Note: This is a list of some of the common terms and expressions used within the JEMS system. If there are any terms missing from this list that would be worth while to add, please e-mail to e-mail us, and we will consider adding the term to the list.
Accounting Period: Date chosen by the creator of a new journal that signifies the period they plan to post the entry to the accounting system.
Note: if the approver of an entry does not approve the journal in time to meet the deadlines for the period chosen by the preparer, the journal will be posted in the period during which the journal is approved. You cannot post an entry to a closed accounting period.
Approve Date: Date and time that the approver approved the journal. The date and time are set by the database to ensure conformity across all areas of the globe.
Approved Status: Signifies that a journal has been approved by the designated approver and will be available for presentation to general ledger when the accounting period for which it was created is open for posting.
Approver: Person designated by the preparer to approve the journal for posting.
Budget Journal: Also commonly referred to as "type 8" journals within the Cornell Financial System.
Create Date: Date and time the journal was created in JEMS. The date and time are set by the database to ensure conformity across all areas of the globe.
Created Status: Signifies that a journal has been generated within the JEMS system and has been assigned a reference number. This journal is in the process of being prepared for approval, but has not been submitted to the approver for approval.
Creator: Person who begins the journal by creating a new journal and obtaining a reference number for that journal. This person is not assigned by an individual, but instead is defined as the current user of the JEMS application at the time the journal was created.
Effective Date: The actual month within which an accounting journal is posted to Cornell's general ledger. The date is often, but not always, represented by the first day of the month in which the journal was posted.
Search: Display in JEMS where a user can:
Note: Users cannot edit or manipulate a journal in any way from this display.
Home Dept: The home dept is a payroll attribute used to describe the primary department associated with a given employee. These home department codes are represented as three-character department codes. For example, G23 = central accounting. Each journal is assigned a home department, which is the same as the home department of the user who created the journal. From then on, this value is the home department of that journal. This value is then used to limit viewing rights to the journal details within the Search Panel.
JEMS: Journal Entry Management System. A Cornell University system developed and built for the purpose of entering Cornell financial information into the Cornell University Financial System.
Journal Description: Overall purpose of the journal entry. This field can hold up to 100 characters, but since only the first 10-20 characters appear in selection screens for retrieval, keep the most descriptive data at the very beginning of the description. This will help you to retrieve journals more efficiently.
Journal Type: Represents the type of journal being created in JEMS. These journal types could be: Regular, Budget, Payroll, Standard, etc. Currently, JEMS only allows Regular (type 2) and Budget (type 8) journals. More journal types will be available in the future.
Kerberos: Cornell's authentication system for verifying a user's identity. This form of authentication is used by JEMS to identify a user and to ensure that only authorized users are able to use JEMS.
NetID: Cornell ID assigned for use within the Cornell University computing system. Typically used for authenticating users for Cornell services.
Prepare Date: Date and time the journal was completed by the preparer and submitted for approval to the designated approver.
Prepared Status: Signifies that a journal has been completed by the preparer and submitted for approval to the designated approver. The approver has not approved this journal for posting yet, or the status would be "Approved."
Preparer: Person who completes the journal and submits it to the designated approver for approval.
Note: Currently, the creator and preparer are the same person for all journals within JEMS. However, it was not definite whether this model would work for all cases within the Cornell Financial System, so both roles were created to allow potential separation between these two roles at a later time.
Purged Status: Signifies that a journal was created by a user, but it was later determined by that user, the approver, or someone from within DFA, that the journal was not needed or wanted for posting to the general ledger. This status is used to mark journals that basically are "deleted."
Queued Status: Signifies that a journal has been approved by the approver and has been loaded into the Financial System for final analysis and posting to the general ledger.
Reference Number: Unique six-digit number assigned to a journal. At this time, all JEMS journals are assigned a reference number beginning with "E." The system assigns these numbers at creation, and the reference number is visible throughout the remainder of the life of a journal. Reference numbers will always be unique within a fiscal year, but may not be unique from one fiscal year to the next.
Regular Journal: Also commonly referred to as "type 2" journals within the Cornell Financial System.
Status: Describes the current state of a journal within the process of posting a journal to the Cornell Financial System. Currently, the statuses possible for viewing within JEMS are: Created, Prepared, Approved, Queued, and Purged.
Subjournal: A subset of transactions within a subjournal that may all represent or contain a common link within the journal, but not with all transactions of a journal. In the current paper-based system, many users would group certain transactions together within a paper journal and/or draw a box around them to signify a commonality between these transactions. JEMS offers this same type of modeling, on a more defined basis. A user can create as many subjournals as they wish within a journal within JEMS and define a subjournal description to be used to describe the purpose of the transactions it contains. This is a new concept that had not existed within the Cornell Financial System prior to JEMS.
Notes:
- A journal can have as many subjournals as the user wishes, but must always have at least one.
- A subjournal can, but does not have to, be used to separate transactions within a journal based on purpose.
Submit: Action within the Prepare panel signifying that the creator of the journal has completed that journal, and that all values within the journal are accurate to the best of their knowledge. At this time, the journal will be passed on within the JEMS system for approval by the designated approver.
Transaction Date: A four-digit date that appears on accounting transaction reports and within the ADW. JEMS does not currently allow editing of this value and offers no way to view this value for validation. This value is currently assigned by the legacy financial system after JEMS has loaded the journal for final analysis. By default, the date is assigned as the first day of the month within which the journal was posted.
