Set up for user-defined books

User-defined books give you a way to manage different reporting standards beyond what's available with Compliance and tax books. After enabling them in the General Ledger, you can create one or more reporting books that you use to track specialized journal entries that are separate from your actual books. For example, a property management firm can create a Real Estate book for tracking and reporting on journal entries specific to that industry.

This topic walks you through the process of setting up user-defined books. It covers enabling the feature, setting security levels in reporting, and defining books and journals. If you're new to user-defined books, we recommend that you start with our introduction.

Subscription

General Ledger

Regional availability

All regions

User type Business user with admin privileges
Permissions

Journals, Journal entries: List, View, Add, Edit, Delete

There are a few steps involved in setting up user-defined books.

  1. Enable user-defined books in the General Ledger.
  2. Grant user permissions to access and post to the book.
  3. Define the book information.
  4. Add at least 1 journal to the book.

Enable user-defined books in the General Ledger

  1. Go to General Ledger > Setup > Configuration.
  2. Scroll down to the Advanced General Ledger Options section and select the option to Enable user-defined books.

Grant users permissions

There are separate permissions for user-defined books, journals, and journal entries. For instance, you can give someone permission to enter transactions into user-defined books but not necessarily add journal entries to the book.

User defined books also have a separate security tab as an additional security permissions layer.

On the General Ledger Permissions page, grant the following permissions related to user-defined books:

  • User-defined books
  • User-defined journals

  • User-defined journal entries

To learn about assigning permissions, select one of the following links, depending on your organization's security setup:

Granting permission for Compliance (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), tax, and user-defined books enable users to enter transactions into these books. However, all users with access to General Ledger reports are able to see the data in the books, even if they are not granted specific permissions for them.

There's no user access restriction to data for user-defined, Compliance, or tax books. Users with General Ledger reporting permissions are allowed to see data in journals or books in the reports.

A user's access rights take priority over a group's access rights:

If you deny access rights to a group, but allow access rights to a user within the group, the user has permission to access the dashboard.

If you allow access rights to a group, but deny access rights to a user within the group, the user does not have permission to access the dashboard.

For a user belonging to more than 1 group, allowing access rights takes priority over denying access rights:

For example: 

  • A user belongs to group A and group B.

  • You deny access rights to a book to group A but grant access rights to group B.

  • The user can access the book.

Define a book

You can add as many user-defined books as you need for reporting purposes.

  1. Go to General Ledger > Setup > More > User-defined books.
  2. Select Create.
  3. Enter a Book ID that will be meaningful to you at reporting time.

    The Book ID appears in the list of "Other books" when you create financial reports or other General Ledger reports.

  4. Give the book a Description.
  5. Enable Book Direct Journal Access to enable permissions for specific users or group to have access to this book. These permissions are only in place for users directly accessing the book and associated journals.
  6. Optionally, select the Management reporting checkbox to allow this book to bypass closed periods.

    You cannot change this setting after the book is created.

    Management reporting books do not impact your actual books. Furthermore, you can only configure user-defined journals and the Software Digital Board Book to post to management reporting books. Subledgers, such as Accounts Payable, cannot post to management books.
  1. Go to General Ledger > Setup > More > User-defined books.
  2. Select Add to add a new book.
  3. Enter a Book ID that will be meaningful to you at reporting time.

    The Book ID appears in the list of "Other books" when you create financial reports or other General Ledger reports.

  4. Give the book a Description.
  5. Enable Book Direct Journal Access to enable permissions for specific users or group to have access to this book. These permissions are only in place for users directly accessing the book and associated journals.
  6. Optionally, select the Management reporting checkbox to allow this book to bypass closed periods.

    You cannot change this setting after the book is created.

    Management reporting books do not impact your actual books. Furthermore, you can only configure user-defined journals and the Software Digital Board Book to post to management reporting books. Subledgers, such as Accounts Payable, cannot post to management books.

Associate a journal with the book

To be able to add journal entries to your user-defined book, you must first add at least 1 journal.

  1. Go to General Ledger > Setup and select the Add (circle) next to User-defined.
  2. Enter a Symbol and a Title for the journal.
  3. Select the User-Defined book that this journal belongs to.
  4. Make sure that the Status is set to Active.
  5. Optionally, if you use Projects and have enabled billable General Ledger transactions, select Enable project billing flag. This will enable you to flag journal entry line items for a project as billable.