System to adjust the distribution amounts in the batch when a recipient transaction is deleted or it is rejected.

Upload Transaction Batches created in Excel

This was a missing link in the earlier version, as earlier product does not have capability to use direct upload functionality, rather than interfacing through Open GIS interface. In Release 12 ADI is heavily used in this module, which is replacement of external integration for AGIS System using by mean of Microsoft based Excel spreadsheet. Now flexibility is provided to user that can generate spreadsheet templates that have features of intercompany entry pages and using the templates the user can enter transactions in the spreadsheet and upload them into Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System. The good thing has found the standard templates can be customized by removing or adding the entry fields from a list of available fields. This feature is used to create a template that contains only the entry fields that are important for the business. The required fields cannot be removed from the template. Once the templates are generated, user can save them in their local computer to reuse them in the future. These figures describe the options available in both the versions.

Multiple recipients Support

Reversal of batch/transaction

This changed feature enables a user to reverse a whole batch or an individual transaction in a batch. When the user reverses a batch or a transaction, a new reversal batch is created, which displays the

references to the original transaction. One point to be noticed is that new batch is submitted automatically immediately after it is created. Not both the parties (Sender /receiver), its only users with access to the initiator organization can reverse its batches or transactions. The set up is there where a user can choose a reversal method determining if the new batch will be created with opposite signs, or with switched debits and credits.

Descriptive flex field support

In AGIS descriptive flex fields is supported on the batch and also on individual transactions within the batch. Descriptive flex fields allow user to enter any additional information specific to the nature of business, in the batch and in the transactions. Important thing to note is that these DFF can be used by sender. The user can enter descriptive flex field information for the recipient in the Recipient Accounting section.

Flexible Approval Rules and Workflow Notifications

In R12, AGIS very similar to other module, home page displays notifications about approval or rejection statuses of intercompany transactions. You should note that notifications can be sent to the users via email. The rules for approvals and notifications can be customized using Oracle Approval Management Engine (AME), which allows the user to add extra approval rules and hierarchies to suit their business needs.

Document attachment

The user can attach the documents for the batch as well as for each of the transaction. When user submits the batch, the documents are transferred to respective recipients.

Transaction security

Intercompany transactions entry pages incorporate various security features. The user can enter transactions only for those intercompany organizations that are assigned to the user. Other security features include minimum transaction amount, control amount and function security.

For example:

Intercompany accountant processes intercompany transactions for many intercompany organizations in the enterprise. What is different between these two is :

R11i - Each responsibility has only one subsidiary assigned, therefore a user can initiate intercompany transactions for one subsidiary from each responsibility

R12 - the user can initiate intercompany transactions for many trading partners without changing responsibility

Intercompany Periods

The new Intercompany calendar gives the user the option to control intercompany transaction processing by periods status.

What is observed in this functionality can be best describe as:

If a user wants to control intercompany cut-off dates, then the user can choose which General Ledger calendar will be used to control transaction entry by intercompany period status. Intercompany Calendar prevents users from entering transactions in closed periods and from closing the period if open transactions exist for the period user wants to close. When the user tries to close General Ledger accounting period, or Oracle Payables period or Oracle Receivables period while Intercompany Period is still open, the warning message can be displayed informing user about the status of intercompany period.

Setup Profile Options

In AGIS there is no profile option that means these three as below intercompany profile options used in R11i are obsolete in this release.

Intercompany: Protect Receiver Natural Account intercompany: Subsidiary Intercompany: Use Automatic Transaction

Intercompany Reconciliation and Reporting

There are two new reports available in XML Publisher format

Intercompany Transaction Summary report Intercompany Account Details report.

These reports replace reports that were available in the Global Intercompany System (GIS) in Release 11i.

The new reports offer all of the functionality of the obsolete reports plus additional benefits.

A bit on these 2 reports:

1) Intercompany Transaction Summary report replaces the Intercompany Transaction Detail report and Unapproved Transaction Listing report.

The purpose of this report is to give user a clear overview of intercompany transactions and their statuses, there so that day-to-day tasks and speeds up period close activities.

This report also provides supporting documentation for intercompany reconciliation and helps keep intercompany in balance by uncovering any potential discrepancies.

2) Intercompany Account Details report replaces the Transaction Activity Summary report

This new report provides a detailed listing of all accounting lines for intercompany batches, grouped by transaction.

The report is divided into two sections:

One section for outbound batches One section inbounds transactions.

The outbound section shows transactions initiated by the organizations to which the user has an access, the inbound section shows transactions received by these organizations. The user can choose whether to include inbound, outbound, or both sections in the report.

The user can run the report for one or many organizations to which the user is given the access.

User can select what parameters like initiator, Recipient, GL Date range, Batch Number range, Transaction Status, Currency, Batch Type, Invoice Number, and many more to run the report by. User can run the report by ranges of initiator and recipient accounts to see what transactions make up their balances.

Some of the GL Standard Reports converted into XML Publisher

Oracle General Ledger's Account Analysis, General Journals and Trial Balance standard reports are now integrated with XML Publisher

Enhanced Financial Statement Generator Reporting to Display Content Set Values Users can now publish a Financial Statement Generator (FSG) report with a content set. When the Page Expand option is selected, each value in the content set becomes visible as an individual tab in the Microsoft Excel workbook.

Enhanced Financial Statement Generator Reporting to Support Drill-down for Non-Contiguous Account Ranges General Ledger provides a streamlined drill path from the monetary amounts in financial statements to the underlying detail balances. After running a FSG report, users can drill from any summarized financial balance in the report directly to the detail account balances that comprise the summary amount, even if the summary amount represents multiple non-contiguous account ranges. This process allows users to perform the drill down efficiently in one step and eliminates the need to perform multiple searches by selecting one account range at a time. It also improves usability by enabling the user to see all the information on a single page.

Streamlined Excel-based Financial Statement Publishing Users can now publish FSG reports natively as Excel files. Users can create presentation templates using Excel, and then run reports using BI Publisher’s Excel publishing capabilities to generate an Excel file that opens directly in Excel. Users can then drill to the underlying details, leveraging General Ledger’s Account Analysis and Drilldown capability.