SAP Free Download Center

General Ledger (GL) Account

A structure that records values and represents assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses and fund balances. A G/L account has transaction figures that record changes to the
account during a posting period. These figures are used for financial reporting.


Grant

Contains financial conditions and legal rules agreed upon by the sponsor and the University which may require financial reporting. It can cover project costs partially or in total. It has a limited life cycle, split into phases, indicated by a system status in GM as follows:
Proposal: The proposal is a complete formal document, including budget.

Award: If the sponsor approves the grant, an award is received. This is the operative phase of the grant. The budget is released in whole or in part in this phase.

Conclusion: If an award is expired, but not closed, then it is in the conclusion phase. There are posting restrictions on the grant in this phase.
Final Conclusion: The grant has expired and been closed. It can be archived, but no other actions are allowed.

Terminated: The grant was terminated, either for internal reasons or because the sponsor rejected the application.

House Bank

A business partner that represents a bank through which the University can process its own internal transactions. The University has four checking accounts with National City Bank. The vendor account – Bank 01 in FRS, maintains a specific account, which is the major disbursement account the University utilizes to pay its vendors. Other accounts are established for a specific disbursement purpose or for a restricted disbursement purpose.

Internal Order

Similar to a cost center, an internal order is used to record and monitor costs and, in some cases, revenues. A guiding principle is that internal orders should be set up for programs that are short-term or finite in nature.

Land Grant

Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension programs in which funds are distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on an annual basis according to a statutory administrative formula (non-competitive funding). Eligibility is limited to cooperating land grant institutions. Awarded on a federal fiscal year basis (October 1 – September 30).

Letter of Credit

An agreement between a sponsor and the University to provide payment via Federal Reserve ACH when the University requests reimbursement for grant expenses. These sponsors have a secured system through which the University requests payment.

Master Data

Master data form a pool of information stored on a long-term basis in the SAP system and can be incorporated into individual transactions. Master data are entered once and can be modified as needed.

Revenue Element

A revenue element classifies the organization’s revenue within a fund center. A revenue element corresponds to a cost element in CO and the GL account in FI.

Special Purpose Ledger (SPL)

A special purpose ledger provides the ability to produce balance sheets based on fund accounting. Most of the financial activities updating general ledger accounts will be posted to the special purpose ledger simultaneously as transactions are processed. It uses the split processor functionality to create entries to balance transactions among funds. The SPL shares the same GL accounts as FI.

The difference between the two is that the SPL will break the transaction down even further to allow the correct split by fund and business area.

Sponsor

An organization or other source that finances a project conducted by University personnel. The sponsor may agree to fund the project in total or in part based upon an application or proposal provided in response to a request for proposal. The sponsor may be a government agency, company, foundation, or individual interested in furthering study or interest in a particular area and is entitled to receive some consideration or benefits. The agreement from the sponsor represents a contractual obligation for performance of the specific activity by the University.

Sponsored Class

The sponsored class represents the sponsor’s expense and revenue classification. The sponsored class is used to group expenses and revenues in order to satisfy the sponsor’s view and reporting needs. It is also used to specify in detail which expenses are relevant for billing and for indirect cost calculation.

Sponsored Program

This master data element is maintained within the Grants Management (GM) Module. It is used to classify revenues and expenditures of a grant by mission. Sponsored Program is equivalent to functional area in FM.

Statistical Internal Order

An internal order created and maintained by a department user to accumulate costs and revenues for internal reporting purposes. These orders are created using master data functionality and may be short- or long-term in nature. The user may enter the statistical internal order number on a posting transaction to make a real posting to a cost center and simultaneously make a statistical posting to the internal order to track department specific activity.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Element

A cost object, similar to an internal order, used to represent grants, land grants and capital projects in the Controlling Module of SAP. When used for grants, the WBS element represents a grant in the Controlling Module and is used to post transactions to the grant in the Grants Module (GM). When used for capital projects, the WBS element represents a Project in the Controlling Module (CO) and is used to post transactions to the capital project in Project Systems (PS).

Workflow

The sequence and evaluation of conditions needed to complete a business process. This is an electronic function monitored by the workflow manager within SAP.