If enabled, the Journal Entry Approval Process helps you ensure accuracy by requiring an authorized user to review and approve each manually added journal entry before it is applied to any General Ledger balances. Journal entries cannot be approved or rejected by the same user who adds or submits them. This article provides instructions on submitting journal entries for approval, as well as approving or rejecting them.
Applied recommends using activities to facilitate the approval process. Set up activities to use the Journal Entry – Reject and Journal Entry – Submit for Review events in System Event Configuration and Activity Code Configuration to notify individual users or work groups when a journal entry needs their attention. Otherwise, you must monitor the Journal Entries list or generate reports to view information about journal entries’ approval statuses.
When the approval process is enabled, all journal entries have one of the following statuses:
Only journal entries with a status of Approved or System Approved can display on bank reconciliations or be associated to other reconciliation statement types, and only journal entries with these statuses affect balances on the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Trial Balance reports.
To ensure that you are viewing the most current journal entries and statuses, use the Refresh link label on the Journal Entries list.
If you are using the approval process, you can do any of the following:
Once you add a journal entry, you must submit it for review before another user can approve it. You can also submit other users’ journal entries for review if necessary, but you cannot approve your own submissions. To expedite the review process, check your work before submitting the journal entry and edit it if necessary. You cannot edit or delete journal entries in Submitted status.
To submit a journal entry, do the following:
Once a journal entry has been submitted, you must approve it before it can be applied to any General Ledger balances. You can only approve or reject journal entries submitted by other users. If a journal entry has an automatic reversal, the automatic reversal is not created until the original journal entry is approved. The automatic reversal itself does not require separate approval.
Review each journal entry carefully before approving it, as Approved journal entries affect General Ledger balances and cannot be edited or deleted. However, you can void them if necessary.
If a submitted journal entry is inaccurate or is missing information, you can reject it. The submitter can then make corrections and resubmit it for approval. If necessary, you can delete a journal entry in Rejected status.
You cannot approve a journal entry in an accounting month that is locked, posted, or finalized for any of the agencies included on that entry or a reversing entry. You must either unlock the accounting month or reject the journal entry and have the submitter change the accounting month before resubmitting the journal entry for approval.
To approve or reject a journal entry, do the following:
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