Can ascii post really simplify
my life?
Session 129
Presented by: Sherri Brenizer
Assistant Director: Student Financial Services
Graceland University
May 28 to 31, 2014 – Washington, DC
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
About me
 IT liaison for Graceland’s Accounting Services department for
13 ½ years
 Currently Assistant Director of newly created Student Financial
Services department.
 Helped our IT staff develop this posting process that has saved
many hours for our staff.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
About Graceland’s Account numbers
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We have a 2 character fund
We have a 5 character function (and blank is valid)
We have a 4 character object
We do not use subfund
 Some example account numbers:
 10- -1210
 10-15600-6000
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
So what exactly is an ASCII Transaction Post File?
 A CX STANDARD way to load transactions from outside sources
into CX
 ASCII = a plain text file
 CSV (comma delimited file)
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Why re-invent the wheel?
 CX already has options for posting general ledger transactions
and even recurring transactions into the system.
 You can also post transactions to sub-ledgers in CX…if you have
a bottle of Advil sitting next to you.
 So what if you want to post a large number of transactions
from a system outside of CX (homegrown or other)?
 What if you want to check the file before you post it to make
sure there are no errors?
 What about transactions from departments asking to add
charges to student’s accounts using email?
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
What types of transactions/files do we post?
 Transactions from our Facility Services homegrown system
directly into the general ledger
 Budget revision transactions
 Budgets
 Benefit allocation entries
 Bal Forward and Bal Closing entries (yes, it’s that time of year)
 Recurring bank statement entries
 Charges to student’s accounts
 Charges from our Follett bookstore
 Month end balancing entries
 The list goes on and on
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
So what are the steps for this process?
 Create the file
 Save the file
 Check the file
 Post the file
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: Format Header Row
HD: author, User ID, post date, station, fiscal month, journal code, doc code
How this looks:
HD: JEPOST,,05/31/2017,,MAY,JC
 Author: Name of process that produces the file. This is not loaded into the
database.
 User Id number: We’ve always left this blank. I think it’s not loaded into the
database
 Post date: MM/DD/YYYY format. CX standard process ignores this field.
 Station Number: posted files don’t go through a station so this is typically
left blank
 Fiscal month. CX standard process ignores this field.
 Journal Code: AC, AP, AR, SA, CH, QC, DA, PD, FA, JC, CK, BG, PC, PR, PS, SB.
 Document code. We’ve always left this blank (the doc code is on the GE
lines below).
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: General Ledger Entry Row (GE)
GE: Doc ID, doc code, doc num, "comment", entry, Form of Payment, Pay number
How this looks:
GE: 000000,JE,20140531,“Benefit Allocation",ACCT
 Document id: If there is a 1 to 1 relationship between the GE and a single ID,
this should be the ID number to make certain CX reports show the subsidiary
info. Otherwise, 0.
 Document Table Code: Must be an active doc from doc_table.
 Document Number: an integer. Often made up (like the date in yyyymmdd
format) or the serial key from a driving table. The most desirable is to increment
last_issued_num from doc_table and use that number, but that’s very difficult
to build into a file.
 Entry Description: 24 character description. The only description in files without
subsidiaries. The comment is for the batch of transactions and not a single
transaction. It should have quotes around it but should not contain any quotes.
 Entry Type: XTND, BOOK, etc. Must be an active ent in ent_table.
 Form of Payment. We have never used this because we load charges not
payments. But this would be any valid form of payment like CK (check).
 Form of Payment number (check number). We’ve never used this because we
load charges not payments. But this would be the form of payment number (like
check number).
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: General Ledger Transaction Row (GT)
GT: amount, fund, func, obj, subfund,
How this looks
GT: 107.90,10,15600,6199,,
GT: -107.90,10,16600,6199,,
 Amount: the amount of the charge or the credit.
 The amount cannot have dollar signs or commas. Parenthesis cannot
be used to indicate negative amounts. A negative must be
represented by the minus sign.
 Fund
 Func
 Obj
 Subfund
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
What about posting to a subsidiary ledger?
 Same thing, more fields
 Now we have to include additional fields like Doc id, Tot Code,
Tot period, etc.
 No problem once you get your template setup.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: Subsidiary Ledger Entry Row (SE)
SE: subs, subs num, doc id, doc code, doc num, "comment", entry
How this looks:
SE: S/A,255671,255671,AR,05312014,“DISCIPLINARY FINE",ENT
 Subs Code: S/A, etc. Must match the account number in the GT
account record for the transaction as defined in subs_table.
 Subs Number: student’s id number
 Doc ID: student’s id number
 Doc Code: same as the doc code on the GE line. This may not be
required but it has been in all the files I’ve made.
 Doc Number: an integer. See the note on GE doc number
 Description: 24 character description. It should have quotes around it
and should not contain quotes.
 Entry Type: Must be valid code. Same as the entry type on the GE
line. This may not be required but we use it.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: Subsidiary Ledger Transaction Row (ST)
ST: tot, tot period, bal, bal period, amount, assoc amount
How this looks:
ST: MISC,SP14,SB,SP14,200.00,0
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Note: Some subsidiaries require tot codes, some do not. For those that do not have tots, the
tot code and bal code must be spaces (surrounded by quotes) and the periods are left blank:
ST: " ",," ",,100.00,0
Tot Code: Must be an active tot_code from subt_table (if required).
Tot Period: 2 character Session + 2 char year (SP14) for students, calendar year (CY14) for
wages.
Bal Code: This code is “SB” or blank
Bal Period: The bal period is “INV” for accounts payable, it is the same as the tot period for
student accounts (“SP14”), and is the combination of payroll code and payroll number
(“MON100”) for wages payable.
Subsidiary Amount: amount of individual line
Subsidiary Associated Amount: Typically zero. In payroll, amount deduction is based on.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Nuts and Bolts: Trailer Row (TR)
 TR:
 Every posting file ends with a trailer line.
 It literally is just a TR and nothing else.
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How does this look all put together?
 Example of our Benefit Allocation posting.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
A more complicated example:
HD
budgets
4/17/2014
BAL
#=====10-16309==GIS Services==========================================
GE
0 BA
0 GIS Services
BGTR
GT
187
10
16309
6453
GT
-3
10
16309
6199
GT
-100
10
16309
6220
GT
58157
10
16309
6254
GT
-58241
10
16100
6999
#=====10-16300==Exec. Director of IT==================================
GE
0 BA
0 Exec. Director of IT
BGTR
GT
405
10
16300
6050
GT
753
10
16300
6210
GT
-1158
10
16100
6999
#=====10-16302==Computer Labs=========================================
GE
0 BA
0 Computer Labs
BGTR
GT
-62231
10
16302
6900
GT
-11
10
16302
6340
GT
62242
10
16302
6475
#=====10-16306==Communictn Tech - Dept================================
GE
0 BA
0 Communictn Tech - Dept
BGTR
GT
630
10
16306
6475
GT
-630
10
16100
6999
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
BG
Save and post the file
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Saving the file
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Now the file is created so we need to save it. You will need to save the file as a .csv file in
your home directory.
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Posting the file
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There are two ways you can post the file
1) In Menu:
[c] Fiscal Management
[a] Accounting
[c] Journal Processing Menu
[i] ASCII Posting Menu
[a] Post ASCII Files to G/L
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2) At Unix command line:
cd ascii
($CARSPATH//vchpost/Filepost/ascii)
filepost -n filename -m a -d 05/31/2014 -p MAY
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
What about charges to Student Accounts from
departments that I mentioned in the beginning?
 We have a spreadsheet formatted in the order that we need it
with name, id, amount, budget numbers, etc
 The departments will fill out the spreadsheet with the
information in this format (yeah right)!
 They email the spreadsheet to us, we then add the header and
GE, GT and TR information to the spreadsheet and are ready to
save and post.
 This process saves us hours of keying individual entries into CX
AR journal entry screens.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Check file
 I also mentioned in a previous slide that part of our process is
to check the file.
 What if you have a huge file of entries and you try to post them
and the posting fails because of a terminated account. You
then fix the account and post again only to find an account that
is not opened.
 This could go on and on for days…get the Advil back out.
 Fortunately our IT staff has developed a process that we can
run prior to posting of a file that goes out and reads the file
and returns an email to us with all of the posting problems. We
can then go fix the issues and post the file painlessly.
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Recap
 Set up a template for GL postings, GL to SUBS postings and
SUBS to SUBS postings (yes this can be done too).
 Create the file
 Save the file as CSV
 Check the file
 Post the file
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.
Sooooo… Can ASCII post really simplify my life?
YES
© 2014 Jenzabar, Inc.