Operational Analysis Questionnaire General Ledger

Author: Creation Date: Last Updated: Deliverable Instance: Version: Status:

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Document Control Change Record

Date

Author

Version

Change Reference

Reviewers

Name

Position

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Question

Answer

1 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4

General About Your Business What type of industry are you in? What products and services do you provide? Number of employees? What business areas and/or operations are targeted for improvement? Which of these business areas and/or operations is high, medium and low priority? Can you provide a systems flow diagram of connectivity between your core business applications? What is your organizational structure? How many businesses are in Your Company? What is the structure or relationships of these businesses? On how many sites are these companies located? What are these sites? Do all the locations have the same chart of accounts? Do all the locations have the same calendar? Do all the locations have the same functional currency? Do you use more than one Set of Books? Do all the businesses have assets? Are assets assigned to cost centers. What is your accounting calendar?

1.1.5

1.1.6

1.1.7 1.1.8 1.1.9 1.1.10

1.1.11 1.1.12 1.1.13 1.1.14 1.1.15 1.1.16 1.1.17

1.2

Security

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1.2.1

Question
Do you have any security policies around access to General Ledger? Is this documented?

Answer

2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6 2.1.7 2.1.8

Financial Management Chart of Accounts What does your current chart of accounts look like? Do you plan to have a new chart of accounts? Are your account values in any order or range pattern? What are the account parent or grandparent structures? Do you use unique accounts to capture statistics? Who is going to maintain the segment values once entered? Is there a need for a mapping from an old COA to a new COA? Are certain segment values only valid with specific other segment values?

2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4

Consolidation Do you require financial consolidations? How often do you perform financial consolidations? What is the COA mapping during the consolidation? Do you perform consolidation between various businesses that use different currencies?

2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2

Currency Do you use multiple currencies in your business? How many currencies do you use and what are they?

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2.3.3 2.3.4

Question
What is your policy on changing currency rates? What is the primary currency you have?

Answer

2.4 2.4.1 2.4.2

Budget Preparation Does Your Company prepare budgets? What types of budgets do you prepare? (for example, revenue & expenses, balance sheets, capital, project, and so on). Do you do any budget allocations? Do Your Companys key performance indicators drive the budgets? How many budgets do you prepare for an individual fiscal year? Do you prepare more than one budget per Set of Books? What is the range of accounting periods for each budget? At what organization level (for example, cost center, division, or region) do you budget? Do budgets require approval? What levels of approvals are required? How many budget "organizations" do you have (Budget Organization is an entity, which owns the budget in Oracle General Ledger)? What are the budget organizations and what is the convention or rule behind their names? Have you developed security procedures to prohibit access to certain budget organizations? Will budget organization security be required in the future? Do you create new budgets based on existing budgets (for example, new budget = 10% decrease from previous budget)? At what natural account level do you currently budget? Is this the same level of detail as actuals are captured?

2.4.3

2.4.4

2.4.5 2.4.6 2.4.7

2.4.8

2.4.9

2.4.10

2.4.11

2.4.12 2.4.13

2.4.14

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2.4.15 2.4.16

Question
Is your budgeting process centralized or decentralized? Are reorganizations likely to affect how budgets should be prepared and/or reported? Do you only budget in dollars, or are statistics budgeted also (for example, headcount)? Do you require consolidated budgets (budgeting across sets of books)? Are all budgets prepared in the same currency? Do you use Lotus, Excel, or another spreadsheet program to prepare budgets? Which spreadsheet products and which version do/will you use? How do you close or "freeze" a budget once it is approved?

Answer

2.4.17

2.4.18

2.4.19 2.4.20

2.4.21

2.4.22

2.5 2.5.1 2.5.2

Forecasting Do you derive any type of forecast from budgets? Does Your Company prepare financial forecasts? What types of financial forecasts does Your Company prepare? Is the financial forecasting process documented?

2.5.3

2.6 2.6.1 2.6.2

Maintenance How do you maintain your General Ledger data? How do you audit your General Ledger data?

2.7 2.7.1 2.7.2

Performance Monitoring How do you monitor profitability? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Organization (cost center, division, region)?

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2.7.3

Question
Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Business Line or Function Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Skill/Job? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Revenue Category? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Activity? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Employee? Do you use projects to track Overhead activities and/or Product Development efforts? Is activity-based costing an issue that is important to Your Company? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Industry/Market Sector? Do you monitor profitability/analysis by Customer/Customer Type? How do you determine whether indirect labor costs, such as overhead, are actually recovered through your billing practice?

Answer

2.7.4 2.7.5 2.7.6 2.7.7 2.7.9

2.7.10

2.7.11

2.7.12

2.7.13

3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4 3.1.5 3.1.6

Transaction Processing General Ledger Transactions Do you track journal sources? What types? Do you track journal categories? What ones? Do you enter statistical accounts regularly? How often? Do you use batches to enter journals? Do you reverse journals on a regular basis? Explain. Do you have standard journals that recur with the same accounting information (but changing amounts)? Provide examples. Do you use control totals when entering journals?

3.1.7

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3.1.8

Question
How often do you post journals to your General Ledger balances? What are the procedures you use to post these journals? Who posts the journal batches? Who approves the posting? Do you allow for posting out of balance journals into a suspense account? Do you import journals from spreadsheets Do you have any input documents that you currently use? Do you have any audit requirements that might be unique?

Answer

3.1.9 3.1.10 3.1.11

3.1.12 3.1.13 3.1.14

4 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.1.3 4.1.4 4.1.5

Period Processing Periods When is the beginning of your year? What is the period type? How many periods in your year? Do all the companies have the same calendar? Explain. Do you have a naming convention for the periods? What accounting periods are in your quarters?

4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 4.2.5 4.2.6

Period Close What is your period-end reconciliation process? When closing at year end do you use a 13th period? How do you close an accounting period? Is the schedule to close an accounting period documented? How long does it take to close an accounting period? How are adjustments to closed periods handled?

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4.2.7

Question
Who performs the tasks associated with closing an accounting period? Where in your accounting cycle do you run standard reports and statements? Do sub-ledgers have their own calendar?

Answer

4.2.8

4.2.9

4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4

Period Open How do you open an accounting period? Is the schedule to open an accounting period documented? How long does it take to open an accounting period ? Who performs the tasks associated with opening an accounting period?

5 5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2

Reporting Financial Reporting Describe your Financial Reporting. Provide samples of your standard financial reports - Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement, Income/Operating Statement, Trial Balance, etc How long are reports kept on-line or are they re-run if needed again? Do you have online account balance lookup? If needed, which accounts and how often? Please enclose a list of all reports used in the General Ledger area. Please annotate the report list with each report's name/number, description, the type of users, frequency on which these reports are generated.

5.1.3

5.1.4

5.1.5

6 6.1

Miscellaneous What else needs to be discussed?

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Question

Answer

6.1.1

How do you handle taxes?

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Issues and Action Items

To see the current list, refer to the Issues and Action Items document also available at aQuaNet.

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