Journal Summarization Overview

You can use the Journal Summarization feature to reduce the number of fixed asset journals, optimizing their generation and storage. Instead of generating individual journals per asset, Fixed Asset Management can group them in a single acquisition, depreciation, or disposal journal, summarizing information shared by multiple journals for a specific company, journal type, and configuration.

This enables you to view summarized fixed asset journal information from a single journal record in Accounting, which can contain multiple line items associated with fixed assets that share the same asset group, asset sub-group, or GLA configuration. The amount reflected in each summarized journal is the sum of the journals generated for the associated asset group, asset sub-group, or based on the same GLA configuration.

Supported Journal Types

You can summarize the following fixed asset journal types: acquisition journal, depreciation journal, and disposal journal.

Acquisition Journal

If you create a fixed asset acquisition journal for a company that has journal summarization enabled, Fixed Asset Management makes the following changes to the summarized fixed asset acquisition journal associated with the asset's group, sub-group, or GLA configuration:

1. Creates a new Journal Fixed Asset record linking the summarized journal and the fixed asset. You can find it in the Journal Fixed Asset list in the Related tab of the summarized journal. For more information, see Journal Fixed Asset Fields
2. Adds the newly created journal's debit and credit values as new line items. Note that if the dimensions specified on the fixed asset are different from the dimensions on the existing line items, new lines are created.
3. Updates the summarized journal's debit and credit values based on the new line item values.

Depreciation Journal

If you create a fixed asset depreciation journal for a company that has journal summarization enabled, Fixed Asset Management makes the following changes to the summarized fixed asset depreciation journal associated with the asset's group, sub-group, or GLA configuration:

1. Creates a new Journal Fixed Asset record linking the summarized journal and the fixed asset. You can find it in the Journal Fixed Asset list in the Related tab of the summarized journal. For more information, see Journal Fixed Asset Fields.
2. Creates new Journal Depreciation Schedule records linking the summarized journal and the depreciation schedules. You can find them in the Journal Depreciation Schedule list in the Related tab of the summarized journal. For more information, see Journal Depreciation Schedule Fields.
3. Adds the newly created journal's debit and credit values as new line items, or, if the related lines already exist, updates the existing values on these lines. Note that if the dimensions specified on the fixed asset are different from the dimensions on the existing line items, new lines are created.
4. Updates the summarized journal's debit and credit values based on the new line item values.

Disposal Journal

If you create a fixed asset disposal journal for a company that has journal summarization enabled, Fixed Asset Management makes the following changes to the summarized fixed asset disposal journal associated with the asset's group, sub-group, or GLA configuration:

1. Creates a new Journal Fixed Asset record linking the summarized journal and the fixed asset. You can find it in the Journal Fixed Asset list in the Related tab of the summarized journal. For more information, see Journal Fixed Asset Fields
2. Adds the newly created journal's debit and credit values as new line items. Note that if the dimensions specified on the fixed asset are different from the dimensions on the existing line items, new lines are created.
3. Updates the summarized journal's debit and credit values based on the new line item values.

Journal Summarization Methods

You can summarize fixed asset journals using the following methods: Asset Group GLAs, Asset Sub-Group GLAs, and GLA Configuration.

Asset Group GLAs Method

This method summarizes journals per company and journal type for a single asset group. The amount reflected in each summarized journal is the sum of the journals generated for the assets associated with the asset group. The description of the summarized journal reflects the journal type and the asset group name.

For more information, see Asset Groups.

Asset Sub-Group GLAs Method

This method summarizes journals per company and journal type for a single asset sub-group. The amount reflected in each summarized journal is the sum of the journals generated for the assets associated with the asset sub-group. The description of the summarized journal reflects the journal type and the asset sub-group name.

For more information, see Asset Sub-Groups.

GLA Configuration Method

This method summarizes journals per company and journal type based on the GLA information specified in the following order:

1. Fixed asset GLAs
2. Asset sub-group GLAs
3. Asset group GLAs

The amount reflected in each summarized journal is the sum of the journals generated for the assets that use the same GLA configuration. The description of the summarized journal reflects the journal type and the GLA configuration.

For more information, see

• Fixed Assets
• Asset Groups
• Asset Sub-Groups

Note:

• You must configure each asset depending on the summarization method you want to use. For more information, see Configuring Fixed Assets for Journal Summarization.
• It is not possible to summarize fixed asset journals retrospectively.

Setup

To use the journal summarization feature, you must:

1. Set up at least one company in your org.
2. Set up the integration between Fixed Asset Management and Accounting, and assign appropriate permissions to the relevant user profiles. For more information, see Setting up Fixed Asset Management to Accounting Journals.
3. Assign the FAM - Company - Edit permission to the relevant user profiles.
4. [Optional] We recommend manually adding the Journal Fixed Assets and Journal Depreciation Schedules related lists to your page layouts for the Journal object. This enables you to view the details of the following records associated with the summarized journal:
• Depreciation schedules
• Fixed asset
• Fixed asset journals
  
  For more information, see Fixed Asset Management and Accounting Integration Field Reference.

Managing Journal Summarization

You can manage journal summarization using the Manage Journal Summarization link in the Fixed Asset Task Launcher. This task enables you to select a method of summarizing fixed asset journals per company and journal type. It also enables you to disable journal summarization for a specific company and journal type to generate individual journals per asset. Journal summarization is disabled by default.

For more information, see Managing Journal Summarization.

Warnings:

• Changing a summarization method creates a new summarized journal. This might affect your accounting balances.
• Setting a summarization method to "None" generates individual journals per asset instead of summarizing them. This is the default behavior if you do not select any summarization method.