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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Concept: Journal Processing

Concept: Journal Processing

Workday Financial Management automates the accounting resulting from business operations. Based on accounting policies and rules defined by your accounting and control team, Workday automatically generates accounting for:
  • Commercial transactions
  • Intercompany
  • Allocation
  • Depreciation
  • Accruals
  • Reversals
Through an intuitive journal entry facility, Workday also accepts accounting generated in third-party systems or spreadsheet uploads.
Journal processing provides the framework for flexible maintenance of manual accounting activity and period adjustments.

Journal

You must have the appropriate security permissions to the ledger account on the accounting journal. You can enter journals manually or upload them. You can enter journals for month end adjustments, depreciation, translation adjustments, or to record accrued liability for purchase items that you receive but not paid. You can automatically reverse journal entries for accruals.
For commitment or obligation journals, you can have Workday roll forward the accounting date to the first date of the next open period upon plan approval. Select the
Roll Journal Forward for Procurement
check box on the
Create Ledger
task.
You can create reversal journals on or after the accounting date. If the accounting period isn't open, Workday creates a journal in
Created
status. When the reversal period opens, use the
Mass Post Reversal Journals
task to post the reversal journals. You can only post intercompany reversal journals if all companies in the journal have the period open.
You can select
Edit
from the related actions menu of a journal that hasn't posted to correct errors.
You can select
Delete
from the related actions menu of a journal that you've created but not posted or submitted for approval.
You can't delete a journal in
Created
status if it was copied from another journal.
You can select
Correct
from the related actions menu of the business process event to correct a posted journal. The option to correct a posted journal isn't available when you enable the reversal of accounting journals.
Workday creates journals behind the scenes for operational transactions and uses posting rules to interpret the business events into debits, credits, and accounts.
Workday posts journal entries to a ledger defined for each company.

Budget Check for Accounting Journals

To configure an accounting journal for budget check, you configure the
Accounting Journal Event
business process with the
Check Budget (Financial)
business process. Workday budget checks the journal at the initiation step, approval step, or both to ensure that the amount is within the budget.
Once configured, Workday performs a budget check when you:
  • Submit
    an accounting journal for approval. If the journal doesn’t pass the budget check, modify the amount or request an override from the budget manager.
  • Approve
    an accounting journal.
If the journal doesn’t pass the budget check, you can take one of these actions:
  • Send the request back.
  • Modify the amount.
  • Request an override from the budget manager.
Workday also automatically validates worktags during the budget check.

Journal Statuses

This table lists permitted activities during each journal status:
Activity
Journal Available for Posting
Journal Posted
Journal Canceled
Create Journal
No
No
No
Edit Journal
Yes
No
No
Post Journal
Yes
No
No
Unpost Journal
No
Yes
No
Cancel Journal
Yes
No
No
Copy Journal
Yes
Yes
Yes

Recurring Journals

Recurring journals are journals you create on a regular basis. They have the same journal lines for the same accounts and amounts. You can create future-dated recurring reversal journals. When the reversal period opens, use the
Mass Post Reversal Journals
task to post the reversal journals.

Journal Reports

Workday provides a number of standard reports to help you manage journals. For a list, access
Workday Standard Reports
and select the
Financial Accounting
category.