We start with the highest-level view of the general ledger reporting process; namely, the context diagram, shown in Figure 15.5.
Note the business event data flows from the business processes discussed in THE “ORDER-TO-CASH” PROCESS: PART I, MARKETING AND SALES (M/S); THE “ORDER-TO-CASH” PROCESS: PART II, REVENUE COLLECTION (RC) ; THE “PURCHASE-TO-PAY” (PTOP) PROCESS; INTEGRATED PRODUCTION PROCESSES (IPP) . If you are uncertain about the nature and timing of any of these updates, go back to the appropriate business process chapter and review them.
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Logically, each business event from a feeder process can be posted directly, individually,and immediately to the general ledger. As a practical matter, physical implementations vary. For example, the flows from the feeder processes could comprise summaries of a number of business events posted periodically at the end of a day, week, or month. For example, the RC process may collect data related to sales and send it to the general ledger. The resulting summarized entry to the general ledger would include postings to sales and accounts receivable. |
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In an enterprise system, these business event data are recorded separately for each sale within the module designed for that business process (e.g., sales). In some enterprise system implementations, these business event data could be batched during sales processing and then used to update the general ledger database at one point. However, the enterprise system maintains data for each individual business event in the underlying business process database, which, for sales, corresponds to the Orderto- Cash process. At this point, however, let’s continue to concentrate on the logical connections of the individual feeder processes with the general ledger. |
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Figure 15.6 shows the general ledger/business reporting process level 0 DFD. Let’s take a moment to talk about bubble 1.0, “Validate business event updates.” What might be involved here? Here are some examples:
Bubbles 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 are also worth examining more carefully in this figure.
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Review Question What major logical processes does the business reporting process perform? |
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