PeopleSoft Glossary of Terms (A)
PeopleSoft Glossary of Terms:
A
Absence Entitlement – This element defines rules for granting paid time off for valid absences, such as sick time, vacation, and maternity leave. An absence entitlement element defines the entitlement amount, frequency, and entitlement period.
Absence Take – This element defines the conditions that must be met before a payee is entitled to take paid time off.
Academic Career – All course work that a student undertakes at an academic institution and that is grouped in a single student record. For example, a university that has an undergraduate school, a graduate school, and various professional schools might define several academic careers—an undergraduate career, a graduate career, and separate careers for each professional school (law school, medical school, dental school, and so on).
Academic Institution – An entity (such as a university or college) that is independent of other similar entities and that has its own set of rules and business processes.
Academic Organization – An entity that is part of the administrative structure within an academic institution. At the lowest level, an academic organization might be an academic department. At the highest level, an academic organization can represent a division.
Academic Plan – An area of study, such as a major, minor, or specialization—that exists within an academic program or academic career.
Academic Program – The entity to which a student applies and is admitted and from which the student graduates.
Account – The Account chartfield categorizes the nature of a transaction as a specific type of revenue, expense, asset or liability.
Accounting Date – The accounting date indicates when a transaction is recognized, as opposed to the date the transaction actually occurred. The accounting date and transaction date can be the same, but they don’t have to be. The accounting date determines the period in the general ledger to which the transaction is to be posted. You can only select an accounting date that falls within an open period in the ledger to which you are posting. The accounting date for an item is normally the invoice date.
Accounting Class – An accounting class defines how a resource is treated for generally accepted accounting practices. The Inventory class indicates whether a resource becomes part of a balance sheet account, such as inventory or fixed assets, while the Non-inventory class indicates that the resource is treated as an expense of the period during which it occurs.
Accounting Period – Each transaction you record in PeopleSoft will be posted to a specific accounting period. The accounting period is equivalent to a calendar month. Normally there are 12 regular accounting periods in a fiscal year, a point that is particularly important to consider when seeking financial data from the General Ledger, since the General Ledger stores financial information by accounting period.
Accounting Split – The accounting split method indicates how expenses are allocated or divided among one or more sets of accounting ChartFields.
Accumulator – You use an accumulator to store cumulative values of defined items as they are processed. You can accumulate a single value over time or multiple values over time. For example, an accumulator could consist of all voluntary deductions, or all company deductions, enabling you to accumulate amounts. It allows total flexibility for time periods and values accumulated.
Accounts Payable – The record of money that an organization owes to outside vendors.
Accounts Receivable – The record of money that is owed to an organization.
Accrual – It has different meaning depending on the PeopleSoft module. By definition accural means process of accumulation. For example, in PeopleSoft HR, accural means earning vacation or sick time while in PeopleSoft FSCM, it means accumulated expense or revenue over a period of time.
Actuals Ledger – The ledger that contains all actual revenues, expenditures, assets, liabilities, fund balances as well as encumbrances and pre-encumbrances. This ledger is the current source for financial reports.
Adjustment Period – An additional accounting period in the PeopleSoft Financials system, used to store adjusting entries. Adjusting Entry is a journal entry consisting of year-end adjustments.
Allocation – The movement of actual dollars, based on certain rules, performed with a journal (either automated or manual).
Approval Page – The tab on a journal that displays whether that journal has been approved, sent back (also known as “recycled”), or denied.
Action Reason – The reason an employee’s job or employment information is updated. The action reason is entered in two parts: a personnel action, such as a promotion, termination, or change from one pay group to another—and a reason for that action. Action reasons are used by PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Resources, PeopleSoft Enterprise Benefits Administration, PeopleSoft Enterprise Stock Administration, and the COBRA Administration feature of the Base Benefits business process.
Action Template – A set of escalating actions that the system or user performs based on the period of time that a customer or item has been in an action plan for a specific condition.
Address Usage – A grouping of address types defining the order in which the address types are used. For example, you might define an address usage code to process addresses in the following order: billing address, dormitory address, home address, and then work address.
Adjustment Calendar – The adjustment calendar controls how a particular charge is adjusted on a student’s account when the student drops classes or withdraws from a term. The charge adjustment is based on how much time has elapsed from a predetermined date, and it is determined as a percentage of the original charge amount.
Administrative Function – A particular functional area that processes checklists, communication, and comments. The administrative function identifies which variable data is added to a person’s checklist or communication record when a specific checklist code, communication category, or comment is assigned to the student. This key data enables you to trace that checklist, communication, or comment back to a specific processing event in a functional area.
Admit Type – A designation used to distinguish first-year applications from transfer applications.
Agreement – In PeopleSoft Enterprise eSettlements, provides a way to group and specify processing options, such as payment terms, pay from a bank, and notifications by a buyer and supplier location combination.
Allocation Rule – An expression within compensation plans that enables the system to assign transactions to nodes and participants. During transaction allocation, the allocation engine traverses the compensation structure from the current node to the root node, checking each node for plans that contain allocation rules.
Alternate Account – A feature in PeopleSoft Enterprise General Ledger that enables you to create a statutory chart of accounts and enter statutory account transactions at the detail transaction level, as required for recording and reporting by some national governments.
Analysis Database – Database tables that store large amounts of student information that may not appear in standard report formats. The analysis database tables contain keys for all objects in a report that an application program can use to reference other student-record objects that are not contained in the printed report. For instance, the analysis database contains data on courses that are considered for satisfying a requirement but that are rejected. It also contains information on courses captured by global limits. An analysis database is used in PeopleSoft Enterprise Academic Advisement.
Application Messaging – PeopleSoft Application Messaging enables applications within the PeopleSoft Enterprise product family to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other PeopleSoft Enterprise and third-party applications. An application message defines the records and fields to be published or subscribed to.
AR Specialist – Abbreviation for receivables specialist. In PeopleSoft Enterprise Receivables, an individual in who tracks and resolves deductions and disputed items.
Arbitration Plan – The arbiter when multiple price rules match the transaction. This plan determines the order in which the price rules are applied to the transaction base price.
Assessment Rule – A user-defined rule that the system uses to evaluate the condition of a customer’s account or of individual items to determine whether to generate a follow-up action.
Asset Class – An asset group used for reporting purposes. It can be used in conjunction with the asset category to refine asset classification.
Attribute/Value Pair – In PeopleSoft Enterprise Directory Interface, relates the data that makes up an entry in the directory information tree.
Auction Event – In PeopleSoft Strategic Sourcing, a sourcing event where bidders actively compete against one another to achieve the best price or score.
Audience – A segment of the database that relates to an initiative, or a membership organization that is based on constituent attributes rather than a dues-paying structure. Examples of audiences include the Class of ’65 and Undergraduate Arts & Sciences.
Authentication Server – A server that is set up to verify users of the system.
