End-to-End Automation of Recognition Schedule Processes

If you are using Revenue Management with recognition schedules, an automation service can handle the end-to-end process from generating and recognizing the recognition schedules through to creating Accounting journals.

The processes that can be run via the automation are:

Sequential Order

Process
1 Delete Schedules Where Source Unavailable
2 Generate Schedules
3 Recognize Schedules
4 Summarize Transactions
5 Create Journals

The processes always run in the sequential order shown in the table above, but you can choose which process to start from and which process to finish at. For example, if your org uses a customization to post recognition transactions to a third party accounting system you might want to automate processes 1-3 only.

You can start the automation from the Revenue Recognition page, or via the API:

Prerequisites for Running the Automation

Before you start using this automation Revenue Management must be set up to generate recognition schedules, and to recognize revenue and cost against recognition schedules. For setup information, see Setting up Revenue Management, Additional Setup for Generating Recognition Schedules, and Recognize against Recognition Schedules.

If you intend to create Accounting journals from the recognition transactions, the RT to Journal Integrations must also be enabled and working. For more information, see RT to Journal Integrations Overview and Summarized RT to Journal Integration Overview.

If you intend to filter by company when saving a configuration or running the automation process, you must first create a Foundations company for each of your source record companies and ensure that their names match. This is necessary because the Company filter used in the Automate Processes window lists Foundations companies. For more information about Foundations companies, see Companies.

Processes Available for Automation

This section provides more information about the processes that can be run by the automation.

When you run the automation a Revenue Management background process record is created, storing log information about the individual processes being run. Each process runs asynchronously.

By default you are notified by email and by a Salesforce notification when each process is complete. To view the process log, follow the link in the email or click the Salesforce notification to navigate to the process run record and its child process logs. Your administrator can disable email and Salesforce notifications via the Revenue Management Notification Settings custom setting.

Delete Schedules Where Source Unavailable

The Delete Schedules Where Source Unavailable process ensures that obsolete recognition schedules do not accumulate and affect your data.

A source record might be unavailable for any of the following reasons:

  • The source record has been deleted.
  • The source record is no longer marked as active for recognition.
  • The source record has had its recognition template removed.

For more information about what happens when you run this process, see Deleting Obsolete Recognition Schedules.

Generate Schedules

The Generate Recognition Schedules process creates or updates recognition schedules for all valid source records in the org.

The process generates a recognition schedule per source record, with separate recognition schedule lines for each period that the source record covers. If a recognition schedule already exists for a source record, the process updates it to reflect the latest source record details.

Warning: To ensure data integrity, both the recognition schedule and the source record must match the filters used by the Generate process for the source record to be included for processing. For example, if you're filtering by company and your source record's company changes but its recognition schedule has already been generated, future Generate processes for the original company and the current company will not regenerate the existing recognition schedule because there will be a difference between the company on the source record and the company on the recognition schedule. You will need to run a single Generate process filtering for both companies, or run Generate with no filters to ensure that the source record is included and its recognition schedule is regenerated.

Recognize Schedules

By default the Recognize Schedules process recognizes revenue and cost on valid recognition schedule lines in all periods up to and including the period immediately prior to the current period. For example, if the process runs in February, revenue and cost scheduled up to and including January is recognized. The recognition period in this example is set to January, and the recognized date is set to January 31.

Note:

The Recognize Schedules process creates recognition transactions and commits them. There is no opportunity to review the "In Progress" transactions before they are committed.

Summarize Transactions

If summarization is enabled, the Summarize Transactions process summarizes a recognition transaction if it meets all the following criteria:

  • The transaction was created by the Recognize Schedules process.
  • The transaction's status is "Committed".
  • The transaction is not already summarized.

The batch size is controlled by the Schedules Transaction Summary Batch Size field in the Revenue Management Batch Settings custom setting.

For information about how transaction lines are grouped for summarization, see Recognition Transaction Summaries.

Note:

The Summarized RT to Journal Integration must be enabled and working if you intend creating journals from recognition transaction summaries rather than from recognition transaction lines.

Create Journals

The Create Journals process creates Accounting journals from a recognition transaction if it meets all the following criteria:

  • The transaction's status is "Committed".
  • The transaction has a valid Grouped By value.
  • The transaction is not already linked to a journal.

Separate journals are created for revenue and cost amounts. The journals are created with the status "In Progress".

The batch size is controlled by the Schedules Create Journals Batch Size field in the Revenue Management Batch Settings custom setting.

Note:

Journals are created from recognition transaction summaries or from recognition transaction lines depending on how the automation is configured. The relevant RT to Journal Integrations must be enabled and working for journals to be created successfully.