How to set up GL Recon in Agility

Agility includes a recommended way to reconcile the general ledger to the various subledgers (or subsidiary balances) in Agility called G/L Recon.  The G/L Recon process provides a way to map G/L accounts to their corresponding subledgers so that the balancing can be easily reviewed in a single report and even automated.

Chart of accounts/account maintenance setup

To begin using the new G/L Reconciliation process, some setup within Accounts Maintenance is necessary.  Fields have been added to Accounts Maintenance that will be used to map the G/L account to its corresponding subledger so that the G/L Recon Report can accurately compare account balances to the appropriate subledgers. 

1. In Agility, navigate to General Ledger > Chart of Accounts > Accounts Maintenance.  Alternatively, you can also use the G/L Import (by clicking  in the Accounts Maintenance window) to assign the following G/L Recon fields.
2. Assign a Recon category to G/L accounts that will be used to compare to subledger balances for that category.  For example, an accounts receivable account should be assigned a Recon category of A/R Trade. The recon category of Zero balance clearing account should be assigned to accounts that should always carry a $0 balance, like an invalid posting account.  These will be considered out of balance if they carry a balance other than $0.
3. Click on the Recon info button.  Assign the branch (or branches) that the G/L account will be used in as the Recon branch.  This should be any branch that posts activity to this G/L account.
4. If a certain variance level is acceptable, you can assign an amount as the Tolerable variance so that any variance under that amount will not be considered out of balance.  For example, if Inventory being off by $0.10 or less is not a concern (since rounding may cause penny variances here and there), then set the Tolerable variance to 0.10 for the inventory G/L account.
5. If this is the first year using Agility and known variances for certain accounts are being carried forward from the legacy system to Agility, you can enter that amount as the Initial Variance and assign the fiscal year that variance Applies to.  For example, if going live on Agility in the middle of 2019 and a known variance in sales of $800,000 is being carried over, enter 800,000 for the Initial variance and enter 2019 for Applies to.

Running the G/L Recon Update

In order to collect the G/L account balances and subledger balances to be compared and saved for historical purposes, the G/L Recon Update should be run daily after all work in Agility is done for the day.  Therefore, it should be setup in Automated Processing to run overnight so that the final balances for the day can be captured. 

1. In Agility, navigate to General Ledger > G/L Recon > G/L Recon Update.
2. Set the Branch (or branches) for which G/L and subledger data should be collected.  If planning to capture balances for all branches, set the Branch to <All>.  Agility will store subledger balances for each branch, separately.
3. The Post date is the date to be date-stamped on the collected records.  Data should be captured after business has closed for the day.  Therefore, if this process runs after midnight to capture the previous day’s balances, set a relative date of -1.
4. For the Update options, select which categories you want to collect the G/L and subledger balances for.  The G/L category will collect the balances of all G/L accounts with a Recon category assigned.  All other categories, when run, will collect the subledger balances of their respective category. For example, contract billing is not commonly used.  Therefore, if not using, unset the Contract billing category in order to improve processing performance.
5. Save each set of criteria using Save Criteria.
6. Add the G/L Reconciliation Update process in Automated Processing.  Schedule it to process on a nightly basis. If not all branches share G/L data, separate automated processes should be set up (using the appropriate processing branch) to accurately capture the balances since the update respects G/L sharing.

Running the G/L Recon Report

The G/L Recon Report will be used to review the comparison of the G/L account balances to their appropriate subledger balances and any variances.  Ideally, the Report should be run on a daily basis.  Therefore, it should be setup in Automated Processing to run overnight (in addition to the G/L Recon Update).

1. In Agility, navigate to General Ledger > G/L Recon > G/L Recon Report.
2. Select which Branch (or branches) and the Activity date the report should be run for.  When scheduling this report to run in Automated Processing on a nightly basis, you should set the relative date to +0. As long as the G/L Recon Update is processed on a daily basis, this report can be run for dates in the past if needing to review historical daily balances.
3. Select which categories to display in the report output under Recon categories to include.  All categories are selected by default, but if certain categories are not reviewed by your business, they can be unchecked.
4. The report option of Only include categories that are out of balance, if checked, will display only the categories that show a variance (above the tolerable variance threshold, if one is specified).  If using automated processing to run this report daily, check this setting if you only want to be emailed the report if there is a category out of balance.  Otherwise, if all categories are in balance, the report will be blank and no report will be emailed via automated processing.
5. The report offers options to Print G/L account description, initial variance, and tolerable variance columns, as well as other formatting options.
6. Save each set of criteria using Save Criteria.
7. Run the report and review.a. The report will be sorted by category.  The G/L account balances will display on the left and the corresponding subledger balances will display on the right.b. If run for multiple branches, the report will subtotal by branch (or branch groupings, depending on account setup) within each category.c. If Only include categories that are out of balance is unchecked, any variance that is not $0 (and exceeds the tolerable variance for an account) will be highlighted yellow.d. The variance is calculated as follows, using the subtotal balance from each column:    G/L balance + Initial variance – Subledger balance – Charges/Costs GM – Charges/Costs no GM = Variancee. If multiple accounts are used for a category and all pointed to the same Recon branch, the subtotal of these accounts will be compared to the corresponding branch’s subledger balance.  For example, multiple sales accounts may be used in one branch.  Therefore, the subtotal of the G/L account balances will be compared to the sales subledger of that branch.  See the Sales category in the report example below.f. Conversely, if one G/L account is used by multiple branches, the balance of that G/L account will be compared to the subtotal of the branches’ subledger balances.  See the A/R trade category in the report example below.
8. Add the G/L Reconciliation Report in Automated Processing.  This should be done on a nightly basis and scheduled to run after the G/L Recon Update. Again, if not all branches share G/L data, you will need to set up separate automated processes (using the appropriate processing branch) to accurately report the data since the report respects G/L sharing.