Before Setting Up General Ledger

Before you set up your general ledger, you must:

Decide which general ledger options you need (see Designing Your General Ledger).
Design your account number format. One of the first things you do in the new ledger is set the size of your account numbers and how the numbers are segmented.

Most General Ledger options are selected on the G/L Options window. However, a few system-wide options are defined in the Common Services part of the System Manager, including the number of fiscal periods in your business year, and the start and end dates of accounting periods. For more information on Common Services, refer to the System Manager Help.

The following table describes where ledger and account options are selected.

Ledger options	Account and ledger options specified in G/L Options	Posting options specified in G/L Options	Account segment options specified in G/L Options
Functional currency	Use account groups	Years of fiscal sets	Segment delimiter
Default rate type	Maintain Quantities	Years of transaction detail	Segment description table
	Decimal places in quantities	Edit imported entries	Segment number
	Default closing (retained earnings) account	Default source code	Segment name
	Reporting rounding account (euro functional currency only)	Allow Posting to Previous Years	Length
	G/L Security and the resulting default access to accounts		Use in closing (Yes/No)
Multicurrency option	Default rate type	Allow posting to previous years	Account segment
Number of fiscal periods	Multicurrency option	Lock budget sets	Default structure code

Each account number can contain up to 45 characters, including segment delimiter (separator) characters.

Individual account numbers can contain from one to ten segments, and you can vary the number and order of segments used in account numbers in the same general ledger (by using different account structures).