Defining Period Types

You can define your own period types to use in addition to the General Ledger standard period types Month, Quarter and Year. You use these period types when you define the accounting calendar for your organization.

Each set of books has an associated period type. When you assign a calendar to a set of books, the set of books only accesses the periods with the appropriate period type. Thus, you can define an accounting calendar with periods of more than one period type; however, each set of books will only use periods of a single period type.

To define a new period type:

1. Navigate to the Period Types window.

2. Enter a unique Name for your accounting period type.

3. Enter the number of accounting Periods per Year. For example, you could define a Week period type and specify 52 periods per year. You can assign up to 366 accounting periods per fiscal year for any period type, and maintain actual balances for those periods. However, for budgets you can only use the first 60 periods.

4. Enter the Year Type to specify whether the period is part of a fiscal or calendar year. General Ledger uses the year type to assign a year in the accounting period system name when you set up your calendar.

• Choose Calendar to use the year in which an accounting period begins for the system name.
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• Choose Fiscal to use the year in which your fiscal year ends for the system name. 

For example, assume you have a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year and the current date is July 15, 1995. If you choose the Calendar year type, General Ledger appends the year 1995 to the period name (JUL-95) because July begins in 1995. If you choose the Fiscal year type, General Ledger appends 1996 to the period name (JUL-96) because the fiscal year ends in 1996.Using the same July to June fiscal year example, if the current date is March 15, 1995 and you choose the Fiscal year type, General Ledger appends the year 1995 to the period name because the fiscal year ends in 1995.

5. (Optional) Enter a Description for the period type.6. Save your work.