Compress General Ledger Transactions

Use this utility to combine the ledger transactions into two summary transactions for each account selected, thereby reducing the number of records in the ledger. All debit transactions with the same account number in the specified range are combined into one summary transaction. All credit transactions with the same account number in the specified range are combined into one summary transaction. Once the summary transactions are created, all transactions that were combined are deleted along with all their associated detail.

Although you cannot delete transactions from the general ledger, compressing transactions reduces disk space requirements by taking old information out of the G/L Posted Transactions. Compressing the ledger also speeds up the time needed to calculate an account balance (because of the fewer transactions to total).

Note:  Compression also deletes the transaction description when it deletes the transaction. Only the lump sum remains; to see the transaction detail, you must perform a database backup or printout. You should print and retain a hard copy of the detailed transactions before executing the G/L compression.

G/L compression is either by date or period. If compressing by date, the system totals all transactions for an account on a particular day and creates a transaction with a reference of date summary. If there are 30 transactions, each on a different day, 30 date summary transactions are created. If all transactions are on the same day, only one transaction is created.

If compressing by period, the system totals all transactions for an account that fall into one of the defined accounting periods and creates a transaction with a reference of period summary. If there are 30 transactions, each on a different day, but within one of the defined periods, one transaction is created.

This function does not compress transactions with a reference of income summary. A transaction with this reference is created when closing a year. The amount in this transaction is the net effect of revenue and expenses for the year.

After running this utility, if this site is enabled to publish the GLMovement BOD, you must run the Rebalance Ledger Period Totals utility and the Refresh Account/Unit Combination utility.