Project Job Ledger

The Job Ledger (JL, GLUPGN) can be a powerful tool for performing cost accounting and reporting for a wide variety of items such as capital projects, grants and event tracking.  

1. Capital Projects — This design requires the establishment of a GL capital projects fund in which all capital projects related transactions are accounted for. A single key is defined on the JL side for each project, regardless of the number of funding sources.  On a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) the expenditures are divided between the funding sources and the necessary transfers from the source funds into the capital projects fund are posted. The main advantage to this design is it is simple (one key, one project).  No decisions need be made as to which funding source to charge a given invoice.  Additional setup can be done if multiple keys are required for the expenditures flow through capital assets. 
2. Tracking Grants using the Job Ledger — The Job Ledger is a great tool for tracking individual grants.  Under this method the JL key structure will need a fair degree of complexity as it needs to identify all pertinent information, including grant, entitlement year, project, etc.  If it is important to maintain fund balances for some or all grants, then a "Fund Balance" object code can be defined on the JL side and a Recurrent Journal Entry can then calculate the remaining grant balance forward and store it there. While a true balance sheet cannot be maintained for each grant, nevertheless the fund balance can be readily calculated (beginning fund balance + revenues – expenses). This design may work best in an environment where multiple areas must charge to specific grants and at the same time maintain their identity.   
3. Task/event tracking — Many organizations have a need to track revenue and expenditures relating to one-time and/or short-term events such as school functions and natural disasters such as flooding where there may be a possibility of receiving FEMA reimbursements. The organization can easily set aside a range of Job Ledger keys that can readily be assigned and used for these purposes. Assuming all related transactions are then processed with these JL account numbers a financial statement can easily be generated. 
4. Fleet maintenance expense accounting — Many government organizations including school districts must provide fleet and equipment maintenance services. The JL is an excellent vehicle for accounting for such expenditures at the equipment or department level. In order to simplify the accounting a single generic GL key can be used and individual JL keys can then be defined for each piece of equipment or user department. An RJE can then be easily defined to gather equipment maintenance costs by department or other level and periodically charge back to these user departments.