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Theresa Marquis, Marjorie Wright
SAP S/4HANA Management Accounting Certification Guide:
Application Associate Exam
2019, approx. 345 pp., paperback and e-book
www.sap-press.com/4886
Janet Salmon, Michel Haesendonckx
SAP S/4HANA Finance: The Reference Guide to What’s New
2019, 505 pages, hardcover and e-book
www.sap-press.com/4838
Anup Maheshwari
Implementing SAP S/4HANA Finance (2nd Edition)
2018, 570 pages, hardcover and e-book
www.sap-press.com/4525
Hilker, Awan, Delvat
Central Finance and SAP S/4HANA
2018, 458 pages, hardcover and e-book
www.sap-press.com/4667
Stefanos Pougkas
SAP S/4HANA® Financial Accounting
Certification Guide
Application Associate Exam
Dear Reader,
It’s moments until curtains, nearly time for your big performance. The audience is
seated and your instrument is tuned up. Are you ready? After hours of practice, repetition, and study, how can you truly know when you’re prepared enough?
In this moment, you’re back in the practice room—whether it’s sheet music, a script, a
dance routine, you have your task in front of you. Like I said in the previous edition,
dedicated practice leads to success. Today, it’s your financial accounting certification
exam, and whether this is your first certification or your ninth, practice makes perfect.
In this case, Stefanos Pougkas is both teacher and composer. In addition to creating this
complete guide to the SAP S/4HANA 1709 and 1809 financial accounting certification,
he wrote the exam himself! So with this insider angle, get the key information, questions, and study guides to make your performance worthy of a standing ovation!
What did you think about SAP S/4HANA Financial Accounting Certification Guide: Application Associate Exam? Your comments and suggestions are the most useful tools to
help us make our books the best they can be. Please feel free to contact me and share
any praise or criticism you may have.
Thank you for purchasing a book from SAP PRESS!
Will Jobst
Editor, SAP PRESS
willj@rheinwerk-publishing.com
www.sap-press.com
Rheinwerk Publishing • Boston, MA
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Pougkas, Stefanos, author.
Title: SAP S/4HANA financial accounting certification guide : application
associate exam / Stefanos Pougkas.
Description: 2nd edition. | Bonn ; Boston : Rheinwerk Publishing, 2019. |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007520 (print) | LCCN 2019012460 (ebook) | ISBN
9781493218134 (ebook) | ISBN 9781493218127 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: SAP HANA (Electronic resource)--Examinations--Study guides. |
Database management--Examinations--Study guides.
Classification: LCC QA76.9.D3 (ebook) | LCC QA76.9.D3 P684 2019 (print) | DDC
005.74068--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007520
ISBN 978-1-4932-1812-7 (print)
ISBN 978-1-4932-1813-4 (e-book)
ISBN 978-1-4932-1814-1 (print and e-book)
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing, Inc., Boston (MA)
2nd edition 2019
7
Contents
Preface ....................................................................................................................................................
11
Introduction: The Path to Certification ........................................................................................
17
1
SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Fiori
45
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................
46
Key Concept Refresher ......................................................................................................
47
Digital Transformation ...................................................................................................
Intelligent Enterprise Framework ................................................................................
SAP S/4HANA .....................................................................................................................
The SAP Fiori User Interface ..........................................................................................
47
47
51
56
Important Terminology ....................................................................................................
67
Practice Questions ...............................................................................................................
68
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................
72
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................
76
Summary .................................................................................................................................
76
General Ledger Accounting
77
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................
78
Key Concept Refresher ......................................................................................................
79
2
Organizational Units ........................................................................................................ 79
Integration with Non-Financial Accounting Organizational Units .................. 94
Master Records .................................................................................................................. 97
Global Financial Accounting Configuration ............................................................. 112
Business Transactions in the General Ledger .......................................................... 143
Important Terminology .................................................................................................... 156
Practice Questions ............................................................................................................... 158
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................ 166
8
Contents
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................ 173
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 174
3
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable
175
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................ 176
Key Concept Refresher ...................................................................................................... 177
Business Partners ..............................................................................................................
Payment Terms ..................................................................................................................
Invoicing ...............................................................................................................................
Manual Payments .............................................................................................................
Automatic Payments .......................................................................................................
177
199
206
214
217
Dunning ...............................................................................................................................
Correspondence .................................................................................................................
Special General Ledger Accounting ............................................................................
Reporting .............................................................................................................................
238
251
255
263
Important Terminology .................................................................................................... 267
Practice Questions .............................................................................................................. 270
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................ 277
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................ 283
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 283
4
Asset Accounting
285
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................ 287
Key Concept Refresher ...................................................................................................... 287
Fixed Asset Accounting ...................................................................................................
Chart of Depreciation ......................................................................................................
Depreciation Areas ...........................................................................................................
Asset Class ...........................................................................................................................
Account Determination ..................................................................................................
Screen Layouts ...................................................................................................................
287
289
290
293
296
298
Contents
User-Defined Fields ..........................................................................................................
Asset Master Data ............................................................................................................
Integration with Plant Maintenance ..........................................................................
Asset Transaction Types .................................................................................................
Asset Acquisitions .............................................................................................................
Asset Retirements .............................................................................................................
Asset Transfers ...................................................................................................................
Low-Value Assets ..............................................................................................................
Assets Under Construction ............................................................................................
Asset Depreciation ............................................................................................................
Asset Year-End Process ....................................................................................................
Asset Reporting ..................................................................................................................
Asset Legacy Data Transfer ............................................................................................
300
301
302
304
305
314
318
322
323
325
330
332
336
Important Terminology .................................................................................................... 341
Practice Questions ............................................................................................................... 342
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................ 347
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................ 352
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 353
5
Financial Closing
355
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................ 356
Key Concept Refresher ...................................................................................................... 357
Financial Statement Version .........................................................................................
General Ledger Closing ...................................................................................................
Accruals and Deferrals ....................................................................................................
Accruals Management ....................................................................................................
Closing Activities in Receivables and Payables .......................................................
Closing Activities in Materials Management ..........................................................
SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit ...................................................................
Methods for Intercompany Reconciliation ...............................................................
357
372
378
381
390
404
410
414
Important Terminology .................................................................................................... 420
Practice Questions ............................................................................................................... 422
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................ 428
9
10
Contents
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................ 431
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 432
6
SAP Financials Cross Topics
433
Objectives of This Portion of the Test ........................................................................ 435
Key Concept Refresher ...................................................................................................... 435
Bank Account Management ..........................................................................................
Document Parking ............................................................................................................
Journal Entry Verification ...............................................................................................
Validations and Substitutions ......................................................................................
Data Archiving ...................................................................................................................
436
442
453
460
473
Data Aging ........................................................................................................................... 481
Important Terminology .................................................................................................... 487
Practice Questions .............................................................................................................. 489
Practice Question Answers and Explanations ........................................................ 494
Takeaway ................................................................................................................................ 498
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 498
The Author ............................................................................................................................................. 499
Index ........................................................................................................................................................ 501
Service Pages .....................................................................................................................................
Legal Notes .........................................................................................................................................
I
II
11
Preface
The SAP PRESS Certification Series is designed to provide those who are preparing
to take an SAP-certified exam with all of the review, insight, and practice they need
to pass the exam. The series is written in practical, easy-to-follow language that
provides targeted content focused on what you need to know to successfully take
your exam.
Target Audience
This book is specifically written for those preparing to take the SAP Certified Application Associate—SAP S/4HANA for Financial Accounting Associates C_TS4FI_
1809 exam, so if you’ve purchased this book, you’re obviously interested in learning how to successfully pass the certification exam. It focuses on core SAP
S/4HANA financial accounting skills: general ledger accounting, accounts payable
and accounts receivable, asset accounting, financial closing, and more.
By using this book, you will gain a thorough understanding of the exam structure
and what to expect when taking it. You will receive a refresher on key concepts
covered on the exam and will be able to test your skills via sample practice questions and answers. The book is closely aligned with the course syllabus and the
exam structure, so all the information provided is relevant and applicable to what
you need to know to prepare. We explain the SAP products and features using
practical examples and straightforward language so that you can prepare for the
exam and improve your skills in your day-to-day work. Each book in the series has
been structured and designed to highlight what you really need to know.
Structure of This Book
Each chapter begins with a clear list of the learning objectives—for example:
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Preface
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 How to prepare for the exam
쐍 Understanding the general exam structure
쐍 Practice questions and preparation
From there, you’ll dive into the chapter and get right into the test objective coverage.
Throughout the book, we’ve also provided several elements that will help you
access useful information:
쐍 Tips call out useful information about related ideas and provide practical suggestions for how to use a particular function.
쐍 Notes provide other resources to explore or special tools or services from SAP
that will help you with the topic under discussion.
쐍 Warnings draw your attention to points that often cause confusion or are
ignored.
The following boxes are examples of these elements.
Note
This certification guide covers all topics you need to successfully pass the exam. It provides sample questions similar to those found on the actual exam.
Tip
This book contains screenshots and diagrams to help your understanding of the many
information modeling concepts.
Warning
This book is meant to review and supplement the knowledge gained from standard SAP
Education training.
Each chapter that covers an exam topic is organized in a similar fashion, helping
you to become familiar with the structure and easily find the information you
need. Here’s an example of a typical chapter structure:
쐍 Introductory bullets
The beginning of each chapter discusses the techniques you must master to be
considered proficient in the topic for the certification examination.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Preface
쐍 Topic introduction
This section provides you with a general idea of the topic at hand to frame
future sections. It also includes objectives for the exam topic covered.
쐍 Real-world scenario
This part shows a scenario that provides you with a case in which these skills
would be beneficial to you or your company.
쐍 Objectives
This section provides you with the necessary information to successfully pass
this portion of the test.
쐍 Key concept refresher
This section outlines the major concepts of the chapter. It identifies the tasks
you will need to be able to understand or perform properly to answer the questions on the certification examination.
쐍 Important terminology
Just prior to the practice examination questions, we provide a section to review
important terminology. This may be followed by definitions of various terms
from the chapter.
쐍 Practice questions
The chapter then provides a series of practice questions related to the topic of
the chapter. The questions are structured in a similar way to the actual questions on the certification examination.
쐍 Practice question answers and explanations
Following the practice questions are their solutions. As part of the answer, we
discuss why an answer is considered correct or incorrect.
쐍 Takeaway
This section provides a takeaway or reviews the areas you should now understand.
쐍 Summary
Finally, we conclude with a summary of the chapter.
Now that you have an idea of how the book is structured, the following list will
dive into the individual topics covered in each chapter:
쐍 Chapter 1: SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Fiori
The focus of this chapter is on the architecture of SAP HANA, the scope for and
deployment options of SAP S/4HANA, and the basic functions of the SAP Fiori
user interface.
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14
Preface
쐍 Chapter 2: General Ledger Accounting
The focus of this chapter is on general ledger accounting in the SAP S/4HANA
system. It discusses the configuration of basic financial organizational units,
design and configuration of the chart of accounts, general ledger master
records, and document posting controls.
쐍 Chapter 3: Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable
The focus of this chapter is on accounts payable and accounts receivable processes and configurations in SAP S/4HANA. It discusses business partner master
record maintenance, accounts payable and accounts receivable invoicing and
integration, manual and automatic payments, dunning, and correspondence.
쐍 Chapter 4: Asset Accounting
The focus of this chapter is on asset accounting processes in SAP S/4HANA. It
discusses basic organizational units of asset accounting, such as the chart of
depreciation and asset classes, integration of asset accounting with the general
ledger, asset accounting transactions, and period-end closing in asset accounting.
쐍 Chapter 5: Financial Closing
The focus of this chapter is on month-end and year-end closing processes in
SAP S/4HANA. It discusses balance confirmations in accounts payable and
accounts receivable, accrual management, foreign currency valuation, reserves
for bad debt, open item reclassification, and the SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing
cockpit.
쐍 Chapter 6: SAP Financials Cross Topics
The focus of this chapter is on key functionalities of the SAP financials applications. It discusses using special general ledger indicators, document parking,
and creating posting validations and substitutions.
Practice Questions
We want to give you some background on the test questions before you encounter
the first few in the chapters. Just like in the exam, each question has a basic structure:
쐍 The actual question
Read the question carefully and be sure to consider all the words used in the
question because they can impact the answer.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Preface
쐍 Question hint
This is not a formal term, but we call it a hint because it will tell you how many
answers are correct. If only one is correct, normally you’ll be asked to choose the
correct answer. If more than one is correct, then as in the actual certification
examination, the hint will indicate the correct number of answers.
쐍 Answers
The answers to select from depend on the question type. The following question types are possible:
– Multiple response: More than one correct answer is possible.
– Multiple choice: Only a single answer is correct.
– True/false: Only a single answer is correct. These types of questions are not
used in the exam but are used in the book to test your understanding.
Summary
With this certification guide, you’ll learn how to approach the content and key
concepts highlighted for each exam topic. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity
to practice with sample test questions in each chapter. After answering the practice questions, you’ll be able to review the explanations of the answers, which dissect the questions by explaining why the answers are correct or incorrect. The
practice questions give you insight into the types of questions you can expect,
what the questions look like, and how the answers relate to the question. Understanding the composition of the questions and seeing how the questions and
answers work together is just as important as understanding the content. This
book gives you the tools and understanding you need to be successful. Armed with
these skills, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an SAP Certified Application
Associate in SAP S/4HANA for Financial Accounting.
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15
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
17
Introduction:
The Path to Certification
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Understand the relevant certification offerings for finance in SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Find the courses required for the certification
쐍 Learn techniques for taking the certification exams
쐍 Identify further relevant SAP Education offerings in SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Explore additional resources for financials in SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Expand your knowledge and keep your skills up to date
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Introduction: The Path to Certification
This chapter paints the big picture of the SAP S/4HANA Financial Accounting
Application Associate exam and certification. It teaches you about the different
levels and offerings for SAP S/4HANA financial certifications, identifies resources
for study, and provides certification-test-taking advice.
With SAP S/4HANA, SAP has introduced a new breed of enterprise resource planning solutions to keep businesses ahead of the technological wave and to support
customers in becoming truly digital businesses. SAP S/4HANA is the most important product in the SAP portfolio and financial accounting is still at the very core of
the processes and functionalities supported. As more customers adopt SAP
S/4HANA, the number of projects worldwide also increases greatly, leading to a
need for more implementation and support consultants who understand the core
financial functions.
In this chapter, we’ll establish that the SAP S/4HANA Financial Accounting Application Associate certification is the right certification for you. We’ll also go over
the details of the certification and the SAP education materials that are essential to
achieve the certification. We’ll discuss the ways you can access the SAP Education
materials and then we'll go over some tips to prepare for and succeed in passing
the certification examination. Finally, we'll look at some additional resources you
might find useful when preparing for the exam and as you continue your journey
with SAP S/4HANA.
Who This Book Is For
There is hardly any SAP project worldwide that doesn’t require project members
familiar with financial accounting processes and configuration. This was true for
SAP ERP and is true for SAP S/4HANA. This makes financial accounting consultants
with good skills and solid experience a valuable and sought-after resource for both
SAP partner firms and SAP customers.
This book covers a broad and deep scope of core financial accounting configuration and business processes in the SAP S/4HANA system. As such, this book is an
excellent starting point for those of you who are just getting introduced to financial accounting. For example, you might be a new hire at an SAP implementation
partner, an IT support consultant whose company is upgrading to SAP S/4HANA,
or a graduate looking to kick-start a career in SAP.
The book is also a great way for more experienced consultants to get back to the
basics. Often, as you gain more experience, you become specialized in a specific
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
part of the SAP financials world. This book will help you look again at the complete
picture of financial accounting and at the same time get upskilled to the specifics
of SAP S/4HANA.
Those working as business users with financial accounting in SAP also often want
to expand beyond that role to get a deeper and broader understanding of the
implementation or to support consultant roles.
Developers wanting to specialize in financials or to gain a good understanding of
the common business processes that are configured with SAP S/4HANA can also
find value in this book, even just as a reference if they aren’t interested in the certification aspect.
The book is designed around the latest 1809 version of the SAP S/4HANA system
and certification; however, because it covers core processes that are by now quite
mature, the knowledge found here should support future versions of the product
as well.
Certifications for SAP Financials in SAP S/4HANA
We’ll first review the portfolio of certifications from SAP that might be of interest
to you. Then, we’ll go into the details of the C_TS4FI_1809 certification.
Useful SAP S/4HANA Certifications Overview
SAP offers an expanding portfolio of certifications for SAP S/4HANA, many of
which might be interesting for the financial accounting consultant. The following
is a list of potentially relevant certifications that might interest you (the first three
are relevant in a broader scope):
쐍 C_TS410_1610: SAP Certified Application Associate—Integrated Business
Processes in SAP S/4HANA
This certification indicates that you have a solid understanding of the integrated processes in SAP S/4HANA, including the SAP Fiori user experience (UX),
financial and management accounting, human capital management (SAP ERP
Human Capital Management and SAP SuccessFactors), procure-to-pay, plan-toproduce, warehouse management in SAP, order to cash, project system, and
SAP Enterprise Asset Management (SAP EAM).
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Introduction: The Path to Certification
Although a business processes course, this is immensely useful for any consultant’s understanding of the nearly end-to-end scope of the SAP S/4HANA solution offering.
쐍 C_ACTIVATE05: SAP Certified Associate—SAP Activate Project Manager
SAP Activate is the implementation methodology replacing ASAP. All projects
related to SAP S/4HANA will be based on some form of the SAP Activate methodology. Even if you’re not a project manager or don’t aspire to become one,
understanding how a project works, what accelerators are offered, and what
implementation options are available is of great use for a consultant.
쐍 C_S4IMP_1610: SAP Certified Associate—SAP S/4HANA Implementation
Scenarios for Architects
This is a certification that is probably best suited to the admin/SAP Basis consultant; however, the underlying courses (S4H01 and S4H100) are great resources
for understanding the SAP S/4HANA adoption scenarios for new implementations and system conversions alike.
쐍 C_TS4CO_1809: SAP Certified Application Associate—Management
Accounting with SAP S/4HANA
This is the equivalent certification to the one this book covers, only for consultants more focused on management accounting. This is a very useful certification also for financial accounting consultants who want to play more generalist
roles in projects. Because financial accounting and Controlling are becoming
increasingly integrated, this is a logical next learning step for the financial
accounting consultant.
쐍 C_TS4FI_1809: SAP Certified Application Associate—SAP S/4HANA for
Financial Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 1610)
The certification for which this book is created and the best starting point for
any new financial accounting consultant.
쐍 P_S4FIN_1809: SAP Certified Application Professional—Financials in
SAP S/4HANA for SAP ERP Finance Experts
This certification is the level-up certification from the application associate certifications in financial accounting and Controlling. It’s for the experienced professional who has a good knowledge level in both financial accounting and
Controlling and has upskilled to SAP S/4HANA. It’s the only professional certification available for financial accounting with SAP S/4HANA.
쐍 C_S4CFI: SAP Certified Application Associate—SAP S/4HANA Cloud—Finance
Implementation
This certification is crucial for consultants wanting to participate in SAP
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
S/4HANA Cloud implementations as finance experts. The content prerequisites
cover both project setup and implementation topics (SAP Activate and the fitto-standard workshop), as well as the broadest scope of finance knowledge of
any SAP certification. You’ll be required to understand a fairly detailed level of
financial accounting, management accounting, financial operations, treasury
management, group reporting, innovation applications that use the cloud platform, and more. Because the certification is updated every three months, you’ll
also have to complete a “stay-current” assessment for every new product
release to maintain your certification status. Therefore, you’ll need to maintain
a learning hub subscription.
All mentioned certifications and most certifications on offer for SAP Education
have the same format:
쐍 Length of exam: Up to three hours.
쐍 Exam questions: Eighty questions, either multiple choice or multiple selection.
쐍 Exam location: Can be taken either at a certification center or online through
the SAP Certification Hub.
The SAP Certification Hub is a subscription-based cloud offering. You subscribe
annually and can make six certification attempts in this period. This means that if
you always pass on the first try, you could potentially get six different certifications. For each individual certification, you get up to three tries, meaning you can
fail to pass no more than two times for each subscription. You can try the previous
version of the certification (if it is still available), or wait for the release of the next
version (usually released in the first quarter of the new year).
Note
You can find more information at https://training.sap.com/shop/course/cer006.
Depending on your location, you can also visit a certified certification partner and
take the certification in a moderated classroom. For more information, visit
https://training.sap.com, or call your local training contact (the number is provided at the training shop site).
You can find up-to-date learning offerings by area on the SAP Training Web shop
at https://training.sap.com/learning. Here the education content is categorized
into Learning Journeys (Figure 1), which are interactive maps that guide you
through the complex and sometimes confusing SAP Education offerings.
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Introduction: The Path to Certification
Figure 1 SAP Education Learning Journeys
The C_TS4FI_1809 Certification
The certification covered in this book is to SAP S/4HANA what the C_TFIN52: SAP
Certified Application Associate—Financial Accounting with SAP ERP certification
was for SAP ERP. In other words, this certification is the common starting point for
many SAP Financial Accounting professionals. Both the new certification and the
underlying course materials are based on those of SAP ERP, so if you’re familiar
with or certified in the SAP ERP certification, you should have no problem identifying the delta and passing the certification exam for SAP S/4HANA.
The C_TS4FI certification will likely, but not necessarily, continue to have an
annual release cycle for the perceivable future to match the annual release cycle of
the SAP S/4HANA system. However, as mentioned, because core Customizing and
functionality are covered, the certification won’t be obsolete the day after you take
it. The same goes for the validity of this book as a reference and for future releases
of the certification.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Certification Exam Format
As you can see in Figure 2, which is a screenshot from the SAP Training Web shop,
the certification exam is an associate-level exam, meaning it’s assumed the exam
taker has at least one year of hands-on experience in a role relevant to financial
accounting with SAP S/4HANA (or SAP ERP) and has excellent knowledge of the
prerequisite education courses.
Figure 2 C_TS4FI_1709 on SAP Education Web Shop
The certification exam consists of 80 questions of the following types:
쐍 Multiple choice, for which you must select one correct answer out of the four
available options
쐍 Multiple select (type 1), for which you must select the two correct answers out of
the four available options
쐍 Multiple select (type 2), for which you must select the three correct answers out
of the five available options
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Introduction: The Path to Certification
There are no other question types than these. Note that you must get all answers
correct for each question for the question to be considered correctly answered.
To pass the 1709 certification, you must answer 63% of the questions correctly.
This means you must answer 51 out of 80 questions completely correctly. The percentage for the pass rate might be changed in future versions of the exam as it
depends on the rated difficulty of the question items in the certification. As mentioned earlier, you can take the certification at a certification center or by using the
cloud offering at your own home. For current information on both options, you
can check the SAP Education web shop at https://training.sap.com/shop/certification or call your local SAP Education office.
After passing the certification exam, you get a printed certificate, and you can
access the Credential Manager from the SAP Education web shop to manage your
certifications (https://training.sap.com/shop/content/Credential-Manager). In addition, you’ll receive a digital badge (Figure 3), which you can display on your profile in social media platforms and in emails.
Figure 3 SAP Global Certification Digital Badges
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Scope of the Certification Exam
The book is modeled closely to the topic areas of the certification (Figure 4). There
is some small variation: special general ledger transactions are included in the
accounts payable/accounts receivable topics, and bank account management is
included as a separate area in SAP financials cross topics. However, the book covers
the same exact areas and scope as the exam itself and the academy courses on
which the certification is based.
Figure 4 Certification Topic Areas
The approximate weighting and approximate number of questions you can
expect per area are detailed in Table 1.
Topic
Percentage (%)
Approximate Number
of Questions
Book
Chapter
SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA
8–12
8
1
General ledger accounting
>12
16
2
Accounts payable and accounts
receivable
>12
16
3
Asset accounting
>12
16
4
Financial closing
>12
12
5
SAP Financials cross topics
>12
12
6
Table 1 Topic Weighting
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SAP Education Courses
You can select from quite a few different course options to gain the knowledge
required for the certification exam:
쐍 Individual courses
– S4F12: Basics of Customizing for Financial Accounting: G/L, AP, AR in
SAP S/4HANA (five days)
– S4F13: Additional Financial Accounting Configuration in SAP S/4HANA
(four days)
– S4F17: Asset Accounting in SAP S/4HANA (five days)
– S4F15: Financial Closing in SAP S/4HANA (four days)
쐍 Academy courses
– TS4F01: Financial Accounting in SAP S/4HANA—Academy I
– TS4F02: Financial Accounting in SAP S/4HANA—Academy II
쐍 eAcademy course
– TS4F2e: Financial Accounting in SAP S/4HANA
Note
The individual courses are also available as e-learnings; just add an “e” to the end of the
course names: S4F12e (20 hours), S4F13e (16 hours), S4F17e (20 hours), and S4F15e (16
hours).
If you’re new to the subject of financial accounting with SAP, it’s a good idea to also
check out the prerequisite course, S4F10, Business Processes in Financial Accounting in SAP S/4HANA (five days), which is also available as e-learning S4F10e. For all
these courses, the latest materials as of the date of publishing for this book are in
collection 11 and refer to SAP S/4HANA 1809. The likely next version of the materials will refer to SAP S/4HANA 1909, which is due to be released in September 2019.
However, these won’t be available until the tail end of 2019 at the earliest, and the
certification for SAP S/4HANA 1909 is likely to be made available in 2020.
Tip
Collections are semiarbitrary course version numberings that generally map a course to a
specific product release. For SAP S/4HANA, you can assume that the higher the collection
number, the newer the course, and the courses with the same collection number all refer
to the same system version.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Always go for the newest collection of materials available. You can find the newest
materials referenced in the relevant learning journey (Figure 5). The scope of the
content for these courses isn’t due to change dramatically, but each version of the
course gets a little better, as is true for the product as well. SAP S/4HANA is maturing very quickly, and the small adjustments and enhancements made in mature
modules go along nicely with rapid changes and improvements that occur in
parallel.
Figure 5 SAP S/4HANA Finance: Financial Accounting
To keep up to date with what learning materials are available for financial accounting in SAP S/4HANA, you should check the relevant learning journey (Figure 5).
Here you can see the offerings categorized in sections. You can see the academy
track, which also leads to the certification in the Become Competent section. The
learning journey is interactive, so clicking on the course links will take you to the
latest version of each course. If you have an active (paid) SAP Learning Hub subscription, you can get directly routed to the course material (select E-book or
E-learning). An assessment is also available for each course, and the assessment
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groups all assessment questions available in the course content into a single test
that can be used to gauge your understanding of each topic. Finally, there is a link
for SAP Live Access, which provides a PDF of all the relevant exercises and details
for booking a live-access training system to practice on.
Ways to Learn
You can choose to learn and consume the standard SAP Education courses in a
variety of ways:
쐍 Classroom training is the most obvious way to learn, especially when you’re
new to the subject. The inherit and undeniable advantages are an environment
that offers immediate live feedback from an expert trainer, networking with
trainees with whom you’ve shared goals, minimal “real-work” interruptions
during the day, and a system at your disposal to perform all exercises during the
training. At an SAP training center for the scope of the financial accounting
academy (or individual courses), you’ll receive four printed versions of the relevant books (one for each course or week of the academy), which average more
than 400 pages each.
쐍 Remote classroom training is a kind of Internet-based training that utilizes a
conferencing application. It approximates the classroom experience, so you
still have a live trainer to ask questions, system access to perform exercises and
learners with whom you may interact. However, the experience isn’t quite the
same as in a classroom.
쐍 eAcademy training through SAP Education is a third option for consuming the
materials. With this option, you receive the following:
– Online learning content in an e-learning format consisting of presentation
slides with audio commentary, recorded system demonstrations, and practice simulations
– SAP's training system for hands-on experience with live training systems to
reinforce your learning and test scenarios on your own
– Student manuals in electronic form (without the audio simulations)
– Help desk support, with a guarantee that all queries are answered within 24
hours on Monday through Friday
– Technical support for the system via online web conferencing and scheduled
expert instructor sessions, as well as the Ask the Expert feature
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
쐍 SAP Learning Hub (https://training.sap.com/shop/learninghub) is the newest in
the line of offerings from SAP. This is a cloud-based offering with an annual subscription. SAP Learning Hub consists of three major offerings bundled in one:
– Access to learning content in the SAP Education catalog. This includes all SAP
S/4HANA content on the day the content is released (and before any classroom events have taken place). Figure 6 shows an example search for the
content available for financial accounting in SAP S/4HANA. Course content is
delivered either in e-book format, which is like a PDF version, or as an e-learning, which includes multimedia elements and recorded demo/practice simulations.
Figure 6 Course Content on SAP Learning Hub
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– Access to the SAP Learning Rooms that are available for many SAP lines of
business, including Financial Accounting (Figure 7). A learning room is a virtual forum where SAP Learning Hub subscribers can interact, ask questions,
make proposals, discuss business cases, find materials and links, join webinars, and get informed about the newest developments in individual areas.
Each learning room has a lead trainer assigned to create original content,
facilitate discussions, answer questions, and generally overlook things and
make sure all is running smoothly for participants.
Figure 7 SAP Finance Learning Room
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
– SAP Live Access allows you to deploy training systems configured specifically
to support the courses on the SAP Learning Hub. To gain access, you need an
SAP Learning Hub subscription, but you also need to purchase a separate
contingent/voucher that gives you 20 hours of system access. You can suspend and resume your system activities as needed. You can also change to a
different course and order a new system within the allotted time. All current
and future financial courses for SAP S/4HANA are planned and designed to
support SAP Live Access. In Figure 8, you can see the SAP Live Access portal
and some of the SAP S/4HANA courses available to order.
Figure 8 SAP Live Access Catalog
As a complete offering, the SAP Learning Hub is a good way to gain the knowledge required to pass the certification. In addition, however, it’s the offering
with the most overall value because you get access to much more learning content, including the latest releases from SAP Education.
Tips for Taking the Certification Exam
Let’s now go over a few tips that will help better prepare you for the exam. Studying the education materials is truly the key to passing the certification, but we’ll
also analyze the question types you’ll answer, and finally list a few tips and tricks
for before and during the exam.
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Realign Your Perspective
The main objective of this book is to help you pass the certification exam for C_
TS4FI_1809: SAP Certified Application Associate—SAP S/4HANA for Financial
Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 1809). This isn’t the same as preparing you
for real-life consulting projects. Although the requirements for the exam and reallife consulting overlap to a great extent, and SAP releases materials with content
and exercises that are relevant for consultants, remember that this certification
(and any application consultant-level certification) tests knowledge of the specific
materials it’s based on. In other words, though your own experience will contribute a lot to your success in the certification exam and experience is arguably the
single most important indicator of ability (at least until a certain experience level
is reached) in the real world, this isn’t true for the certification. For the certification, knowledge and an understanding of the material and scope of the courses is
most important.
For a consultant, life is full of choices, options, multiple paths, balance, and tradeoffs. In the world of certification, the truth is absolute; it’s clear-cut, it’s detailed,
and it’s documented. Certification isn’t about best practices; it’s about the only
practice. You might hear that SAP certifications are too focused on book knowledge and are disconnected from real life. This criticism may be accurate to a
degree, but we strive for the opposite within the limitations of creating a 100%
foolproof certification exam for which all questions can be answered through
what is learned in the books without any wiggle room for doubt.
A recent graduate who has the test-taking methodology all figured out and the
process of sitting down to take an exam fresh in his memory will have an equal but
different advantage from that of the seasoned professional who is tested and uses
his knowledge each day to solve problems for customers.
What we’re trying to say here is that yes, you need to study the education materials. The exam isn’t an exercise in memorization, but it’s built around the book content.
What to Expect When Taking the Exam
As mentioned, the exam is based on multiple choice and multiple selection questions. All questions must have answers found directly or easily deduced from the
course book content.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
In this section, we’ll look at an example from each category based on questions
found in the sample questions PDF from the certification exam page, as shown in
Figure 9.
Figure 9 Multiple Choice Example
The multiple-choice question type is the most straightforward and is usually a
very specific question with a single very specific answer. In the example question
in Figure 9, you’re asked where in the system you can mark the Reference field on
the journal entry header as a required entry. To answer this, you must know the
configurations made for a document type, which is the correct answer.
Figure 10 shows a sample multiple selection question in which you must select
two options as correct out of the four. Again, this is a simple question with simple
answer options because it’s testing knowledge of system functions, not of English.
SAP avoids adding unneeded scenario information to a question; most of the time,
every element of a question is important, so read the question carefully, and read
the question twice to make sure you have it. There’s time, so don’t rush it.
Figure 10 Multiple Selection: Two Correct Out of Four
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Note
Another thing to keep in mind is that the test questions aren’t written to trick you. You
can take the question at face value. There may be important details, but they aren’t
designed to trip you up; instead, they are there to check that you comprehend a subject
rather than just have it memorized.
In the multiple selection question, you need to select both correct answer options
to have the answer marked correct. SAP doesn’t give points for half a correct
answer because it doesn’t deduct points for a wrong answer. The simple sample
question here is correct when you select both the Post and Park answer options.
One level up the difficulty ladder is the multiple choice question with three correct
options out of five, as shown in Figure 11. One additional answer option adds one
further parameter to consider and ultimately a greater chance of getting it wrong.
In addition, it usually takes a bit longer just to read through it all and take it in. The
question here is which of the following fields can you enter when creating or
changing a general ledger account. When you’re sure of a field, then it’s correct;
don’t overthink it. Marking down the ones you’re sure of leaves you with a simpler
question. You know one answer is correct, so you now have a two out of four question instead of a two out of five question. If you know two answers for sure, then
you’re left with a one out of three question. It seems obvious, but eliminating
options is the best way to get them out of mind and out of sight. Concentrate on
the real dilemma; don’t keep going over the ones you know. The same goes for
wrong answer options. Writing convincing wrong answers is challenging, so take
advantage of this: when something looks out of place, know that it probably is.
Eliminating one answer from the possible correct options leaves you with three
correct out of four, which is much easier. If the direct knowledge approach doesn’t
work, go ahead with the process of elimination. Knowing what is incorrect is as
important as knowing what is correct for the certification.
You’ll have three hours to go through all exam questions. This gives you a little
over two minutes per question. Questions are designed to be readable in 30 seconds on average, so that should leave you plenty of time to go through the full
exam. Stay relaxed and don’t worry about the time; concentrate on the question at
hand, and if you’re unsure of the answer, move on. The system keeps track of questions that haven’t been answered. Before submitting the exam as final, always
answer all questions to the best of your ability. There is no penalty for wrong
answers, so submitting no answer is a wasted chance at an educated guess.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Figure 11 Multiple Selection: Three Correct Out of Five
SAP allows you to retake a certification exam up to three times. Both the order of
the questions and the order of the answers in a question are randomized. In other
words, you won’t get new questions if you retake the same exam, but the questions will be mixed.
Tips and Tricks
The following are some useful tips to use when preparing for the exam:
쐍 Bulleted lists in materials are a great resource for creating questions, especially
multiple selection questions, so always keep your eyes open for them.
쐍 Use the assessment questions in the materials and in this book to gauge your
understanding of a topic. If you don’t understand something, reread the relevant section, check the correct answer details, and, if needed, ask a question in
an online forum or community.
쐍 There’s a lot of content to cover, so give yourself the time required to study all
of it. You won’t be able to review all of it the night before the exam, so it’s better
to invest in a good night’s sleep rather than another review cycle.
쐍 Get to the exam center or be ready for the cloud examination early. Remove as
many additional stress factors as possible; being late shouldn’t be something
you should have to worry about.
쐍 Avoid or at least don’t put too much stock into answering “certification” questions outside official SAP resources. These are usually badly written and many
times answered incorrectly. The education courses (and this book) give you
plenty to work with.
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Here are some tips for during the exam:
쐍 Answer all questions, and bookmark the questions you’re unsure of to revisit
them. This allows you to focus on specific ones instead of wasting time on selections you made confidently.
쐍 Experience has shown that your initial selection is usually better than a revised
one. Be cautious of going back over questions and answers too many times.
쐍 Don’t worry too much about time. In most cases, you’ll be able to go over the
questions two or three times if you want to.
쐍 You don’t have to get it all correct. Don’t stress out because you hit two or three
questions in a row of which you’re unsure. Try to rationalize and keep your cool.
쐍 Read the question a couple times, and confirm you understand the question by
restating it in your own words. Then move to the answer options and read
through all of them thoroughly. Even if it’s multiple choice and you identify the
right answer, always read all answer options.
쐍 Eliminate the answer options that don’t make sense or are obviously wrong.
Usually one of the wrong answers sticks out as incorrect, and the fewer options
you have, the better the chance of selecting the right one.
쐍 In some cases, there might be answer options that are paired. This means that if
one answer is correct, then the other must be wrong. Because both can’t be correct, you must select one of the two in any case.
쐍 Questions might look similar or might cover the same topic. Although SAP
avoids having too many questions that overlap, it does happen. Watch out for
the differentiators in the question and answer options, and treat them as new
questions.
Additional Learning Resources
Undoubtedly, gaining the knowledge to pass the certification exam is important;
a certification is valuable in the job marketplace, and it does verify at least a certain
level of knowledge. However, in the IT field especially, innovation never stands
still; plus, the sheer scope of the SAP product offerings, even just for financial
accounting, is truly awe-inspiring.
Not strictly for preparation of a certification, but in the general scope of learning
more about different areas and keeping your knowledge up to date, the following
subsections provide a few useful resources for you to consider.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Stay-Current Materials
These materials are created and provided by SAP Education in direct cooperation
with the development departments that build the solutions. Stay-current materials are released and made available on the SAP Learning Hub (requires a valid
license) for every major product release on the day the product is released to customers. For the on-premise edition of SAP S/4HANA, a new set of learning programs is created at least annually (Figure 12 shows the learning programs made
available for SAP S/4HANA 1809) and updated as needed to include features
released with every new feature and service packs throughout the year.
Figure 12 Stay Current for SAP S/4HANA 1809
With stay-current programs, you get access to live and recorded webinars, information for useful links, and presentations of what is new, how new features work,
and how to implement the new features in the system. The content is delta in
nature by default, so it’s ideal to continue to stay current on new functionality
after you gain a baseline knowledge from SAP’s full-scale education courses. The
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education courses will take a subset of what’s new to filter back into the core learning curriculum, and sometimes features or functions are large and important
enough to warrant a completely new course.
SAP Best Practices Explorer
The SAP S/4HANA system deployment and the SAP Activate methodology is
closely integrated with the SAP Best Practices. A new system will generally use a
best practices package as the baseline on which a customer will build its own processes (or in some cases, the customer will change its processes to match the best
practices). Through the SAP Best Practices Explorer (https://rapid.sap.com/bp,
shown in Figure 13), you can access detailed definitions of the best practices solution scopes, test scripts detailing the steps to perform various business processes,
and business process diagrams that graphically depict processes steps.
Figure 13 SAP Best Practices Explorer for SAP S/4HANA
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
SAP Help Portal
The SAP Help Portal (https://help.sap.com; Figure 14) is an additional go-to place
for finding detailed information on SAP products.
Figure 14 SAP Help Portal
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Especially for admin information, it offers a wealth of details. With every release of
SAP S/4HANA, you can expect the following documents to be made available:
쐍 What’s new viewer
Offers a complete overview of the new features and functions in every new
release of SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Feature scope description
Provides an overview of the available features
쐍 Installation guide
Helps you install SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Upgrade guide
Describes the upgrade process to different software versions
쐍 Conversion guide
Supports the conversion from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA
쐍 UI technology guide
Gives information on the UI implementation
쐍 Security guide
Enables the implementation of a secure system landscape
쐍 Operations guide
Helps you operate your system
쐍 Simplification list
Describes features that aren’t in scope for SAP S/4HANA in comparison to SAP
ERP and provides alternatives
SAP Product Assistance
The SAP Help Portal has a link to Product Assistance (lower middle of the screen in
Figure 14). This is what was formally known as the SAP Library, and it has information for each application and many processes in SAP S/4HANA, including
configuration steps. Figure 15 shows a page with details on General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL); on the left, you can see the tree menu with details for each area of the
same.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
Figure 15 Product Assistance
SAP User Enablement Videos
The user enablement videos created by SAP for SAP Enable Now showcase basic
best practices tasks performed in an actual system environment. These can be a
great way for people without access to an SAP S/4HANA system to understand
how the business processes are executed within the system using the SAP Fiori
interface. You can access them for various SAP applications, including SAP
S/4HANA, via the blog post at http://s-prs.co/485600.
Tip
The demos are always kept up to date with the newest product release, and new simulations are often added as well.
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SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library
The SAP Fiori apps reference library is an extremely important resource for you to
keep an eye on (http://s-prs.co/485601). Here you’ll see every app made available
for SAP Fiori. You can quickly find newly released apps and apps that have
changed. For native SAP Fiori apps, you can find a short description of their functionality; for all apps, you get analytical details of how to configure them in your
system. In Figure 16, you can see an example for the Monitor Payments app, in
which the application details can be viewed for the different product releases (SAP
S/4HANA, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP ERP, etc.). In the search box, you can filter via
many different parameters, such as line of business, product, release, and so on.
Figure 16 SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Introduction: The Path to Certification
SAP Community
The SAP Community is another great way to gain valuable knowledge and get
assistance from other expert community members (http://s-prs.co/485602; Figure
17). There are many blog posts available containing useful how-to guides and
plenty of questions already answered.
Figure 17 SAP Community
openSAP
openSAP is SAP’s free massive open online course (MOOC) enterprise offering
(Figure 18).
Figure 18 openSAP Enterprise MOOC Courses
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It has a wealth of ongoing and previously run courses for several topics focusing
on true innovation, such as machine learning, big data, internet of things, and
more. There isn’t a lot of content for financial accounting specifically, and the
detail level the courses go into usually isn’t very deep, but this makes it a fantastic
resource to keep up with all the latest innovations and trends without requiring
prior knowledge of the topics.
Summary
You should now understand the various SAP S/4HANA certification options that
are relevant for this book’s target audience. You know about the exam structure,
topic weighting, and required pass score for the C_TS4FI_1809 exam. You now
know which SAP Education training courses you can review or attend for your certification examination and which related SAP courses and resources will complement and further enhance your knowledge and skills.
In the next chapter, we’ll dive right in to the exam topics, starting with an introduction to and overview of SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Chapter 1
SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA,
and SAP Fiori
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Explain the SAP strategy for digital transformation
쐍 Describe the SAP framework for the digital enterprise
쐍 Understand the role of the SAP Cloud Platform and
SAP Leonardo
쐍 Review basic SAP HANA technology
쐍 Describe the scope of financials for SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Choose the relevant deployment option for SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Explain the SAP Fiori design pillars
쐍 Use the SAP Fiori launchpad
쐍 Describe the basic SAP Fiori application types
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In this chapter, we’ll explore the architecture of SAP HANA, describe the scope and
deployment options of SAP S/4HANA, and discuss the basic functions of the SAP
Fiori user interface (UI).
Real-World Scenario
As a consultant, you need to understand the underlying architecture that the
SAP S/4HANA system is built on. SAP HANA is at the core of the SAP strategy,
and you need to feel comfortable explaining this technology to your customers in simple terms. SAP HANA is a faster database, but there’s more information you should be able to pass on without scaring nontechnical people off.
SAP HANA is often perceived as expensive, so understanding technologies
such as compression and columnar store on a high level can help you build a
case to alter this perception for your potential customers.
The SAP S/4HANA system is a separate product line from the old SAP ERP system. SAP ERP is no longer the default go-to enterprise resource planning
(ERP) platform for SAP. This was a huge change and a business decision with
quite a large risk for SAP. It has proven to be successful, and more and more
customers are persuaded by the true benefits of the new system. But what’s
special about it? How difficult is it to adopt? How can customers move to SAP
S/4HANA, and do they risk losing the (potentially) millions they have
invested in the “old” software? You need to be able to explain the reasons for
this move by SAP and what it means for new and existing SAP customers.
Finally, SAP Fiori is the default graphical user interface (GUI) for end users in
SAP S/4HANA, so you need to be able to use it with confidence, explain its
components, and describe the benefits it brings. Explain the importance of a
simple interface with great usability and applications that can be used on a
mobile device and on a desktop. You should also have knowledge of how the
tile groups, tile catalogues, roles, and users cooperate to form what the user
sees on his own SAP Fiori launchpad.
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The purpose of this portion of the certification exam is to test your general knowledge of the SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Fiori applications. The certification
exam expects you to have a good understanding of the following topics:
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 1
쐍 Overview of SAP HANA in-memory architecture
쐍 SAP S/4HANA products, and architecture for financials
쐍 Deployment options for SAP S/4HANA
쐍 SAP Fiori launchpad features
쐍 SAP Fiori application types
Note
The SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA topic makes up 10% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
Digital transformation is motivating innovation in business, and in this section
we’ll describe SAP’s intelligent enterprise vision and strategy, as well as show how
SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA are at the core of this strategy. We’ll go over the basic
SAP HANA architecture and look at the technology that enables SAP HANA to be
the innovation platform of the future for SAP.
In addition, we’ll discuss the SAP S/4HANA solution, deployment options, and system landscape. Finally, we’ll look at the SAP Fiori user experience (UX) and analyze
basic generic functions, application types, and administration tools.
Digital Transformation
Because the technological world is expanding with unprecedented speed, it’s
imperative for businesses to not only catch up with these advances but also use
them to their competitive advantage. Computers and software are traditionally
considered supportive to business, and digital transformation brings the digital
world to the forefront of innovation and makes it a key business driver on its own.
Digital transformation in business implies the adoption and use of technologies
such as big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, artificial intelligence (AI), and
social media to drive business innovation and growth.
Intelligent Enterprise Framework
The effect of digital transformation can be felt across business functions such as
marketing, operations, human resources, administration, and so on. It forces
organizations and people to rethink and optimize how they execute business
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processes and how they can benefit from adopting automation in their day-to-day
activities. SAP is investing heavily to support all facets of the digital enterprise and
has adopted a strategic framework to help businesses run while utilizing the cutting edge of enterprise technology.
The SAP strategy for supporting the intelligent enterprise is focused on three key
product offerings:
쐍 Intelligent suite
The intelligent suite includes all the SAP applications that support the end-toend business processes of the enterprise (Figure 1.1).
Manufacturing
and
Supply Chain
Digital
Core
People
Engagement
Network
and Spend
Management
Customer
Experience
Intelligent
Suite
Figure 1.1 Intelligent Suite
쐍 Digital platform
The digital platform refers to SAP Cloud Platform, an open business platform
for building and delivering business applications. The strategy put forward by
SAP is to shift development focus from the core solutions into the SAP Cloud
Platform to ensure the greatest flexibility both for SAP and third-party developers while maintaining a lean and stable core.
쐍 Intelligent technologies
The third and final component revolves around the SAP Leonardo offering. SAP
Leonardo is a technology framework that combines multiple modern technological tools that can be used to improve applications by providing automation,
detection, and prevention capabilities, among others. Some of the key words for
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SAP Leonardo technologies include artificial intelligence and machine learning,
blockchain, data intelligence, big data, Internet of Things, and analytics.
Traditional business applications and ERP software packages aren’t designed to
fully support businesses throughout this digital transformation journey. SAP saw
this growing gap as an opportunity more than 10 years ago and created SAP HANA
to be the core building block of business software that not only supports but drives
digital transformation. Today, SAP HANA is at the core of virtually all SAP product
development. But what is SAP HANA, and why is it so important?
SAP HANA Architecture
In its simplest form, SAP HANA is a database management system. It performs all
the expected database functions of storing and retrieving data for applications
that sit on top of it, but SAP HANA is unique in how it performs these tasks. In addition, SAP HANA has embedded advanced analytics capabilities such as predictive
analytics and text analysis, mining, and search. SAP HANA also offers application
development services supporting a variety of programming languages. Finally,
SAP HANA offers a slew of data access, administration, and security support services. Clearly, SAP HANA is much more than “just” a really fast database.
Interesting as all the features are, we’ll concentrate on the database architecture.
We won’t get too technical, and we’ll keep things in scope both for the certification
and the financial accounting associate role. The SAP HANA database has three
standout features that work together and make it unique:
쐍 In-memory database
Using RAM to store all data has only even been imagined as a possibility in the
past decade or so. Memory is faster than disk storage—in fact, much faster. In
best-case-scenario sequential reads, the best solid-state disks today can read
data at about 3 GB/s. Modern, fast memory reads, writes, and copies at rates
around 60 GB/s. That’s a factor of 20 against best-case-scenario disk drive
speed. Of course, this method is more expensive, but these costs usually aren’t
prohibitive for enterprises. In addition, the data storage capacities supported
aren’t as large, but modern servers can support tens of terabytes of capacity.
The memory size limitations aren’t critical in any but the most extreme cases
due to the other features of SAP HANA, described in the next list items.
쐍 Aggressive compression
All major databases support compression, but what you save in space, you lose
in speed. SAP HANA uses smart techniques to make compression a viable
option while sacrificing little speed. You can expect data in an SAP HANA data-
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base to be compressed by a factor of 10 on average, meaning neither acquisition
cost nor storage capacity is a huge factor. One of the ways SAP HANA avoids losing speed is by inserting only new data rather than editing existing entries;
decompressing and recompressing for changing entries is a costly proposition.
By only adding entries and appending the old ones, SAP HANA doesn’t go
through the compress/decompress cycle. With versioning, the system knows
always to read the latest entry for a given data set. This brings us to another
major technical difference that allows larger compression, discussed in the next
list item.
쐍 Columnar data storage
SAP HANA uses the columnar data store type for two major reasons:
– Much better compression
– Faster data retrieval for queries (when only a subset of the full table data set
is required)
Column storage also works great for data aggregation (SAP HANA is used for ad
hoc aggregation a lot) and parallel processing. Column storage is more commonly found in online analytical processing (OLAP) applications (e.g., business
warehouse systems), rather than online transaction processing (OLTP) systems
(which a typical ERP system might be considered), for which row storage is considered faster. Although SAP HANA supports both types of tables (developers
can decide what works for their use case), the columnar store is where SAP
HANA shines.
Technology Enablers for Success with SAP HANA
Most databases are designed to work optimally with the technology available at
the time of their design. The de facto approach before SAP HANA was for applications to minimize disk access requirements and perform calculations in the code.
However, as technology continues to progress, this design is no longer the only
way to go. The following are the main technology drivers and trends that led SAP
to invest in SAP HANA:
쐍 Large-volume, extremely high-bandwidth, affordable memory
Memory has always been much faster, but 20 years ago, it was inconceivable to
be able to purchase and take advantage of the volumes that we can today.
쐍 New-generation microprocessors with multiple cores and larger optimized
caches
CPUs can now access data at much higher rates than in the past.
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쐍 Expandable modular data centers
Modular data centers now can be expanded by adding servers for more memory and processing power to scale to any new sizing requirements.
쐍 Cloud computing applications
These apps are used more and more by customers as an alternative to investing
in on-premise software, even for critical backend components. Customers save
on IT costs, and their solution is always up to date. The subscription model
makes the cost of ownership more transparent and increases flexibility because
the buy-in is smaller.
SAP S/4HANA
SAP S/4HANA is the current ERP solution from SAP. As the name implies, it’s optimized for SAP HANA. In fact, unlike all previous ERP solutions from SAP, it will
only work on SAP HANA. SAP S/4HANA comprises the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise
Management digital core, the component closest in scope to the SAP ERP solution,
and various line of business (LoB) solutions, which are generally cloud solutions
that are SAP products gained through mergers and acquisitions and that have
been and are being optimized to work together as a seamless, integrated solution
(Figure 1.2).
SAP Ariba
SAP
Customer
Experience
SAP Concur
SAP
S/4HANA
Digital Core
SAP
Fieldglass
SAP
SuccessFactors
Figure 1.2 SAP S/4HANA: Digital Core
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The following are the main LoB solutions you should be aware of:
쐍 SAP C/4HANA, the customer experience and engagement suite
쐍 SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Fieldglass for human resource management
쐍 SAP Concur for travel management
쐍 SAP Ariba for sourcing and procurement
Now let’s explore the digital core, in which you’ll find the financial components
this exam is about. SAP S/4HANA is a new breed of ERP system written specifically
with two major goals in mind:
쐍 Writing code to take advantage of SAP HANA
SAP removes architectural redundancies to simplify and speed up the system.
New code was developed for the core system architecture that did away with the
aggregation tables the old system relied on. The system doesn’t use separate
totals tables to store values; instead, totals are calculated on the fly from the line
items. The system also did away with the index tables used for reporting
because SAP HANA is fast enough to work on the line item level. Indices
increase code complexity and have been removed. These are ambitious simplification steps that seem incompatible with the second goal.
쐍 Safeguarding existing customer investments
Writing a completely new logic for the SAP S/4HANA system was and is ambitious, but doing so while maintaining compatibility with custom code written
for the previous SAP ERP system seems like it would require some form of
witchcraft. However, this is exactly what SAP programmers have managed. The
exact description of the mechanism isn’t in scope for this certification, but in a
nutshell, SAP HANA compatibility views make it possible to replicate obsolete
tables on the fly. In this way, an existing program that, for example, reads data
from an index table (that was removed in SAP S/4HANA) can continue to
retrieve the data because the system creates an on-the-fly replication of the
original table. Another manifestation of this goal is the option SAP offers to customers to transform their SAP ERP systems into SAP S/4HANA systems and
continue business as usual without extensive downtimes.
Figure 1.3 shows how data is accessed for traditional applications that use compatibility views and aggregates, along with the simplification achieved from reading
directly from line item tables with SAP HANA–optimized apps.
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Non-SAP HANA-Optimized
Application
Compatibility View
Aggregate/Index
Compatibility View
Aggregate/Index
Compatibility View
Aggregate/Index
Compatibility View
Aggregate/Index
Compatibility View
Aggregate/Index
SAP HANA-Optimized
Application
Table
Table
Figure 1.3 SAP HANA Application Simplification
Note
For a little history, the first component of the SAP ERP to be “simplified” through module
unification and removal of aggregates was Finance with the introduction of the universal
ledger in the SAP Simple Finance 1503 add-on (internally at SAP, this release was referred
to as SFIN2.0). The financials-only version of SAP S/4HANA was originally sold as a separate product in parallel to the complete SAP S/4HANA suite, but they have now been consolidated into a single, complete product.
SAP S/4HANA Deployment Options
There are currently four deployment options for SAP S/4HANA that customers can
choose from, as detailed in Table 1.1.
SAP S/4HANA
Cloud,
multitenant
edition
SAP S/4HANA
Cloud, single
tenant edition
SAP S/4HANA,
SAP S/4HANA
private option
on-premise
managed by SAP
scope
Core ERP and
select LoB
processes
Full functional
SAP S/4HANA
scope
Full functional
SAP S/4HANA
scope
Full functional
S/4HANA scope
Innovation
Quarterly
Two per year
Annual
Annual
Functional
cycle
Table 1.1 SAP S/4HANA Deployment Options
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SAP S/4HANA
Cloud,
multitenant
edition
SAP S/4HANA
Cloud, single
tenant edition
SAP S/4HANA,
SAP S/4HANA
private option
on-premise
managed by SAP
Licensing
Subscription
Subscription
Mixed
Infrastructure
Shared public
cloud
Dedicated system in cloud
Customer
Customer
system in
infrastructure
SAP HANA
Enterprise Cloud
Perpetual
Table 1.1 SAP S/4HANA Deployment Options (Cont.)
For simplicity, and from a functional consultant perspective, you can simplify this
to two editions: SAP S/4HANA Cloud (the first column, multitenant edition), for
the scope and customizing possibilities are limited; and SAP S/4HANA (the other
three columns), which provides the full scope of functionality and configuration
flexibility.
Tip
SAP naming conventions mandate that when referring to the on-premise editions, the
product is SAP S/4HANA. The cloud edition is referred to as SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Warning
The certification and this book focus only on SAP S/4HANA (the on-premise version).
SAP S/4HANA Adoption
Customers have three major options to start using SAP S/4HANA: a new implementation, system conversion, or landscape transformation. Let’s drill down into
these adoption options:
쐍 New implementation
In this case, customers can move from their legacy system (SAP ERP or a nonSAP system) and implement SAP S/4HANA from scratch. This scenario is also
known as a greenfield approach. Customers with older, highly customized ERP
solutions might prefer this option to clean up their systems and start over. This
option is available for all editions of SAP S/4HANA.
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쐍 System conversion
This is for customers who want to convert their existing SAP ERP system into an
SAP S/4HANA system. The benefit is that customers can move to SAP S/4HANA
without a reimplementation and with no major disruption to existing business
processes. Once the conversion is completed, customers can gradually update
their processes to adapt to SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori. This option is available
for on-premise and private cloud customers of SAP S/4HANA.
Tip
The specific tasks required of a financial accounting consultant during a system conversion project are a part of the SAP Certified Application Professional—Financials in SAP
S/4HANA certification curriculum. However, this is out of scope for the application associate certification.
쐍 Landscape transformation
This adoption method is for customers who want to consolidate their landscapes or to selectively bring data into an SAP S/4HANA system.
For example, through Central Finance, customers can take advantage of the features and advantages of the Universal Journal and reporting using the SAP
S/4HANA system. In this case, the source systems remain intact and business
transactions are still performed in the source systems. Landscape transformation scenarios work on premise and may selectively work with the cloud
deployment as well.
The SAP S/4HANA System Landscape
System landscapes can vary greatly depending on the customer requirements and
legacy ERP systems in use. A new installation for SAP S/4HANA would typically
require two basic productive systems: the SAP S/4HANA backend server and an
SAP Gateway server. The SAP S/4HANA backend is, of course, a required component because without it, there is no ERP system. The SAP Gateway server is where
the connections and settings to SAP Fiori are established. You can access both with
the traditional SAP GUI. Figure 1.4 shows the SAP Logon window with the two system setup we use in SAP Education courses for most SAP S/4HANA Finance
courses: T41 is the backend server, and T4N is the gateway server.
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Figure 1.4 SAP Logon Screen with SAP S/4HANA Backend and SAP Gateway Server
Note
SAP Fiori is in theory an optional component of SAP S/4HANA; however, you aren’t taking
full advantage of SAP S/4HANA without it and as the product matures and is enhanced,
you are utilizing fewer and fewer of the new developments for it.
The SAP Fiori User Interface
SAP Fiori is the common design paradigm for SAP. The SAP Fiori design language
affects the look and feel of all things SAP, not only the interface of the new SAP
S/4HANA system. SAP recognized that everyday apps are becoming simpler to use
and more flexible. Business software needs to keep up with this development or
else the disconnect between “work software” and “daily apps” will cause issues in
user acceptance, satisfaction, and productivity.
To create apps in SAP Fiori, you use the SAPUI5 framework. This framework is in
turn based on the open source OpenUI5 framework, with the addition of a few
extra SAP-specific tools. SAPUI5 is an open-source framework; that is, anyone can
use it and implement improvements. The main development tools to work with
SAPUI5 include HTML5, CCS3, jQuery, and JavaScript. Basing the entire development platform on open standards with general and broad acceptance ensures that
a lot of people will be familiar with the tools needed to develop SAP Fiori apps and
that the apps have great compatibility with multiple device platforms.
SAP Fiori User Experience Paradigm
The SAP Fiori design and user experience paradigm is built on five principles:
1. Role-based
Applications should be focused on providing the functionality required for a
specific task. Complex screens with infinite selection options and one app for
doing everything isn’t the aim.
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2. Responsive
Apps should be usable on multiple devices and be able to adjust their interface
to fit the device size, input methods, and so on.
3. Simple
Apps should not need a manual or special training to be used. The apps should
be designed for a single user and use case and require no more than three
screens end to end.
4. Coherent
The design has to be coherent between apps, and users should feel instant
familiarity when accessing new apps. Also, apps should be designed with technical coherence as well, meaning they can be ported to other systems and speak
the same language.
5. Instant value
Apps need to be useful immediately, meaning they need to be easy to install,
configure, and deploy in your IT landscape. On the user side, the purpose of the
apps should be clear, and users should have no problem learning how to use
them. Ideally, users who have seen a couple of SAP Fiori apps in action should be
able to move on to other apps without needing help or training.
SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA
SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA refers more specifically to the apps available for the system. The SAP development teams are constantly developing new native applications for SAP Fiori to replace the traditional and usually “busier” SAP GUI apps that
SAP S/4HANA inherited. Native applications can also make use of all the exciting
new technology available with SAP S/4HANA, such as conversational UI, machine
learning, immersive experiences, and the like. SAP S/4HANA Finance has a good
head start, and quite a few native applications are already available.
In addition to the native SAP Fiori apps, you can also launch SAP GUI apps from the
SAP Fiori launchpad. These apps will be launched in the web browser with an SAP
Fiori “look” design theme called Belize (see Figure 1.5). The scope of the SAP ERP
apps is huge, and not immediately having to replace everything at once gives SAP
some breathing room to create useful and simpler native applications without sacrificing scope coverage. Customers can always develop their own apps as well, and
easily adding SAP GUI apps to SAP Fiori allows any legacy custom ABAP apps to
work through SAP Fiori.
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You can see an example of the SAP Fiori–look classic applications in Figure 1.5. The
basic design elements for these apps include:
쐍 A text-based toolbar instead of icons
쐍 All labels right-aligned
쐍 New design icons with common design language
쐍 Condensed table rows
쐍 The SAP Fiori header Back button replacing the in-app navigation controls
쐍 Redesigned tab strips (the active tab highlighting)
쐍 Processing and closing actions moved to the footer of the screen
Tip
SAP GUI apps are referred to by SAP in the new system as SAP S/4HANA classic applications.
Text toolbar
instead of icons
Right-aligned
labels
Merged SAP
Fiori header
Tab strips with
SAP Fiori
visualization
New icons
New footer with
processing and
closing action,
like Post
Condensed
table rows
Figure 1.5 SAP Fiori Look for HTML SAP GUI App
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 1
SAP Fiori apps fit into one of three categories:
쐍 Transactional apps
Apps used to perform operations such as master record creation and maintenance or posting transactions. For example, the Clear Incoming Payments app,
shown in Figure 1.6.
Figure 1.6 Transactional Application Example: Clear Incoming Payments
쐍 Analytical apps
These are detailed reports used to drill down to finer details or “zoom out” to
the organization level you need. One of these, Overdue Payables, is shown in
Figure 1.7.
쐍 Factsheet apps
Quick overviews of a specific object, with the basic details and even some key
performance indicators (KPIs) in one screen. You can often navigate directly via
links from one factsheet to another for related objects. Figure 1.8 shows an
example of this, the Supplier Invoice Search app.
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Figure 1.7 Analytical App Example: Overdue Payables
Figure 1.8 Factsheet App Example: Supplier Invoice Search
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The SAP Fiori Launchpad
The SAP Fiori launchpad is the user access point to the system (as shown in Figure
1.9). It’s a customizable web-based interface from which all the apps a user has
assigned can be launched. The apps don’t need to be from one specific system; the
tiles can launch apps and links for any system that’s connected and compatible.
Figure 1.9 SAP Fiori Launchpad, with Me Area Expanded
Let's explore the important characteristics and functionalities of the SAP Fiori
launchpad:
쐍 You access it from a web browser with a fixed URL. The URL can be shared with
anyone on the network. If they have a username and password and are authorized, they will be able to log on without further installations of local software
(see top of Figure 1.10).
쐍 Apps are displayed as tiles (or, rarely, as text links). The tiles can be static, meaning they have a fixed icon, or active. Active tiles show some important information directly without needing to be clicked on. Active tiles update displayed
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information at customizable periodic intervals and can be helpful to provide a
quick status overview for topics of interest, such as open payments, number of
open workflow messages, and more. You can see the active tile for the Cumulative Totals app in Figure 1.10.
Figure 1.10 Browser View of SAP Fiori
쐍 Advanced search functionality isn’t limited to applications; there is a dropdown
list to search for many characteristics. The system will display information for
the searched-for object directly in a factsheet, as shown in Figure 1.11.
쐍 An end user can customize the apps and app groups displayed in his SAP Fiori
launchpad. Selecting the Edit Home Page option (shown previously in the Me
area in Figure 1.9) will allow a user to reposition apps, remove apps, add apps
(that the user has access to), move groups, add groups, rename groups, and
remove groups completely. A user can at any time reset groups back to their
default.
Figure 1.11 SAP Fiori Launchpad: Search for Cost Centers
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 1
Warning
The scope of apps each user can open, the initial grouping of apps, and the apps included
in these standard groups are all controlled by an administrator.
Within most native SAP Fiori apps, and especially for reports, a user has the option
to save the current view (with whatever inputs have been made) as a new tile.
Clicking on the tile directly from the SAP Fiori home page will execute the app with
the settings defined when the tile was created. This is useful, for example, in KPI
reports when you want to have easy access to information for a specific combination of characteristic values.
Customers can use their own themes to fully customize the look of the SAP Fiori
launchpad. The colors, background, logos, fonts, and so on can all be changed from
the SAP-standard-delivered theme. You can design multiple themes, and users can
select from among them. All such customizing is done with the UI theme designer,
as shown in Figure 1.12.
Figure 1.12 UI Theme Designer
The user can select the Settings option in the Me area to display information for
his user account, as shown in Figure 1.13. This is also where users select the theme
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and default language and region settings. Under User Profiling, the user can enable
customized search (which tracks the user’s activity to tailor search results) and, if
enabled, clear the search cache. Finally, the user can set default values proposed by
apps for many system attributes, such as company code, plant, planner profile,
and so on.
Figure 1.13 SAP Fiori Launchpad User Settings
SAP Fiori Launchpad Designer
In SAP S/4HANA, you define roles, which provide authorizations for performing
various functions, and then you assign these roles to users. A user can be assigned
to multiple roles. SAP delivers a standard set of roles and sample users through
best practices content. It’s the same in the SAP Gateway server, but the business
roles you assign here contain SAP Fiori tile catalogs and tile groups. Catalogs and
groups are assigned to roles, which are in turn assigned to users. This assignment
defines which application tiles a user sees on his SAP Fiori launchpad and has
authorization to add to groups and launch through the app finder. You can rely on
the many SAP-delivered standard catalogs and groups if you don’t want to make
changes, or you can use them as a reference for your own. With the SAP launchpad
designer, you create the catalogs and the groups for your SAP Fiori launchpad, as
shown in Figure 1.14.
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Figure 1.14 Role Maintenance in SAP Gateway Server
SAP Fiori catalogs hold configuration information for apps. Here you maintain
names, subtitles, icons, and other options for the more technical settings for your
tiles (these are useful to understand, but completely out of scope for this book).
After you’ve created a catalog, you assign it to a role (and the role to a user). The
application tiles inside the catalog define the applications a user has access to. If a
tile is included in an SAP Fiori tile group to which a user is assigned, but the tile
isn’t in any of the catalogs assigned, the user won’t be able to see the tile. You’ll
need to assign the catalog to the user that the tile is in. You can create as many catalogs as required to meet the needs of end-user roles (see Figure 1.15).
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Figure 1.15 SAP Fiori Launchpad Designer: Catalogs
The name of a group and the tiles included in that group are assigned in the SAP
Fiori tile group configuration in the SAP Fiori launchpad designer (see Figure 1.16).
Figure 1.16 SAP Fiori Launchpad Designer: Groups
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Important Terminology
Chapter 1
You can add tiles to the group from many different catalogs, but the user must be
assigned to all the relevant catalogs to see and use the tiles. You can select whether
the end user will be allowed to change a tile group on his own launchpad or not.
Finally, you select whether apps will be displayed as tiles or as links.
Warning
If you make changes to SAP-delivered catalogs or groups, these will be overwritten by
updated versions of the groups and catalogs provided by SAP. It’s always best to create
your own and assign tiles as needed. You can then assign these to your own roles.
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 In-memory technology
Data storage in RAM instead of in disks to capitalize on lower latency and read/
write times. The technology still makes use of disks for historic data and backup
purposes.
쐍 Columnar store
Data is stored in columns instead of in the more traditional rows; this allows
speedier read performance and greater compression capabilities. The downside
is suboptimal transactional processing.
쐍 SAP S/4HANA
The new ERP system from SAP that leverages SAP HANA to simplify the code
and data structures. It’s designed to be the digital core for all business applications of the customer and to allow businesses to go digital. It’s offered on premise with a traditional ownership model and in the cloud with a subscription
model.
쐍 SAP Cloud Platform
The SAP Cloud Platform is a development and deployment platform that aids
the creation of intelligent, integrated, and mobile-ready applications to support
business operations.
쐍 SAP Leonardo
SAP Leonardo is a collection of intelligent technologies that can be utilized in
conjunction with the SAP Cloud Platform to develop next-generation applications. Relevant technologies include machine learning, Internet of Things, analytics, blockchain, data intelligence, and big data.
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쐍 SAP Fiori
A new common design paradigm for all SAP applications. The design goal is to
make business apps intuitive to use and available on all platforms and devices.
SAP Fiori is based on the following design principles: role-based, responsive,
simple, coherent, and instant value.
쐍 SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA
A group of applications that are designed for SAP S/4HANA. There are three
basic app types: transactional, analytical, and factsheets.
쐍 SAP Gateway server
The server used to connect SAP Fiori to one or more SAP S/4HANA, SAP ERP, SAP
Business Warehouse (SAP BW), and other such backend systems. SAP Fiori application configuration is performed here, as well as SAP Fiori user maintenance.
쐍 SAP Fiori Launchpad
The end-user interface “cockpit” for SAP Fiori that is accessed through any
modern web browser without extra software requirements. It displays several
applications in flat, rectangular forms called tiles. The applications available
depend on the user’s role and authorizations. The SAP Fiori launchpad offers
many Customizing options for the end user, such as theme selection, custom
grouping, and displayed application selection.
쐍 SAP Fiori launchpad designer
Administrator interface to customize the catalogs and groups available in the
system. You define the configuration for SAP Fiori tiles in the Catalog section
and for the tiles included in groups in the Group section.
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Practice Questions Chapter 1
1.
Which SAP technological products provide the platform required for SAP to
support the digital transformation of an organization? (There are two correct
answers.)
첸
A. SAP HANA
첸
B. SAP Leonardo
첸
C. SAP Fiori
첸
D. SAP Cloud Platform
2.
Which component of the framework for the intelligent enterprise includes
SAP Leonardo?
첸
A. Intelligent suite
첸
B. Digital platform
첸
C. Intelligent technologies
첸
D. Machine learning
3.
You want to develop a substantial enhancement for the purchase-to-pay process in your SAP S/4HANA system. Where does SAP recommend you perform
this enhancement?
첸
A. SAP Leonardo
첸
B. SAP Fiori
첸
C. SAP Cloud Platform
첸
D. SAP S/4HANA core
4.
True or False: SAP S/4HANA (on premise) can be deployed on cloud infrastructure.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
5.
The SAP HANA database relies on which of the following technologies for storing data? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. In-memory
첸
D. Columnar store
첸
B. Aggregation
첸
E. Compression
첸
C. Indexing
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6.
Data in the SAP HANA database is stored in which two ways? (There are two
correct answers.)
첸
A. Random
첸
B. Vector
첸
C. Column
첸
D. Row
7.
True or False: In an environment of systems using SAP HANA, you can perform both OLAP and OLTP processing without duplication of the data for the
SAP BW and SAP ERP systems.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
8.
SAP HANA makes extensive use of which high-speed hardware technology to
offer more speed?
첸
A. Read-only memory
첸
B. Solid-state drives (SSDs)
첸
C. Graphics processing units (GPUs)
첸
D. Multicore CPUs
9.
True or False: SAP S/4HANA replaces SAP ERP, and development and support
are shifted completely to it.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
10. Which of the following product lines does the SAP S/4HANA system rely on
for procurement functions?
첸
A. SAP Concur
첸
B. SAP Ariba
첸
C. SAP SuccessFactors
첸
D. SAP C/4HANA
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Practice Questions Chapter 1
11.
What technology did SAP leverage to eliminate aggregate tables from the SAP
S/4HANA system while maintaining compatibility with many legacy programs?
첸
A. Columnar store
첸
B. Compatibility views
첸
C. Data aging
첸
D. Indices
12. True or False: Choosing between SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, multitenant edition is also a matter of required scope.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
13. True or False: The only version of the public cloud edition of SAP S/4HANA
Cloud a customer can be on is the latest released version.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
14. A user wants to add an application to his SAP Fiori home page but can’t find it
in the app finder. What does the admin have to do?
첸
A. Assign the corresponding SAP Fiori tile group to the user.
첸
B. Assign the corresponding SAP Fiori tile catalog to the user.
첸
C. Add the tile to a tile group already assigned to the user.
첸
D. Add the corresponding tile catalog to the tile group.
15.
Where can an SAP Fiori end user change the theme of his SAP Fiori launchpad?
첸
A. In the Me area of the SAP Fiori launchpad
첸
B. In the Tile Catalog area of the SAP Fiori launchpad designer
첸
C. In the Tile Group area of the SAP Fiori launchpad designer
첸
D. In the UI theme designer
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16. True or False: Anyone with an appropriate user name and password can log on
to the SAP Fiori launchpad through a web browser.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
17.
What kind of customizations can users make to their SAP Fiori launchpads?
(There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Change the name of tile groups.
첸
B. Create their own tile groups.
첸
C. Change the names of tiles.
첸
D. Change the icons on tiles.
18. Which of the following are SAP Fiori design principles? (There are two correct
answers.)
첸
A. Role-based
첸
B. Routine
첸
C. Rational
첸
D. Responsive
19. You use the search in your SAP Fiori launchpad to loop up information for a
cost center. What kind of app is used for the information shown in the search
results?
첸
A. Transactional
첸
B. Factsheet
첸
C. Analytical
첸
D. List
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answers: A, D
SAP HANA is SAP’s default platform to support the digital transformation for
businesses. In addition, the SAP Cloud platform provides the infrastructure and
tools for developing next-generation applications.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
Chapter 1
2. Correct answer: C
SAP Leonardo is a collection of technology innovations, so intelligent technologies is the correct answer here. Artificial intelligence, mostly currently
through machine learning, is only one of these technologies supported by SAP
Leonardo.
3. Correct answer: C
Traditionally, such enhancements are made directly in the core SAP ERP component. This will indeed still work today in your SAP S/4HANA system; however, SAP wants to shift such development to the SAP Cloud Platform. This is
part of a strategy to keep the core running lean and as close to standard as possible. The other answers are wrong because SAP Leonardo is a technology
framework, which you can use when you develop apps but not to directly build
apps on; and SAP Fiori represents the UI level, so you would incorporate SAP
Fiori as the default user interface of your enhancement, but it is not where the
enhancement is developed.
4. Correct answer: A
True. There is no limitation on the location of the hardware that the on-premise
version of SAP S/4HANA is deployed on. A customer can choose (compatible)
third-party cloud vendors other than SAP. If a customer chooses to go with SAP
as the cloud infrastructure vendor for an “on-premise” SAP S/4HANA deployment, the product is called SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private option; with other vendor infrastructure, it’s just SAP S/4HANA.
5. Correct answers: A, D, E
In-memory is the most obvious answer here; columnar store is the preferred
SAP HANA data storage technique; and through compression, SAP HANA manages to cut down on the infrastructure costs and support larger customers. On
the other hand, aggregates are supported but should be avoided as the idea is
to have all the data at the highest granularity to provide flexible reporting. The
same is true for the indices because with SAP HANA, they offer little speed
improvement and sacrifice too much in the way of flexibility because they
must be predefined and adding reporting characteristics is difficult.
6. Correct answers: C, D
Column store is the preferred method for SAP HANA as discussed because it’s
better for reading data. Row storage is preferred by classic databases and is supported fully by SAP HANA.
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7. Correct answer: A
True. SAP HANA was designed to fulfill the goal of combining optimal OLTP and
OLAP processing in one database. This simplifies the process of answering
questions such as “How did I come up with this number?” and saves on IT
resources by requiring fewer systems to support.
8. Correct answer: D
With many streams of data to process and large requirements for communication between memory and the CPU cache, you can use a lot of CPU cores at the
same time. Even though GPUs might seem the most out of place here, they
offer tremendous calculation power and are developing faster than CPUs.
Although many companies are considering using some of their special characteristics in the business application world, and we might be hearing of more of
these exploits in the future, for now, they aren’t used by SAP HANA. SSDs offer
a big boost to traditional databases, and because SAP HANA uses disk drives for
many non-speed-critical processes (e.g., backup and aged data), they can be
used with SAP HANA. Unfortunately, they don’t offer much in the way of
improved speed due to the architecture. Read-only memory is irrelevant.
9. Correct answer: B
False. SAP S/4HANA is the successor to SAP ERP, but it doesn’t replace it. There
is still a huge customer base that relies on SAP ERP, and SAP has promised support until 2025 (at the time of publication) for these customers.
10. Correct answer: C
SAP Ariba is the product that supports the SAP S/4HANA digital core with procurement. SAP Success Factors is for human resources, SAP Concur is for travel
management, and SAP C/4HANA supports everything around the customer
experience.
11. Correct answer: B
Compatibility views can be materialized on demand for data in line item tables
of the SAP HANA database to support programs that read old aggregate and
index tables that are no longer in the system.
12. Correct answer: B
False. The product scopes still vary with SAP S/4HANA being the more complete
solution currently. The SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution is a better fit for new subsidiaries of large enterprises or companies interested in a lean digital core solution that is always up to date with the latest features and functions and that can
live with the (decreasing) limitations of the multitenant cloud solution.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
Chapter 1
13. Correct answer: A
True. Quarterly updates in the realm of the multitenant public cloud solution
are always required. A customer can’t choose to skip a product release cycle
because the system is upgraded for all at the same time. All other editions,
including SAP S/4HANA Cloud, single-tenant edition give customers more flexibility when selecting their upgrade path and frequency.
14. Correct answer: B
The SAP Fiori tile catalog defines which tiles a user is authorized to use. If the
user isn’t assigned to the right catalog, he won’t see the application tile even if
it’s part of a group he is also assigned to.
15. Correct answer: A
An end user will only typically have access to the SAP Fiori launchpad; other
SAP Fiori tools are for admins. The Me area is where users control all changeable
settings for their SAP Fiori launchpads, including theme selection.
16. Correct answer: A
True. No special software needs to be installed; all modern, up-to-date web
browsers with HTML5 support will work. In our training system, we recommend using the Google Chrome browser because it seems currently to offer a
better speed/compatibility mix.
17. Correct answers: A, B
Changing the name and look of tiles can only be done in the catalog view of the
SAP Fiori launchpad designer. End users can only access the SAP Fiori launchpad where they can manage their tile groups.
18. Correct answers: A, D
SAP Fiori principles mandate that applications should be role-based, catering to
specific tasks performed by specific users. SAP Fiori apps should also be responsive, adjusting their interface to work optimally for different devices.
19. Correct answer: B
The result will be displayed with a factsheet app, which will provide key facts for
the object you searched for. You will have the option to navigate to a transactional app, such as Manage Cost Centers, or an analytical app, such as a cost center report. The List answer option is not an official app type in the SAP Fiori
design language.
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Takeaway
You now have a good overview and understanding of the SAP HANA database. You
understand the benefits of the SAP HANA architecture and the technologies that it
uses to improve on traditional disk-based databases. You also got an introduction
to the SAP intelligent enterprise strategy and new product portfolio that supports
it, namely the SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Leonardo (together with SAP HANA,
SAP S/4HANA, and the other cloud LoB solutions).
In addition, you got a thorough introduction to SAP S/4HANA, the successor to
SAP ERP and the core software required for SAP’s vision of the digital business revolution. You understand the deployment options available and should be able to
determine which option best fits a customer’s needs.
Finally, you gained insight into the SAP Fiori design paradigm and what it means
specifically for SAP S/4HANA. You learned about the basic SAP Fiori tools and how
the tile catalogs and groups control the apps a user sees and can use.
Summary
You’ve gained a high-level understanding of SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP
Fiori. You can now explain the basic concepts and benefits of these to customers
and can propose deployment options. You can also help users with basic SAP Fiori
operations.
This chapter is the only one not directly related to financial accounting in SAP
S/4HANA, and it’s also the most technical chapter in the book and exam. However,
the knowledge here is very important for both new and experienced consultants
with no prior experience with SAP S/4HANA.
In the next chapter, we’ll cover general ledger accounting business processes and
Customizing, starting first with the description of the core organizational units in
financial accounting with SAP S/4HANA.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Chapter 2
General Ledger Accounting
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Manage organizational units in financial accounting
쐍 Maintain general ledger master records
쐍 Configure general ledger business processes
쐍 Understand parallel valuation and document splitting in
SAP S/4HANA
쐍 Configure the header and line items of financial accounting
documents
쐍 Understand document posting and document editing options
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The focus of this chapter is to explain general ledger accounting in the SAP
S/4HANA system by discussing the configuration of basic financial organizational
units, design and configuration of the chart of accounts, general ledger master
records, and document posting controls.
Real-World Scenario
As a financial accounting consultant, you’ll work to translate the customers’
requirements to system configuration settings. Knowing the various
options on offer is of great importance in the on-premise deployment world.
Many configuration decisions made for the general ledger are also very difficult to tweak after a system is live, so you need to gain the confidence that
you’re building the right system for your customers.
Working as a financial accounting consultant, you might become specialized
in a certain subarea of financial accounting or be required to become more
of a generalist; in either case, the single most important starting point is a
thorough understanding of the general ledger configuration. Almost all
actual activities in the SAP S/4HANA system will end up affecting the values
in the general ledger. The large number of integration points can require a lot
of troubleshooting time if you’re not familiar with the general ledger component, and they can block not only finance but many other lines of business
(LoBs) as well. The general ledger acts as a window into the company for the
outside world. Correct and functional reporting is critical for a company to
be trusted. In SAP S/4HANA, the general ledger is more integrated than ever
through the Universal Journal. All finance components update the same line
item table directly and are governed by the design decisions made for the
general ledger.
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The objective of this portion of the certification is to test your understanding of
Customizing the core organizational units and master records, as well as the main
business processes of general ledger accounting.
For the certification exam, financial accounting consultants must have a good
understanding of the following topics:
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
쐍 Definitions and assignments possible for organizational units in financial
accounting
쐍 Configuration and maintenance of general ledger master records, such as general ledger accounts, profit centers, and segments
쐍 Configuration of ledgers, document splitting, and currencies
쐍 Configuration and maintenance of the chart of accounts and the general ledger
master records: accounts, profit centers, and segments
쐍 Configuration of the accounting documents, including document types, number ranges, posting authorizations, and period controls
쐍 Maintenance of various posting parameters and controls such as default values,
allowed changes, reversal reasons, tax codes, and cross-company code document posting
Note
The general ledger accounting topic makes up 20% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
In this section, we’ll discuss the core SAP S/4HANA organizational units, especially
those relevant to financial accounting. You’ll learn about the creation and maintenance of general ledger master records, including accounts and profit centers.
We’ll discuss how parallel accounting is handled in the system, the integration of
financial accounting with Controlling, currency management, and document controls. Finally, we’ll look at some of the daily operations for postings and managing
general ledger documents.
Organizational Units
Organizational units in the SAP system translate real-life business entities into
system entities. By assigning the organizational units to each other and the underlying master records to the organizational units, the full business enterprise can
be depicted in SAP S/4HANA. All business transactions are performed in reference
to specific organizational units, and all reports are analyzed on various levels and
combinations of these. In this section, we’ll analyze the organizational units relevant for financial accounting and a few of the main peripheral organizational units
that are relevant through assignment and integration.
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Client
A client is the organizational and legal entity in the SAP system at the top of the
organizational unit hierarchy. Organizational, master, and transactional data are
maintained on the client level. The main objective of the client is to keep this data
completely isolated from the other clients. The master and transactional data in a
client are only visible within that client; a user always logs on by specifying the client. Of course, SAP S/4HANA offers others means and options to ensure authorizations for users, but the client is the most fundamental control.
In an SAP S/4HANA system (instance), there can be multiple clients (you can see an
example of a two-client system in Figure 2.1). The base SAP instance comes with
three clients: 000, 001, and 066. Client 066 is reserved for use by SAP.
SAP
S/4HANA
Client
Client
100
200
Operating
Concern
Operating
Concern
1000
1010
Controlling
Area
Controlling
Area
1000
Company
Code
1000
Company
Code
2000
Operating
Concern
1020
Controlling
Area
1010
Company
Code
3000
Company
Code
Controlling
Area
2010
Company
Code
1010
1020
Company
Code
2010
3010
Company
Code
1020
Company
Code
2020
Company
Code
3020
Figure 2.1 SAP S/4HANA System with Multiple Clients
Base data is contained in client 000, but in SAP S/4HANA implementation projects, this isn’t generally used. Client 001 is just a safety copy of client 000. In addition, client 000 is where the administrators do most of their maintenance, such as
patching. Administrators are generally the only project implementation members
who have access to client 000.
You can think of a client as a view of the database. If you log in to client 100, you
can see all client-independent data (e.g., ABAP programs) and all the data that is
dependent on client 100 (organizational, master, and transactional data) and will
be available in that specific client alone. If you log in to client 200, you see all
client-independent data (the exact same values as client 100) and all the data that
is specific to client 200. This distinction separates data into client-dependent and
client-independent data. In certain system tables, all rows are accessible from any
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
client—such as the Data Dictionary tables, tables that contain the ABAP programs,
printers, and so on—so these are called client-independent. Data such as users,
company codes, vendors, customers, and document line items are all client-dependent; that is, you must log into a specific client to see that data.
In business terms, the client generally represents a corporate group or a group of
affiliates. Certain configurations and master record details in the SAP S/4HANA
system are maintained on the client level, which means that the specific setting is
valid, or the master record is used for the whole client. For example, you can maintain a chart of accounts and assign it to multiple company codes, or when you activate document splitting in a client, it is, by default, activated for the whole client
(and all company codes).
In the system, an administrator maintains the settings for each client (Figure 2.2).
The details of the settings maintained are out of scope for the certification exam,
but these main configurations are useful to know:
쐍 Client
– Production
– Test
– Customizing
– Demo
– Training/education
– SAP reference
쐍 Changes and Transports for Client-Specific Objects
This determines whether an admin controls changes made to the system configuration and if these settings are packaged automatically in transport
requests to transfer to other systems.
쐍 Cross-Client Object Changes
This determines whether you can perform cross-client customizing from the
client.
쐍 Client Copy and Comparison Tool Protections
This determines whether the client can be used copied over or used as a reference for copies.
In SAP S/4HANA, the implementation team generally starts working in a fresh client with the relevant SAP Best Practices package installed. These packages contain
the basic configuration settings and are provided by country. For some countries,
there are two different packages. You can install as many packages (for as many
countries) as needed for your implementation project.
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Tip
Installation and administration of SAP Best Practices content packages isn’t in scope for
this certification.
Figure 2.2 Client Settings: SAP Transaction SCC4
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
Company Code
A company code is the most fundamental organizational unit for financial
accounting in the SAP S/4HANA system. It represents the legal entity for which a
complete, self-contained set of accounts can be created. This includes both
accounts needed for the entry of all posting transactions and all items for legally
required financial statements (e.g., the balance sheet and the profit and loss [P&L]
statement) for the local authorities.
In SAP S/4HANA, the template company codes generally are created in the system
by the SAP Best Practices package. You can use the best practices company code
directly and copy it as needed to create additional company codes to fit the
requirements of your project. Because the company code is created to fulfill external reporting requirements defined differently per country, you’ll have separate
company codes (and separate SAP Best Practices packages) per country. The same
client can generally support any number of company codes required from as
many countries as needed.
At an overview level, the following steps are required to create a new company
code:
1. Copy an existing company code.
2. Adjust the basic data.
3. Adjust the global parameters.
Now let’s explore these steps in detail:
1. Copy an existing company code.
You enter the company code to reference (From Company Code) and the new
company code you’re creating (To Company Code), as shown in Figure 2.3.
Figure 2.3 Copy Company Code
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This copies the basic data, global parameters, Customizing settings, and optionally the following:
– The general ledger accounts and account determinations (Figure 2.4)
– The assignment to the controlling area (Figure 2.5)
– The defined local currency (Figure 2.6)
Figure 2.4 Copy General Ledger Accounts
Figure 2.5 Copy Controlling Area Assignment
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
Figure 2.6 Copy Company Code Currency
Note
You can create a company code directly without copying, but this should be avoided due
to the number of configurations required and the increased possibility of configuring
something incorrectly for a country’s legal requirements.
2. Adjust the basic data.
The basic data for a company code is very straightforward, as you can see in
Figure 2.7.
Figure 2.7 Company Code Definition
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In the same transaction, you can enter the address data for your company code,
which will be displayed on official financial statements and any other relevant
communication output from the system (see Figure 2.8).
Figure 2.8 Company Code Address Details
3. Adjust the global parameters.
In the company code global parameters, you make some very important assignments and decisions (see Figure 2.9).
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
Figure 2.9 Company Code Global Parameter: SAP Transaction OBY6
It’s out of scope to analyze or describe each individual function, but you should be
aware of the following basic functions:
쐍 Chart of Accts.
This indicates the operating chart of accounts used by the company code, which
in turn defines the list of general ledger accounts used when processing transactions.
쐍 Country Chart/Accts.
The country chart of accounts depicts the account numbers and names that are
used legally in the country in which the company operates. The accounts of this
chart of accounts are assigned to the accounts of the operational chart of
accounts with a one-to-one relation.
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쐍 Company
This is the smallest organizational unit for which individual financial statements are created according to the relevant legal requirements (usually commercial law). A single company can be assigned to multiple company codes. The
SAP S/4HANA system has special functionality for consolidation of intracompany and intercompany transactions.
쐍 Credit Control Area
This organizational unit represents the area in which customer credit is
awarded and monitored. The same area can be assigned to several company
codes if credit control is performed similarly across multiple company codes. In
SAP S/4HANA, credit control areas are linked to credit segments maintained in
the SAP Credit Management. Credit segments are required for determining
credit limits.
쐍 Fiscal Year Variant
This variant determines the number of periods and the start/end dates of the
fiscal year.
쐍 Company Code Is Productive
This indicator ensures that the transactional data for the company code can’t be
reset by mistake.
쐍 Field Status Variant
This variant groups several field status groups together. The field status group
in turn specifies the field control for document entry. You assign the field
groups to general ledger accounts per customer requirements.
쐍 Posting Period Variant
This variant groups together companies with a common period control. Instead
of maintaining the open periods for each individual company code, you maintain them for the variant. This setting is valid for all assigned company codes.
쐍 Workflow Variant
The workflow variant assigned defines the workflow processes for the company
code. You need the variant to trigger workflows such as parked document
approvals.
After maintaining these settings, the company code is configured. You generally
can continue to make any changes needed until you post transactions to the company code; from then on, it’s usually not advisable or even possible to change settings. In a test client, you can wipe test transactional data completely for a
company code, allowing you to make further adjustments.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
Company
As mentioned previously, the company is generally used to depict the legal entity
per the local commercial law and for intercompany transaction posting. A company’s financial statements are often used to form the basis of consolidated financial statements, which you would use in the group reporting solution. All the
company codes assigned to a company must use the same chart of accounts and
fiscal year, but typically a separate company is created and assigned to each company code. Companies also are created for company codes outside the SAP
S/4HANA system to be able to consolidate data from external systems. You also
usually assign a company ID to a business partner master record to process intercompany transactions. Alternatively, you manage companies with general ledger
accounts. The definition of the company organizational unit is optional.
When you create a company, you should bear in mind that for consistent group
accounting when the organization uses several clients, the companies must be
maintained in each client. Companies must be cataloged in a list of company IDs
that is consistent across the group and system. To create a company, you enter a
code (up to six alphanumerical characters), name, address details, language, and
currency, as shown in Figure 2.10.
Figure 2.10 Company Definition
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When performing intercompany transactions in which an affiliate company acts
as a supplier or a customer, you create the affiliate as a business partner and maintain the Trading partner field with the relevant company key (Figure 2.11).
Figure 2.11 Trading Partner in Business Partner Master Record
Profit Center
Although profit centers are typically considered master data in the SAP S/4HANA
system, they act more like organizational units in accounting. A profit center represents an area of responsibility within a corporation for which you can make
profit calculations; in other words, it has costs and revenues that are directly or
indirectly assignable to it. Profit centers typically represent an organizational unit
within the company (e.g., a plant), a separate LoB, a geographical location, or a
combination of these.
Profit centers are always assigned to a standard hierarchy, a special type of profit
center group. You can maintain profit center hierarchies with the Manage Global
Accounting Hierarchies app (Figure 2.12)
Within the app, you create hierarchy nodes on various levels (text-based elements)
and assign the profit centers to the respective nodes as needed (Figure 2.13).
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Figure 2.12 Manage Global Accounting Hierarchies: Profit Centers
Figure 2.13 Maintain Profit Center Hierarchy
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Segment
Segments are used as a dimension for reporting purposes. When you create a segment, you assign an alphanumeric code up to 10 characters and a description
(Figure 2.14). Organizationally, segments are one level above profit centers. Multiple profit centers can be assigned to the same segment. Segment reporting was
introduced to fulfill reporting requirements on financial statements for certain
accounting principles such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
and US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Figure 2.14 Segment Definition
A user in the SAP S/4HANA system won’t generally manually enter the segment
during posting because the segment will be derived from the profit center.
Because the profit center is highly integrated with other account assignments in
the system, it provides for great derivation flexibility. In combination with document splitting, segments are posted on all lines.
Functional Area
The functional area classifies the expenses of an organization by function, such as
administration, sales and distribution, marketing, production, research and development (R&D), and so on. This classification is designed to cover the requirements
of cost-of-sales accounting. In contrast, standard period accounting categorizes
expenses based on their origin (e.g., personnel cost, depreciation, travel expenses,
etc.). In either accounting view, the operating results are the same in total.
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When defining a functional area, you enter a four-character alphanumeric key and
the name of the functional area (Figure 2.15).
Figure 2.15 Functional Area Definition
Business Area
A business area is an organizational unit within accounting that represents a separate area of operations or responsibilities in a business organization. When defining a business area, you enter a four-character alphanumeric key and the name of
the business area, as shown in Figure 2.16. Business areas aren’t very flexible
account assignment objects and aren’t part of the SAP Best Practices for SAP
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S/4HANA. They aren’t discussed further in this book, and further details aren’t in
scope for the certification.
Figure 2.16 Business Area Definition
Integration with Non-Financial Accounting Organizational Units
As shown in Figure 2.17, financial accounting integrates with several other modules by assigning the company code to the relevant organizational units of these
modules in SAP S/4HANA Customizing.
Figure 2.17 Company Code Assignment to Non-Financial Accounting Organizational Units
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These non-financial accounting organizational units include those for Controlling,
logistics, and SAP ERP HCM (see the schematic client-level diagram in Figure 2.18).
Let’s explore these in more detail.
Operating Concern
A000
Controlling Area
A000
Company Code
1010
Sales Area
Sales Org. 1010
Distr.
Channel 10
Credit Control
Area A000
Purch. Org. 1010
Plant 1010
Plant 1011
Division 00
MRP Contoller
001
Sales Office
100
Storage Location
101A
Shipping
1020 Point
1010
Purchasing Group
001
Storage Location
101B
MRP Area
001
Figure 2.18 Organizational Units on Client Level
Integration with Controlling
For the financial accounting modules, the most significant assignment is with the
controlling area. In SAP S/4HANA especially, the integration between financial
accounting and Controlling almost blurs the line of where one starts and the other
ends. On the organizational unit level, the controlling area can be assigned to a single company code or multiple company codes.
To assign a company code to a controlling area, the following conditions must be
met:
쐍 The fiscal year variant must be identical.
In SAP S/4HANA, it’s not enough for the variants to have the same number of
normal periods; the variants must have the exact same code (e.g., K4). If you’re
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dealing with a migration, you always align the fiscal year variant to the one with
the most special periods; therefore, if a company code had K2 and a controlling
area K4, you would change the assignment of the company code to K4.
쐍 The operating chart of accounts must be identical.
The profit and loss (P&L) general ledger accounts that are relevant for management accounting (primary cost/revenue general ledger accounts) are used in
Controlling, where they’re named primary cost elements. In addition, the secondary cost elements, which are used for allocation between Controlling
objects, are created as secondary cost general ledger accounts.
It makes sense to use cross-company code cost accounting when you want to perform reporting across company codes, use internal allocations across company
code boundaries, and so on.
Through the company code assignment to the controlling area, the company code
is also assigned indirectly to the operating concern. The operating concern is the
organizational unit of profitability analysis (CO-PA). There are two types of profitability analysis: costing-based and account-based. The most innovative option in
SAP S/4HANA and the one most relevant to understand for financial accounting
consultants is the account-based CO-PA. In this case, the CO-PA characteristics act
essentially as additional account assignments for the P&L accounts of the general
ledger and can be reported on through financial accounting reports.
Integration with Logistics
You can see many integration points for logistics modules in Figure 2.18. A plant is
an organizational unit that divides an enterprise according to production, procurement, maintenance, and materials planning. At a plant, either materials are
produced or goods and services are provided. The plant assignment to the company code is the main requirement for integration of financial accounting with
logistics components such as materials management, sales and distribution, warehouse management, plant maintenance, and so on. Proper functionality of the
system is ensured when the plants assigned to a company code are in the same
country as the company code.
In logistics assignments, you link a company code to a sales organization. A sales
organization is responsible for selling materials and services. The assignment
establishes a link between sales and distribution and financial accounting. A sales
organization is assigned to a single company code.
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Finally, you can assign a purchasing organization to a company code. The purchasing organization is responsible for all purchasing activities of an organization,
such as purchase requests and order processing. The purchasing organization is
integrated within the organizational structure as follows:
쐍 A purchasing organization can be assigned to several company codes—for
example, for corporate group-wide purchasing.
쐍 A purchasing organization can be assigned to one company code; in this case,
you perform company-specific purchasing.
쐍 A purchasing organization can be assigned to no company codes. Because the
plant is assigned to a company code in any case, the purchasing organization
can be determined by the plant at the time of each procurement transaction.
Integration with SAP ERP HCM
The personnel area is the highest-level organizational unit in SAP ERP HCM. A personnel area is organized according to aspects of personnel, time management, and
payroll. You allocate each personnel area to one company code so that when you
create a personnel number, the company code is directly assigned to it.
Master Records
In the general ledger, the master records include general ledger accounts and
profit centers. General ledger accounts record all business transactions that concern the balance sheet and income statement. All general ledger accounts are
assigned to the company code through the chart of accounts. Profit centers are
master records that are defined in financial accounting but are integrated into
many components—and especially management accounting because profit centers are defined per controlling area.
Chart of Accounts
The chart of accounts in an SAP S/4HANA system contains a list of general ledger
accounts, as shown in Figure 2.19. Basic information for a general ledger account
(e.g., the name) is maintained on the chart of accounts level.
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Figure 2.19 General Ledger Accounts: List of the Chart of Accounts
There are three basic types of charts of accounts:
쐍 Operational chart of accounts
This required chart of accounts contains the accounts used for transactions and
is assigned to the company code in the global parameters.
쐍 Country or alternative chart of accounts
This optional chart of accounts contains accounts that map one to one to the
operational accounts and is usually used to report according to local legal standards. This chart of accounts is used when issuing financial statements to country authorities. This is also assigned to the company code in the global
parameters.
쐍 Group chart of accounts
This optional chart of accounts contains the accounts used on the group level.
You can assign many operational accounts to a single group account, but not
the other way around. In other words, you generally have fewer accounts in the
group chart of accounts than the operational chart of accounts. The group chart
of accounts is assigned to the operational chart of accounts, not the company
code. When the group chart of accounts is used, each operational account must
be assigned to a group account.
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Creating a Chart of Accounts
When you want to create a chart of accounts, you can create a new empty chart of
accounts or copy an existing one, as shown in Figure 2.20. The following settings
are used when creating a chart of accounts:
쐍 Chart of Accts./Description
Four-digit alphanumeric code and a text description.
쐍 Maint. Language
All accounts must be maintained in the defined maintenance language. By
default, other languages are optional, but if you use the same chart of accounts
for legal reporting in another language, all accounts should be translated to the
local language.
쐍 Length of G/L Account Number
This is the maximum length allowed for a general ledger account. This setting is
further refined in the account group definition.
쐍 Group Chart of Accts.
Enter the group chart of accounts connected to the operational chart of
accounts.
쐍 Blocked
When active, this checkbox blocks the accounts in the chart of accounts from
being assigned to a company code. This won’t affect accounts already assigned
before this indicator was set. It’s generally used when you’re still building up the
chart of accounts and aren’t sure of the final accounts in it.
Figure 2.20 Settings for Creating Chart of Accounts
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Account Groups
The account groups categorize general ledger accounts according to their purpose.
All general ledger accounts are assigned to an account group based on how the
accounts are used when posted to. The account group of an account determines
the fields available for entry in the company code segment of the G/L account and
defines the number range an account can be created in.
The common account groups for general ledger accounts are as follows:
쐍 Fixed asset accounts
쐍 Material accounts
쐍 Cash accounts
쐍 Bank accounts
쐍 Customer and vendor general ledger accounts
쐍 Miscellaneous general ledger accounts
쐍 P&L accounts
In Figure 2.21, you define account groups per chart of accounts 1. Per account
group, you enter a four-digit code, a name, and a range of accounts. Double-clicking on a line in the screen will take you to a screen showing the seven field groups
available per G/L account 2. Drilling down further, you reach the field definition
per field group. Here you define the field status for each available field. The field
groupings are defaulted in the system.
The field status 3 can be adjusted in the following ways:
쐍 Suppress
The field isn’t shown and can’t be entered in the screen.
쐍 Req. Entry
The field must be filled.
쐍 Opt. Entry
The field can be filled.
쐍 Display
The field is shown on the screen, but values can’t be changed.
The Account Currency and Field Status Group fields are always marked as required;
that is, you can’t create an account without indicating the values for these fields.
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Figure 2.21 Account Groups, Field Groups, and Field Definition
Warning
Setting a field to Suppress or Display doesn’t mean the field has no value. If the field status was changed—for example, from Opt. Entry to Suppress—and the field previously
had an entry, this entry would remain valid.
In addition to setting the field status per account group, you can also set the field
status per action (create, change, display). This way, for example, you can set a field
as required when you create an account and display when you change it, meaning
that in essence the field can’t be changed.
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When there are conflicting field statuses, the system uses the field status with the
highest priority according to the following list, from highest to lowest:
1. Suppress
2. Display
3. Required
4. Optional
Maintaining General Ledger Accounts
You maintain general ledger account data first on three levels: the general chart of
accounts level, the company code level, and the controlling area level.
At the chart of account maintenance level, you enter the general ledger account
number (can also be alphanumeric). You then select the general ledger account
type from the following four account types:
1. Balance sheet account
This account is for any account that isn’t a P&L account.
2. Primary costs or revenue
This account is for P&L accounts that are used to reflect normal operating costs
and revenues of the company. These accounts are integrated with Controlling.
3. Secondary costs
This account is for accounts used for internal cost allocations in Controlling.
4. Nonoperating expense or income
This account is for P&L accounts that reflect gains or losses from activities that
aren’t from the main businesses of the company, such as profit from an asset
sale or capital gains for a consulting firm. These aren’t integrated with Controlling.
In Figure 2.22, you can see the complete details for the chart of account segment of
the general ledger account. Here, you’ll assign your account to the relevant
account group, and the system will check if the account number given falls within
the range defined. Then, enter a short and long description in the maintenance
language of the chart of accounts. If you’ve assigned a group chart of accounts, you
must also enter the relevant group account. Optionally, you can also assign a functional area for cost-of-sales accounting and a trading partner for consolidation
purposes.
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Figure 2.22 General Data of General Ledger Account
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If you’re creating a P&L account, you’ll also indicate the P&L statement account
type (P&L Statmt. Acct. Type), as shown in Figure 2.23. This assignment indicates
the retained earning account the values are carried forward to at year end.
Figure 2.23 Retained Earnings P&L Statement Account Type Definition
You maintain the retained earning account per P&L statement account type in
Customizing. You must maintain at least one value here. If you only maintain a
single value in Customizing, then for any P&L general ledger account you create,
the P&L statement account type is assigned automatically.
On the company code level of maintenance, you enter the fields as defined by the
assigned account group. In Figure 2.24, you only see some of the fields that you
maintain for the company code section because different accounts have different
requirements. Let’s explore the most critical fields of company-code-level maintenance:
쐍 Account Currency
When the account currency matches the company code currency, you can post
to the account in any currency. When you specify a different currency for the
account (e.g., a foreign currency bank account), you can only post to the account
in that specific currency.
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쐍 Tax Category
The tax category indicates the tax codes valid for use when posting to the
account. You can select input tax, output tax, a specific tax code, allow any kind
of tax, or leave the field blank to allow no tax to post at all. The Posting without
Tax Allowed checkbox means that you can post to an account that you usually
enter a tax code for, without the tax code. This can be risky because users might
skip tax entry, so it’s advisable and best to define zero-percent tax codes to
input when tax isn’t applicable.
쐍 Alternative Account Number
Here you enter the relative account from the local chart of accounts. If you
select an account that’s already been used, the system raises an error.
Figure 2.24 Company Code Level Maintenance of General Ledger Account
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쐍 Reconciliation Account for Account Type
Reconciliation accounts provide the general ledger view of the subledger
accounting systems. Consider an example with the vendor subledger: All postings to vendor account 12345 are also posted automatically to general ledger
account 21100000. The general ledger account can’t be posted to directly. Reconciliation of the subledger and general ledger is always guaranteed. You use
this field to indicate if the account is a reconciliation account for assets, customers, vendors, or contract account receivables.
쐍 Open Item Management
This is activated to track offsetting postings for an account. The items posted to
this account are then either open items or cleared items. The balance of an
account with open item management is always the balance of the open items.
You can only change this indicator for accounts with zero balance. In SAP
S/4HANA, you can manage open items per ledger by using the Ledger GroupSpecific Clearing checkbox.
쐍 Sort Key
This field determines what the system will automatically propose in the Allocation field of a document line item. You can always change the field manually.
The system can transfer a value or combined values from the document header
and line into the Allocation field through the sort key. Many keys are delivered
by default with the system, and you can also create your own. Examples of values for the sort key are the posting date, document number, vendor number,
and so on.
쐍 Field Status Group
The Field Status Group defines the field status of the various account assignments you make during posting to the account (e.g., that it’s required to enter a
cost center, that it’s optional to enter a profit center, etc.). There are many standard-delivered field status groups, and you can also define your own to fit your
particular requirements. A few examples of different standard field status
groups include cost accounts, bank accounts (obligatory value date), material
accounts, and revenue accounts.
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Primary Cost and Revenue and Secondary Cost Accounts
For primary cost and revenue and secondary cost accounts, you also must maintain Controlling data. The assignment to the controlling area is provided through
the company codes the account is assigned to. You must maintain the cost element category.
For primary cost and revenues, you basically select whether the account depicts
costs or revenues (cost element categories 1 and 11). For the secondary cost
accounts, you select what type of internal Controlling allocations the account is
used for, such as assessments, settlements, internal activity allocations, and so on
(see Figure 2.25).
Figure 2.25 Cost Element Category in General Ledger Master Record
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There is a single exception for balance sheet accounts being integrated into Controlling. For statistical reasons, you can indicate that asset reconciliation and
material accounts are also cost elements. To do this for asset accounts, the general
ledger accounts must be reconciliation accounts and must be included in the relevant account determinations for asset accounting. For material accounts, they just
have to be assigned to the materials management account determination. You
then have the option to select the indicator to apply the account assignments statistically (as in Figure 2.26 for the asset reconciliation account Machinery & Equipment).
Figure 2.26 Balance Sheet Account Applied Statistically for Controlling
Profit Centers
In the SAP ERP system with classic general ledger accounting, profit centers were
purely Controlling objects and in a separate submodule. With the introduction of
the new general ledger, the profit center became more important in financial
accounting because it’s the object used to derive and fulfill the requirements for
segment reporting. The profit center was designated for that role because it’s an
account assignment that was already integrated into most other components of
the system.
Figure 2.27 shows a nonexhaustive list of ways the profit center is derived during
posting. In addition, a few options for direct assignment of the segment are also
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109
mentioned. Segments should always be derived by the profit center, but on exception, there are also a few alternative assignment methods possible, especially for
the few cases in which it may not be possible to derive the profit center automatically.
Production Order
Material
General Ledger
Account Default
Account Assignment
Cost Center
Internal Order
General Ledger
Document Entry
BAdI (ABAP Code)
Profit Center
Segment
Document Splitting
Constant
Field Assignment
Project
Fixed Asset
Document
Substitution
Sales Order
Manual Entry
During Posting
Figure 2.27 Deriving Profit Centers and Segments
The first step to define profit centers is to design their hierarchy. All profit centers
in the client are assigned to a profit center hierarchy, and the profit center hierarchy is assigned to the controlling area in Customizing, as shown in Figure 2.28. This
means that all company codes assigned to the controlling area can also potentially
post to the profit center.
In a second step, you assign the profit centers to the hierarchy. The hierarchy can
be flat or structured. Structuring the hierarchy into groups and subgroups makes
sense for selection during reporting, planning, and so on. Figure 2.29 shows a hierarchy structured into groups.
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Figure 2.28 Profit Center Hierarchy
Figure 2.29 Profit Center Hierarchy Maintenance
When you create a profit center, you select the controlling area and then assign the
company codes the profit center is valid for, as shown in Figure 2.30. As discussed,
you must assign the profit center to the hierarchy by indicating the profit center
group it belongs to. You also maintain the relevant segment to be derived from the
profit center.
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When you’re done entering the data, you activate the profit center and can then
enter it during posting and assign it to other objects.
Figure 2.30 Profit Center Maintenance
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Global Financial Accounting Configuration
In this section, we’ll look at configuration options that define how the system will
behave and what functionalities will be available in financial accounting. We’ll
cover the options for parallel accounting, managing the fiscal years, currencies,
journal entries, and tax handling, and we’ll explain tolerance groups.
Parallel Accounting
Parallel accounting, also known as parallel valuation, is increasingly important for
companies, especially multinationals and their subsidiaries. It’s no longer sufficient to report only local accounting principles in the increasingly global environment, even on the nonconsolidated individual company code level.
Figure 2.31 shows three examples centered on provision postings.
IFRS
LOCAL
Treated the same
way for both
accounting
principles.
Provision posted
with the same
amount.
Journal entry
provision for
bonus payout
extensions
IFRS
LOCAL
IFRS
LOCAL
Provision
for IFRS
standards
1000
Provision
for local
accounting
standards
2000
Revenue
recognition
for unbilled
invoices
allowed in
IFRS
Revenue
recognition
for unbilled
invoices not
allowed in
local
accounting
standards
Journal entry
provision for
future warranty
claims IFRS
Journal entry
provision for
future warranty
claims LOCAL
Journal entry
for revenue
recognition
from contract
Figure 2.31 Example of Parallel Accounting
For simplicity, two accounting principles are assumed, but it’s the same logic with
more as well. The standard general ledger posting would have the same amounts
posted to the same accounts for all accounting principles. In SAP S/4HANA, in this
case, you post a single document to update all areas 1. Sometimes, it’s required to
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post different values for the same scenario to the different accounting principles.
The recommended approach here is to post separate documents to update each
accounting principle 2. In the third case 3, certain postings are only allowed or
required in certain accounting principles, but not in all. In this case, you post a separate document to update only the target accounting principles without posting
to the unaffected ones.
There are two basic approaches for mapping parallel accounting in the general ledger in an SAP S/4HANA system: the ledger approach and the accounts approach.
The ledger approach should be the preferred solution for new customers. For existing customers converting to SAP S/4HANA from an SAP ERP system who were
using the accounts approach, they can continue to use it. In a second stage, these
customers can implement additional ledgers in a separate project, utilizing the
implementation of further accounting principles through ledger functionality
made available in SAP S/4HANA 1610.
Every SAP S/4HANA client has exactly one leading ledger. The SAP-standard predefined leading ledger for a client is 0L. All company codes in the client are automatically assigned to the leading ledger. According to your customer requirements, you
can define additional standard ledgers for each additional accounting principle.
Additional ledgers are defined as two-digit alphanumeric keys.
Adding standard ledgers to a productive system requires a small project and use of
the Subsequent Implementation of a Further Accounting Principle customizing
functionality released with SAP S/4HANA 1610. In a new system that isn’t yet productive or for a new company code without postings, the process is simple. To
define a new standard ledger, you add an entry in Customizing under Financial
Accounting Global Settings (New). In addition to the key, you input a name for the
ledger. If you copy an existing ledger, you can choose to copy all the ledger assignments to company codes as well.
Configuring Ledgers
Figure 2.32 shows the settings per ledger on the client level, in which you define if
a ledger is the leading ledger and the ledger type (standard or extension).
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Figure 2.32 Ledger Configuration
Figure 2.33 shows the detail screen for the ledger definitions per company code.
Here, you maintain the following:
쐍 Fiscal Year Variant
The fiscal year variant for nonleading standard ledgers. For the leading ledger, it
must be the same as that defined for the company code.
쐍 Pstng Period Variant
The posting period variant for the ledger. Each ledger can have a different posting period variant so that the periods can be opened and closed independently.
쐍 Currency Types
The currency types updated for the ledger. You can set up different currency
types in different ledgers, and every ledger supports up to 10 currency types.
쐍 Parallel Accounting Using G/L Accounts
Used to assign multiple accounting principles to a ledger when using the
accounts approach to multiple valuations.
Figure 2.33 Company Code Settings for Ledger
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Deactivating Ledgers
If you had activated a ledger for a company code and have made postings already
with the ledger assigned, but the assignment is no longer valid, you can deactivate
the ledger for a specific company code. In this case, you must enter the year from
which the deactivation is valid. This is usually a future year; however, any year can
be defined. When deactivating a ledger, the following rules apply:
쐍 All documents that have a posting date before or during the fiscal year specified
in the To Fiscal Year field remain on the ledger.
쐍 Documents with a posting date after the fiscal year specified are no longer
posted to the ledger.
쐍 Any existing posting information for deactivated years is retained and can be
reported on. The data will be incomplete, however, if deactivation occurred
mid-year.
The customizing screen for deactivating ledgers is shown in Figure 2.34.
Warning
After deactivating a ledger for a company code, you can’t reverse the action. You would
need to define a new ledger and assign it to the company code as required.
Figure 2.34 Deactivate Ledger for Company Code
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Ledger Group Definition
When you create a ledger, the system automatically generates a ledger group with
the same name as the ledger. You can only change the name of this generated ledger group; you can’t add more ledgers. You define a ledger group in Customizing
with a four-character alphanumeric code and a description (Figure 2.35). A customdefined ledger group can include more ledgers. By defining your own ledger
groups, you can perform functions for multiple ledgers together. When posting,
for example, you can restrict the update of individual postings to a ledger group so
that the system only posts to the ledgers in that group. You can have any number
of ledgers in a ledger group.
Figure 2.35 List of Ledger Groups
Manually, you only should create ledger groups when you want to combine several ledgers for joint processing in a function. During transaction processing, such
as posting a document, when you leave the ledger group blank, the system will
process all standard ledgers. For each ledger group, you assign a single representative ledger, which is used by the system to determine the posting period to use
during posting and to check if the period is open (Figure 2.36). When the leading
ledger is included in a ledger group, it always must be set as the representative ledger.
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Figure 2.36 Ledger to Ledger Group Assignment
Warning
During posting, the system will update all ledgers assigned to the ledger group so long as
the representative ledger of the group is open for posting, even if the posting periods are
closed for the other ledgers.
Extension Ledgers
With SAP S/4HANA, extension ledgers were introduced to add flexibility to posting and reporting in the general ledger. In a traditional SAP ERP system, financial
accounting and management accounting are separate systems with different sets
of tables. This made it possible to add postings and perform allocations in management accounting independent from the legal limitations imposed in financial
accounting. With the introduction of the Universal Journal, this independence is
lost, so the extension ledgers were introduced to restore it.
An extension ledger is an add-on delta-logic ledger to which you can post without
changing values of the underlying ledger. In the Customizing activity in which you
define additional ledgers, you can select the extension ledger type. You then need
to define the underlying ledger. Only a standard ledger can be defined as underlying. When you define an extension ledger, the system assigns it to a ledger group
with the same name. An extension ledger can’t be added to ledger groups manually, so only the group created automatically can include the extension ledger. An
extension ledger can be created at any time and doesn’t require migration or other
data-related activities to be performed due to its delta nature. Figure 2.37 shows
some use cases for you to create own extension ledgers. As you can see, these go
beyond management accounting. Extension ledgers also can be used in SAP
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S/4HANA systems migrated/converted from SAP ERP systems that didn’t make
use of ledgers (classic general ledger systems or single ledger configurations).
Extension Ledger Z1
Post into a closed period without changing legal reports
Standard Ledger L0
All extension ledgers
must reference a
standard ledger
All reporting on the
extension ledgers
include the values of
the underlying ledger
Extension Ledger Z2
Perform postings to different accounts for consolidation
Extension Ledger Z3
Perform manual allocations for management accounting
Extension Ledger Z4
Post noninvoiced contracts as revenue to simulate numbers
Extension Ledger ZN
Any other scenario covering business needs of accounting
Figure 2.37 Extension Ledger Use Cases
In addition to the traditional extension ledger type, SAP is using extension ledgers
to offer additional accounting and controlling functionality; these are not part of
external accounting and are excluded for any financial reports you would publish.
Specifically, there are currently two scenarios that are supported with the prediction and commitments extension ledger types:
쐍 Predictions: The system saves line items of posted sales orders to the extension
ledger. You can report expected revenue based on the data from the sales
orders. These are not official values but are useful reporting values for management decisions.
쐍 Commitments: The system saves line items of posted purchase requisitions and
purchase orders to the extension ledger. These are saved as commitments and
you can analyze the commitments in reports for plan/actual/commitment
analysis.
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Tip
These additional use cases are traditionally handled as part of the management accounting realm. Adding these scenarios to the Universal Journal is a step toward blurring the
lines between management and financial accounting, at least from the architectural
standpoint. We mention this to make a case for investing some time into learning at least
some basic management accounting.
Accounts Approach
In the accounts approach to parallel valuation, you use a single ledger to map multiple accounting principles via separate sets of general ledger accounts.
In this case, when you have differences in valuations for different accounting principles (accruals, fixed assets, currency exchange), you create a closed system of
accounts per accounting principle. This way, you don’t have double the total
accounts in the chart of accounts but only those for which it makes sense. For
manual transactions, you only need to post with the accounting-principle-specific
accounts to differentiate the document. For automatic transactions (e.g., posting
to fixed assets), you maintain the separate accounts in the relevant account determinations per accounting principle.
As discussed previously, you can assign multiple ledgers to a ledger and then set
the Parallel Accounting Using G/L Accounts checkbox. Although commonly all
accounting principles mapped with the accounts approach are handled from a single ledger (and almost always the leading ledger), in SAP S/4HANA you still need to
maintain separate ledger groups for each accounting principle. These ledger
groups have the same ledger assigned to them and are ledger groups with a single
ledger assigned.
In new systems with SAP S/4HANA, you should always set up the ledger approach
to parallel valuation. The accounts approach is reserved as a scenario for systems
converted to SAP S/4HANA from SAP ERP systems without the ledger approach.
Accounting Principles
The accounting principles are defined in Customizing with a four-character alphanumeric code and a description (Figure 2.38).
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Figure 2.38 Accounting Principle Definition
The accounting principle object itself carries no rules or Customizing definitions.
You assign each accounting principle to a ledger group (Figure 2.39).
Because an accounting principle will be used, in theory, to post and report for a
specific legal or other requirement, there generally should always be a one-to-one
assignment of ledger group to accounting principle.
Figure 2.39 Accounting Principle and Ledger Group Assignment
The exception to this is when using the accounts approach to parallel valuation. In
this case, as you can see in Figure 2.40 1, the Parallel Accounting Using G/L
Accounts indicator is checked. Also in Figure 2.40 2, you can see it’s possible to
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assign the same ledger group to two separate accounting principles in this case.
Ledger groups containing an extension ledger can be assigned to accounting principles as well.
Figure 2.40 Ledger Configuration for Accounts Approach
Fiscal Year Variant
The start and end dates of a fiscal year, as well as the division of the year into periods, are defined in a fiscal year variant. The variant is subsequently assigned to the
relevant company codes (and controlling areas). The fiscal year and periods are
defined according to the requirements of the accounting department of each company and usually depend on legal regulations. SAP S/4HANA is delivered with
many standard variants and is also flexible, allowing you to create own variants to
cover any business cases required (Figure 2.41).
Usually, you create a year-independent fiscal year variant, meaning each year has
the same start and end date and the same number of periods as the previous one.
In special cases, you can create a variant for which you can define different settings
per year, usually to cover a special need, such as liquidation or acquisition of the
company. A year-specific variant is often defined as a shortened fiscal year with
a nonstandard start or end date (Figure 2.42 1 shows the per-year definitions
required for the year-specific variant).
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Figure 2.41 Fiscal Year Variant List and Definitions
Figure 2.42 Fiscal Year Variant Definition and Period Examples
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Fiscal years that are based on calendar years and periods (January to December, 12
periods) are the simplest, and you don’t define the periods for these. In Figure 2.42,
variants K* are defined as calendar year variants. If a fiscal year variant has different start and end dates than the calendar year, you need to define the year shift in
the period definition. Also in Figure 2.42 2, variant V6 is a year from July to June.
The fiscal year 20XX starts in July 20XX-1 and ends June 20XX, so by defining an
offset of –1 year for the first six periods, the system sets the correct fiscal year,
which is a year more than the calendar year. Figure 2.42 3 also shows a case in
which a fiscal year has more than 12 periods defined; it’s also possible to have less
than 12 (e.g., one period per trimester). The periods don’t have to be equal among
themselves; some can last longer than others.
The final important thing to know about fiscal years is the special period definition. Special periods are used during closing. To post to a special period, you enter
the last day of the fiscal year as the posting date and manually set the period. The
system supports up to four special periods to provide flexibility to handle the different phases of closing. You can open and close special periods independently
from normal periods, allowing for postings to be made after the year has ended
and the first period of the new year has opened.
Integration of Controlling with the General Ledger
In SAP S/4HANA, integrating Controlling with the general ledger isn’t an option—
it’s a requirement. The line item table for both components is the same, and any
posting made in Controlling is also a posting in the general ledger. This includes
internal Controlling postings made with secondary cost elements, which are
defined as secondary cost general ledger accounts. All Controlling account assignments from overhead cost controlling to profitability analysis are updated on the
same line items and are thus available for analysis directly in the same reports.
The courses at this level don’t go in depth on what other assignments are made
between general ledger accounting and Controlling, but it’s good to know the following:
쐍 Controlling postings require a document type; this is usually defined as one or
more separate Controlling-specific document types.
쐍 Each Controlling business transaction is mapped to a document type, and they
can all be mapped to the same document type.
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쐍 When posting manual Controlling transactions, you can enter the document
type and the ledger group. For transactions for which you don’t have the option
to enter these, the system uses whatever assignments where defined in Customizing.
Currencies
SAP S/4HANA comes preconfigured with most world currencies defined and
assigned to currency keys per their ISO codes (Figure 2.43). You can set a validity
date for a currency so that if the currency for a country changes, you can make
sure it’s no longer used during posting.
Figure 2.43 Currencies Delivered in SAP S/4HANA
The system uses exchange rate types (Figure 2.44) so you can enter a different
exchange rate ratio depending on the business case. Examples of different scenarios include legal valuation, internal/group valuation, and planning. You assign an
exchange rate type to a currency type in Customizing.
In a productive system, the translation ratios for currencies must be maintained
periodically (often daily). The translation ratio defines how many units of one currency equal a unit of a different currency.
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Figure 2.44 Currency Exchange Rate Types
The system offers reports to upload files with exchange rate ratios and reports that
can read real-time exchange rate feeds. To help with maintenance (Figure 2.45),
because the currency combinations are in the hundreds, you can define a base currency that is then used as the basis for translating rates among other currencies.
Figure 2.45 Exchange Rate Maintenance
As an example:
쐍 You define EUR as the base currency.
쐍 You maintain that 1 EUR equals 0.9 GBP.
쐍 You maintain that 1 EUR equals 1.1 USD.
쐍 The system deduces the rate between GBP and USD.
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If you maintain a specific manual rate for a combination of currencies, the system
will use that; during posting, you can override the proposed values of translation
and enter a manual translation rate.
You might come across the terms direct quotation or indirect quotation. These
terms define how the currency translation rate is maintained:
쐍 With direct quotation, one unit of the foreign currency is translated to the local
currency. For example, with EUR as the local currency, $1 buys €0.9.
쐍 With indirect quotation, it’s the opposite: €1 buys $1.11.
You define the standard entry as direct or indirect per currency pair.
The SAP S/4HANA system allows for currency maintenance using worklists, which
are assigned to separate users for when a maintenance task is shared between
employees. Using worklists allows multiple users to work on exchange rates at the
same time (so long they’re working on different worklists) and allows for better
authorization control because specific worklists with specific currencies can be
assigned to a user.
The system uses currency types to record different value amounts in the line item
tables. All company codes record values in the company code currency that is
defined based on legal requirements (the local currency where the company operates). In addition to the company code currency, the system will record the document currency as well because this is also required for audit and legal reasons. The
other fixed currency type assignment per company code is the global currency,
which is the currency type assigned to the controlling area. Beyond these, you can
assign an additional eight currencies per ledger that the system can update and
record during transaction processing. The SAP S/4HANA system comes preconfigured with the following currency types (Figure 2.46), and you can enhance these
with your own types:
쐍 00: Document currency
쐍 10: Company code currency
쐍 20: Controlling area currency
쐍 30: Group currency
쐍 40: Hard currency
쐍 50: Index-based currency
쐍 60: Global company currency
쐍 70: Controlling object currency
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Figure 2.46 Currency Types
Document Types and Number Ranges
In financial accounting, the document type is used to group and categorize business transactions. The document type is entered in the document header and controls which accounts can be posted to. The document type also defines the number
the document is assigned when posting (or parking).
SAP S/4HANA comes with predefined document types for most common business
scenarios. You can define your own document types in Customizing, according to
your needs. Document types are defined on the client level, so they can be used
directly when posting to all company codes so long as the document number
range assigned to the document type is defined for the company code.
You define a new document type as a two-digit alphanumeric code and provide a
description. You can usually copy an existing document type that covers a similar
business case as the one you’re defining the new document type for. You can see
the entries you maintain per document type in Figure 2.47. The following are the
most important settings:
쐍 Number Range
This defines the numbers assigned to documents posting using the document
type.
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쐍 Reverse Document Type
When you reverse a document posted with a specific document, the system
assigns the document type of this field for the reversal document. If the field is
left blank, the system assigns the original document type. In the example
shown, the system would use document type AB for reversal of documents
posted with document type SA.
쐍 Authorization Group
By assigning an authorization group, you can limit the users able to post using
the document type to those who have roles with the authorization group
assigned.
쐍 Account Types Allowed
You select one or more account types that can be used with the document type.
This helps limit the use of the document type to the specific business cases it
was designed for and protects from erroneous postings to a certain extent.
Figure 2.47 Document Type Definition
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쐍 BI Only
This batch input option allows you to limit posting with a document type
through a batch process (e.g., posting through uploading an Excel file).
쐍 Exchange Rate Type for FC Documents
This allows you to set a default exchange rate type that the system will propose
when the document type is selected. Default values can be changed manually
during posting.
쐍 Reference Number
This is the document header text required during entry; you can mark these
checkboxes to mark the fields as required. This acts as a reminder for the users
to enter the document details in the fields. Usually, you mark these at least for
customer and vendor invoice document types.
쐍 Net Document Type
You can select this checkbox for posting vendor invoices. When the checkbox is
selected, the cash discount calculated for a vendor is directly posted to the discounts account when the invoice is posted. During the payment posting, the
system will post a correction as needed (e.g., if the full discount wasn’t awarded).
쐍 Cust./Vend. Check
This ensures that only a single customer or vendor can be posted to in a single
document. It doesn’t limit how many lines can be posted to the same customer/
vendor.
쐍 Negative Postings Permitted
This checkbox for reversal will be analyzed later in this chapter in the Reversing
Documents section.
쐍 Intercompany
When selected, this checkbox allows you to post cross-company code documents with the document type.
쐍 Enter Trading Partner
This indicates that you can enter the partner company manually; it’s usually
used in conjunction with the Intercompany checkbox.
Posting Keys
The posting key defines the account type of a line item and whether the line is a
debit or credit posting. In SAP S/4HANA, the two-digit posting key is generally a
“hidden” attribute because, in many applications, you only select debit or credit,
and the posting key is assigned based on the application used. For example, the
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posting keys for general ledger accounting, as shown in Figure 2.48, are 40 for debit
1 and 50 for credit 2. In the Post General Journal Entries app, the user will select
debit, and the system will post using posting key 40 automatically.
Posting keys are defined on the client level, and it’s recommended to use those
delivered by SAP because they should cover all business scenarios. The additional
definitions made for a posting key other than the Debit/Credit checkboxes and the
account type are whether the posting key is relevant for sales, whether it’s used to
post special general ledger transactions for customers and vendors, whether you
post payment transactions with the posting key, and finally what posting key is
assigned when the line is reversed.
For each posting key, you also define the field status. The field status is more commonly controlled by the general ledger account field status group rather than the
posting key. You can see the field status grouping on the right side of Figure 2.48.
Figure 2.48 Posting Key Definition
It’s important to understand the way the system behaves in case of a conflicting
field status for the same field. If this happens, both statuses are taken into consideration, but one of them takes precedence. The following field status options take
priority (from strongest to weakest):
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1. Suppress
2. Display
3. Req. Entry
4. Opt. Entry
Let’s analyze a few example scenarios:
쐍 If a field is marked as required at the account field status level, and you define
the field as hidden in the posting key (or vice versa), you receive an error message when trying to post (see Figure 2.49).
Figure 2.49 Field Status Error Example
쐍 If a field is marked as display only at the account field status level, and the posting key defines that it’s hidden, the field will remain hidden. Again, if it’s filled
automatically, the field will be posted to, and the value will be shown in reporting.
Tip
Usually, you would set all fields as optional in the posting key field status and control
which fields are used with the account field status group.
In some cases, the field status of a field is controlled in another configuration; for
example, the tax code field only becomes ready for input when the account is
marked as tax relevant. Other examples are the profit center and segment, which
are required entries when specified as such in document splitting.
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It’s useful to keep in mind how specific ranges of posting keys are assigned to
account types in the default SAP S/4HANA system, as listed in Table 2.1.
Debit
Credit
Account Type
01–09
11–19
Customer
21–29
31–39
Vendor/supplier
40
50
General ledger
80–86
90–96
General ledger (materials management integration with general
ledger)
70
75
Asset
89
99
Material
Table 2.1 Posting Key Ranges and Account Types
Tolerance Groups
Businesses usually apply rules for amounts each employee is authorized to handle
in various posting transactions. The most basic setting for accounts in financial
accounting with SAP S/4HANA is the tolerance group, as shown in Figure 2.50. The
tolerance group assigned to a user defines four basic, amount-related posting limits a user can have:
쐍 Maximum amount per document (the amount includes all the debit and credit
items)
쐍 Maximum amount per open item (the limit doesn’t apply for automatically created line items, such as those of the payment program)
쐍 Maximum cash discount percentage per line item
쐍 Maximum permitted payment differences allowed, with amounts defined separately for overpayments and underpayments
The tolerance amount can be set differently for each company code. For all company codes, you define a “blank” tolerance group with the most common tolerance limits for accounting employees. The blank tolerance group is defaulted for
all because it’s assigned to all users. You must assign a specific tolerance group to
a user to differentiate that user’s amount limits. Only a single tolerance group can
be assigned for a user—that is, the same tolerance group for all company codes a
user can post in.
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Figure 2.50 Maintain Tolerance Limits for Tolerance Group
Tax Handling
Taxes are a complicated subject and are detailed in the specific legislation for each
country. The scope of actions performed by SAP S/4HANA includes the following:
쐍 Calculating the tax amounts based on preconfigured rules
쐍 Updating tax accounts with the calculated values
쐍 Posting adjustments to tax amounts for discounts and other deductions
쐍 Outputting the required tax reporting forms to provide to tax authorities
SAP S/4HANA handles the following types of taxes during posting:
쐍 Value-added tax (or goods and services tax)
This is an indirect tax imposed on every stage of production of a product or a
service and is commonly levied on all incoming and outgoing invoices. This is
common in most countries in the world, including all EU countries.
쐍 Sales tax
This is the percentage of revenue imposed on the retail sale of goods.
쐍 Withholding tax
This is commonly a tax the company deducts from a payment to a person and
pays to the government directly—that is, a kind of tax credit for the person the
tax wasn’t paid to directly. Other types of withholding tax include taxes levied
on income from securities.
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쐍 Other types of tax
Legislations vary, and SAP’s global software must support all local requirements.
SAP S/4HANA is often used with external specialized tax software, especially in
areas with complex regulations or rules that vary due to multiple jurisdiction
combinations, such as in the United States.
SAP S/4HANA comes with preconfigured tax procedures for every country (Figure
2.51). You can copy and modify these as required. The settings maintained in the
tax procedure (Figure 2.52) define the sequence of calculations for the condition
types (tax types). Another important field is the Account Key, for which the
account determination is maintained so the system knows which accounts need
to be posted to.
Figure 2.51 Tax Procedure List
Figure 2.52 Tax Procedure Details
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Legal regulations for each country or jurisdiction define that the base tax amount
is either the net amount or the gross amount, as explained here:
쐍 Net amount
The tax is calculated on the posted amount minus relevant discounts.
쐍 Gross amount
The tax is calculated on the full amount, regardless of discounts. Adjustments
are made in a second step after the discount is realized.
During document posting, you enter a tax code on a line item to specify the tax
percentage and valid tax type and account. The tax code is a two-character alphanumeric key. You define tax codes on the client level either by country or by country and jurisdiction code combination. To create a tax code, you can use
Transaction FTXP and then copy an existing similar tax code. The system comes
delivered with predefined tax codes for many countries, so you might not need
additional codes.
During tax code definition, you enter the valid tax percentage rate for the specific
tax types. When a new tax percentage is introduced, instead of changing an existing tax code, you define a new one to maintain historical accuracy and manage the
percentage transition period.
Figure 2.53 Manage Tax Codes
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When you select the Tax accounts button, a window pops up displaying the tax
account. If the account key defined in the tax type only allows one account, the
account is automatically set (as in the pop-up window shown in Figure 2.53); otherwise, you select the correct account from those allowed from the account determination.
When posting a tax account, the tax type defines whether the tax is posted into a
separate line (most commonly) or whether the tax amount will be distributed to
the relevant revenue or expense accounts (e.g., certain nondeductible taxes).
Regarding tax, a general ledger account that you post tax to must be marked as an
input or output tax account. All tax-related states for general ledger accounts are
shown in Table 2.2.
Tax Category Field
Description
Blank
Not tax-relevant
>
Output tax account
<
Input tax account
+
Output-tax-relevant
-
Input-tax-relevant
*
Relevant for all kinds of tax
##
Specific tax code only
Table 2.2 Tax Categories on General Ledger Accounts
Analyzing Document Splitting
When you post a document to the general ledger, you enter data in the header segment with information valid for the whole document and then start building up
the line items. Depending on the account type and system configuration, you
enter different information in each line item. For example, you would enter a cost
center for an expense but not for a vendor or tax line because those aren’t relevant
to Controlling. Because the profit center is derived easily from Controlling account
assignments (e.g., the cost center), it’s easy on the P&L level to have the profit center and thus the segment in all lines.
However, for the lines posted to balance sheet accounts, the assignment of a line
to a profit center isn’t always simple or even possible manually. To get past this difficulty, SAP S/4HANA uses document splitting. On a very general level, with document splitting, the amount assignments of the lines in which, for example, the
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profit center was entered or derived act as splitting rules that guide the system to
assign the profit center proportionally to the other lines.
An example should help make this clearer. Assume you make the entries shown in
Table 2.3.
Line
Number
G/L Account
Description
Debit/
Credit
Amount
Cost
Center
Profit
Center
Segment
1
Vendor
C
1100
2
Expense A
D
400
CCA
PCA
SA
3
Expense B
D
600
CCB
PCB
SB
4
Tax
D
100
Table 2.3 Invoice Document: Entry View
In this case, during entry, the user would enter the cost center and through that
assignment the system would derive the profit center and segment. Without document splitting, the balance sheet accounts for the vendor and tax would remain
unassigned. With document splitting activated for both profit center and segment
characteristics, the system creates additional lines and splits the amount proportionally, as in Table 2.4.
Line
Number
G/L Account
Description
Debit/
Credit
Amount
1
Vendor
C
2
Vendor
3
Cost
Center
Profit
Center
Segment
440
PCA
SA
C
660
PCB
SB
Expense A
D
400
CCA
PCA
SA
4
Expense B
D
600
CCB
PCB
SB
5
Tax
D
40
PCA
SA
6
Tax
D
60
PCB
SB
Table 2.4 Invoice Document: General Ledger View
Table 2.3 with its four lines is what SAP refers to as the entry view of a document.
Table 2.4 shows the general ledger view.
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Tip
The general ledger view is posted with all line items with all splitting detail in the Universal Journal table. Interestingly, if the company code was assigned to an additional standard ledger, the system would post 12 line items, six for each ledger. It becomes obvious
that if for a simple example you go from four line items to 12, the six-digit line item field
might be useful for the Universal Journal, allowing for up to 999,999 lines per document.
Document splitting is activated on the client level in Customizing for general ledger accounting (Figure 2.54). Document splitting can be activated simply with the
flip of a switch in a greenfield system without postings. If you want to activate document splitting for existing systems, there is a functionality planned for the 1709
release of SAP S/4HANA that will require a small separate project. The basic settings you indicate when activating document splitting for your client are listed
here:
쐍 Document Splitting and Method
This includes all splitting rules for the business transactions and business transaction variants. You generally should be able to use the default delivered by
SAP.
쐍 Inheritance indicator
This assigns the account assignments defined as splitting characteristics to all
lines when the account assignment combination is unique for the document. If
you have, for example, an invoice as in Table 2.3 but with one expense line item,
the system won’t use splitting rules to fill the profit center and segment of the
vendor and tax lines; it will use inheritance to transfer them. When there are
two or more account assignment combinations (as in Table 2.3), inheritance
won’t be used.
쐍 Standard A/C Assgnmt. and Constant
Here you define a default account assignment, such as a default profit center
and segment, for line items for which it’s not possible to enter or derive the correct account assignments at the time of posting. As an example, say you receive
a cash payment from a customer but haven’t yet been invoiced by the customer. You might post the transfer from cash to bank account initially, but
because no details about the nature of the revenue items are known or entered,
the system will use the defaults defined to fill the account assignment for profit
center and segment. When the invoice is posted and the payment cleared, the
account for the payment receipt will balance to zero, so the accuracy of the initial account assignments posted isn’t significant. You can define defaults on the
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splitting method level but also make them more specific for item categories
(general ledger account groupings).
Because splitting is activated on the client level, all company codes are affected by
default. In this step, you can define that splitting should not be performed for certain company codes (you select the Inactive indicator shown in Figure 2.55). This
generally should be avoided, especially in an SAP S/4HANA system in which lineitem reporting is a big advantage of the solution and having more detail for the
line item doesn’t slow reporting down. You shouldn’t deactivate splitting for a productive company code because doing so will lead to inconsistencies.
Figure 2.54 Document Splitting Activation
Figure 2.55 Deactivate Document Splitting for Company Code
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Document Splitting Characteristics
In Customizing, you select which account assignments will be used as splitting
characteristics. You can select fields based on the general ledger scenarios assigned
(in Figure 2.56 you can see that Profit Center and Segment are selected) or custom
fields you add to the Universal Journal through coding block extensibility. You can
define an account assignment as a zero-balance splitting characteristic. In this
case, the system will make sure that each document balances per relevant account
assignment characteristics. Finally, for each field, you select whether it’s a mandatory characteristic. A mandatory field must be filled for all line items posted to the
general ledger. If a field marked as mandatory can’t be entered or derived during
posting, the system raises an error. You would select both the Zero Balance and
Mandatory Field checkboxes if a field is required to report on the balance sheet
level for the relevant account assignment, as is the case for the Segment field when
it’s used for segment reporting.
Figure 2.56 Define Document Splitting Characteristics for General Ledger Accounting
Different business transactions and accounts can be handled differently by the
system regarding document splitting. You configure the grouping of accounts and
the mapping of these to item categories in Customizing. Most accounts are
mapped with a specific type automatically by the system, but you need to assign
the category manually for revenue accounts, expense accounts, bank account/
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
cash accounts, and balance sheet accounts. You also assign document types to
business transactions and can further specify business transaction variants to
refine the splitting rules as shown in Figure 2.57.
Figure 2.57 General Ledger Account and Document Type Splitting Definition
Document Splitting Steps
There are three steps in document splitting:
1. Passive document split
This includes all splitting that you can’t configure and that happens automatically. The most typical example here is a payment for an invoice. If we continue
the example of Table 2.4, a payment made to clear the invoice will have the line
in the entry view as shown in Table 2.5.
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Line Number G/L Account Description Debit/Credit Amount Profit Center Segment
1
Bank Account
C
1100
N/A
N/A
2
Vendor
D
1100
N/A
N/A
Table 2.5 Payment Entry: Document View
Taking into consideration the relevant invoices, account assignments, and
amounts posted, through passive splitting the system would produce the lines
in the general ledger view as shown in Table 2.6.
Line Number G/L Account Description Debit/Credit Amount Profit Center Segment
1
Bank Account
C
440
PCA
SA
2
Bank Account
C
660
PCB
SB
3
Vendor
D
440
PCA
SA
4
Vendor
D
660
PCB
SB
Table 2.6 Payment Entry: General Ledger View
2. Active document split
This is the “normal” document rule-based splitting process that you customize,
and the system splits based on predefined rules. An example of active document splitting was shown earlier in Table 2.4.
3. Zero-balance clearing line formation
In this step, the system generates the lines required to ensure that the document balances for each account assignment specified as a zero-balance splitting
characteristic. This is commonly required for transfer postings for which you
post between profit centers and segments, as shown in Table 2.7.
Line Number G/L Account Description Debit/Credit Amount Profit Center Segment
1
Expense 1
C
1000
PCA
SA
2
Expense 1
D
1000
PCB
SB
Table 2.7 Transfer between Profit Centers: Entry View
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
In the entry view, you have two simple lines reposting the same expense line to
two different profit centers (and subsequently two different segments). If the system is set up as shown in Figure 2.56, with both profit center and segment defined
as zero-balance characteristics, the system would post the line in the general ledger view as shown in Table 2.8.
Line Number G/L Account Description Debit/Credit Amount Profit Center Segment
1
Expense 1
C
1000
PCA
SA
2
Clearing 1
D
1000
PCA
SA
3
Expense 1
D
1000
PCB
SB
4
Clearing 1
C
1000
PCB
SB
Table 2.8 Transfer Between Profit Centers: General Ledger View
Adding the two clearing lines enables the document to be posted with zero balance
for all account assignments. In addition, for every document that generates clearing lines posted, the clearing account will always balance to zero.
Business Transactions in the General Ledger
The daily business transaction management for general ledger accounting
includes posting, changing, and reversing general ledger document entries. In
addition, we’ll go over cross-company code transaction posting and document
clearing for open-item-managed general ledger accounts.
Posting General Ledger Documents
When entering a document, you first enter the details that concern the header of
the document and then start building up the various line items you’ll post to. The
header details are valid for the complete document. The system checks that all
required header details are entered before you can proceed with entering data in
the line item.
In SAP S/4HANA, the main application for entering general ledger documents is
the SAP Fiori Post General Journal Entries app. In the header section of the document (Figure 2.58), the most important fields are the following:
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쐍 Journal Entry Date
This date is usually the date written on any type of document that prompted
the entry (e.g., the invoice date for posting an invoice). If there is no specific document, you usually enter the same date as the posting date.
쐍 Posting Date
The posting date is the date the system uses to update the database. It will often
be the same as the actual entry date, but there is no requirement that it must be.
Based on this date, the system defines the posting period and the fiscal year to
make the entry.
쐍 Journal Entry Type
The document type was analyzed earlier in this chapter in the Document Types
and Number Ranges subsection.
Figure 2.58 Document Header
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쐍 Header Text
This is usually used to note down the business reason for posting the document. The header text supports only 25 characters; you can add longer notes in
the Notes tab.
쐍 Exchange Rate
This is defaulted to the rate valid on the translation date; you can also update
the rate manually. The system will issue an error if you enter a rate beyond a
defined limit from the valid rate. You define the maximum exchange rate deviation in the global company code settings (refer back to Figure 2.9).
쐍 Translation Date
This date is used to define the proposed translation rate. If not input manually,
the system uses the Journal Entry Date.
쐍 Company Code
The company code entered in the header is defaulted for all lines. You can
change the company code on an individual line to enter a cross-company document.
쐍 Transaction Currency
This is the currency you’ll use for the posting. This document currency is translated to the company code currency and any other currency types defined.
쐍 Reference
Enter the reference number/identification of the document that prompted the
entry (e.g., the invoice number).
쐍 Ledger Group
Enter the ledger group to which you want to post. Ledger groups are analyzed in
parallel accounting with the ledger solution. When you leave the field blank,
posts are made to all ledgers.
Note
Of course, as explained earlier, extension ledgers are only posted to when their ledger
group is explicitly entered. However, as they inherit the values of the defined underlying
ledger, it’s fair to say they are also “posted to” when the field is empty.
The system saves more data than you manually input to the document header as
well. Examples of additional fields written to are the entry date and time, user who
made the entry, and business process used to make the entry (e.g., accounting
posting, purchasing invoice verification, etc.). In addition, when the document is
parked or posted, the document number is also updated on the header level.
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The most basic entries in each line item of a document are the account and the
posting key. In some applications and transactions, such as the Post General Journal Entries app (depicted in Figure 2.59), the posting key is replaced by the debit or
credit amount or a separate field to indicate if the line is a debit or credit line (e.g.,
in Transaction FB50, an enjoy transaction).
Figure 2.59 Document Line Item: Expense Line
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For general ledger entries, this is easy because debit is defaulted as posting key 40
and credit posting key 50. In many other applications, you need to enter a specific
posting key on the line item, so it’s important that you and your customer are
familiar with the keys.
After entering the account and the posting key, the system displays the rest of the
fields for entry on the line item based on the rules defined in the field status definitions of the posting key and the account. Figure 2.59 shows an example of the
fields available for an expense line. In this case, you have Controlling-relevant
fields ready for entry. The system will derive many fields on the line item based on
the assignments made on the entered cost object. In the example here, the Cost
Center was manually entered by the user, and the Profit Center, Segment, and Functional Area were all derived.
When the account is relevant to tax, you also enter a Tax Code. You can specify if
the system should calculate the tax amount automatically and if you’re making a
net entry. A net entry would mean in this case that you’re entering the amount
without tax on the expense line, leading to a tax base of 1,100 instead of 1,000.
The Item Text is usually an optional entry for a user to input a short note. The
Assignment field is filled automatically based on the sort key defined in the general ledger account master, often with the data from the reference field from the
header. You can override the automatically derived entry and fill it in yourself.
Figure 2.60 shows examples of the different account assignments required for a
posting to a bank account. Here you can see fields such as the House Bank, House
Bank Account, and Value Date. The value date is especially important for cash and
bank-related postings because it’s the date on which the system considers the cash
transaction to be made. It’s configurable to be assigned automatically as the entry
date. Even when this is selected, you can always override the date proposal by
entering your own date.
At this point, when you’re entering and building up line items for the document,
document splitting isn’t yet applied, so the Profit Center and Segment fields, which
are splitting characteristics, aren’t filled in.
Before posting a document, you can simulate it. This gives you the chance to check
the entry view before posting and the system time to perform check routines and
provide any valid warning or error messages. You can also simulate the general
ledger view to verify, for example, that document splitting is working as expected
based on the rules defined in Customizing.
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Figure 2.60 Document Line Item: Bank Data
After verifying the document as simulated, you post the document. At this point,
you might still get an error during posting. A common error at this point when still
configuring the system is a missing document number range. The system only
assigns a number to the document when you post it (or when you park it), so there
is no prior checkpoint for this.
Tip
In the rare occasion that you choose to have an external document range assigned to the
document type, you enter the document number when entering the rest of the document header information.
Warning
After posting a document, there is no turning back. Changes from this point on are only
minimal, and if you made a mistake during entry, you’ll probably have to reverse the document and repost it.
Changing Documents
There are two separate areas in which changes are allowed for a document: the
document header and the line item (Figure 2.61). You configure rules for changing
documents either for all company codes or individually, and the individual rule
takes precedence over the global rule.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
For the document header 1, you can define that the fields’ reference and document header text can be changed after a document is posted. You can indicate that
changes are only allowed so long as the period remains open or leave it so that the
fields can change at any time.
For the line items 2, in addition to the specification per company code, you can set
different rules according to the account type and the transaction type. For processing changes to the line item, more fields are available to set as changeable: the line
item text, assignment, payment terms, and payment method. In addition, you
have more control over when a document field might be changed under the Stipulations for Changing area 2.
Figure 2.61 Rules for Changing the Document Header and Line Items
Every time you make changes to a document (header or line item), the change is
logged by the system. You can always view the full history of changes to a document, including information for the following:
쐍 When a change was made (date, time)
쐍 Who made the change
쐍 What was changed for which field (old value, new value)
Any line item field that would alter the financial accounting integrity of the document can’t be changed. Fields such as Posting Key, Account, Amount, Tax Code,
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Controlling assignments (e.g., Cost Center), Profit Center, and Segment are all
restricted from being changed. To change such fundamental characteristics of a
document, the usual course of action is to reverse and repost it if it’s a Controlling
account.
Reversing Documents
Financial accounting document reversal in SAP S/4HANA is usually performed in
the SAP Fiori Manage Journal Entries app. You enter search criteria for the document or documents you want to reverse, select the ones to reverse from the list,
and reverse them individually or in groups (Figure 2.62).
Figure 2.62 Reversal Posting
When reversing multiple documents, you enter the same reversal criteria for all,
so you must make sure the reversal data is correct for all.
To reverse documents, you enter the following data:
쐍 Reversal Reason
Define reversal settings for the document and indicate why the reversal is performed. We’ll analyze this selection further later in this section.
쐍 Posting Date
Enter the date the system will use to post the reversal. When posting in the
same period as the original document, you usually enter the same posting date
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
as the original document. When posting a reversal for a document in a closed
period, you generally enter the current date. The Period field will be updated
from the period indicated in the posting date.
쐍 (Optional) Tax Reporting Date
Define whether the tax reporting date is maintained when posting a document
in the global settings for the company code. When this is defined in the company code, you can enter a date when reversing the document.
쐍 (Optional) Check Void Reason
Define a void reason for reversing a manual check posting. Obviously, it’s only
relevant when you’re reversing a payment document for which you also issued
a check.
쐍 (Optional) Process Intercompany Transactions Completely
Reverses all journal entries posted with the intercompany transaction even if
you didn’t explicitly select all the relevant entries.
When a document has been cleared, you’re not allowed to reverse it directly. In
this case, the system raises an error message informing you that the document has
been cleared. You must first reset the clearing, and only then can you also reverse
the document.
Figure 2.63 Document Reversal Configuration
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In SAP S/4HANA Customizing, you configure the allowed reversal reasons (Figure
2.63 1) and define whether negative postings are allowed for a company code
(Figure 2.63 2). A company code that doesn’t allow negative postings can’t use
reversal reasons that are configured to use negative posting.
You can define as many reversal reasons as required for reporting and control purposes. There are only two settings for the reversal reason controls:
쐍 Neg. Pstg. (negative posting)
A normal reversal would debit the credit line items and debit the credit line
items of the original document. A negative posting reduces the transaction figures of the posted account by posting negative amounts on the same debit/
credit side as the original posting. This allows you to give the account debit/
credit figures the status they would have had without performing the original
posting. Negative postings aren’t always allowed, so check with the accountant
if this option is relevant for the company code.
쐍 Alt.Pos.Dt. (alternative posting date)
When you select this option, you can post the reversal to a date that is different
from the original document’s posting date. This is generally marked for reversal
reasons that reverse documents in closed periods.
Cross-Company Code Postings
When entering a simple cross-company code transaction, you enter the company
code the line refers to in each line, as shown in Figure 2.64. The system will generate two documents, one for each company code. For the document to balance per
company code, the system generates a line using a preconfigured clearing account
for the posting document in each company code. The system writes a common
cross-company code document number to be able to group the relevant documents together for reporting.
Figure 2.64 Entering Cross-Company Code Postings
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
In Customizing, you define the clearing account for each pair of company codes in
which cross-company code transactions are valid, as shown in Figure 2.65 1. For
each company code, you determine a posting key and account on the receivables
and payables sides, as shown in Figure 2.65 2. The clearing account doesn’t have to
be a general ledger account: you can also define customer and vendor posting keys
and accounts.
Figure 2.65 Configure Cross-Company Code Postings
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Financial Document Clearing
When you post a transaction to an account that is open-item managed, the transaction is incomplete until the item is cleared. To clear an open item, you post a
clearing document that balances the open item or groups of the open items to
zero, as shown in Figure 2.66.
Figure 2.66 Post with Clearing
Tip
Accounts with uncleared open items can’t be archived.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 2
When you post with clearing, you select open items from a list of items posted to
the open item account you specify. When you complete your selection, the items
must balance to zero among themselves. Clearing documents created after posting doesn’t change the debit or credit balance of the account; it only matches up
open items. The system creates a clearing document, and the clearing document
number is updated on the original documents from which the open items originate.
If you match the wrong items, you can reset clearing documents for items that
were cleared incorrectly, as shown in Figure 2.67. Another reason you might want
to reset clearing is if you need to reverse one of the documents that created an
open item you cleared.
Figure 2.67 Reset Cleared Items
General Ledger Overview
SAP has released an overview dashboard app (Figure 2.68) for general ledger
accountants to be able to track various key figures, their notification inboxes, and
access some apps using quick links. All the reports and live tiles are updated in real
time with the actual system data (this does add to the app-loading time when first
loading). This dashboard is meant to be the single screen for general ledger
accountants to keep an eye on everything relevant for them.
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Figure 2.68 General Ledger Overview
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 Client
The client is the highest organizational unit and can be seen in business terms
to be the equivalent of a corporate group or group of affiliates.
쐍 Company code
The most important organizational unit in financial accounting, it represents
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Important Terminology Chapter 2
the legal entity for which a complete, self-contained set of accounts can be created.
쐍 Segment reporting
A reporting requirement of IFRS and US GAAP legal reporting which stipulates
that company codes need to be able to produce complete balance and P&L
statements per major business activity segment. In SAP S/4HANA, the requirement is covered with the profit center and segment account assignments in
conjunction with document splitting.
쐍 Chart of accounts
A complete register of general ledger accounts required to cover the business
needs of the company codes it’s assigned to. There are three levels of charts of
accounts:
– Operational chart of accounts
– Local chart of accounts
– Group chart of accounts
쐍 Account group
An element that categorizes general ledger accounts. It controls the number
range and types of accounts that can be created.
쐍 Standard ledger
A ledger that holds values for separate valuations; often it represents a separate
accounting principle.
쐍 Extension ledger
A delta ledger that is added on top of a standard ledger for special valuation purposes.
쐍 Parallel accounting with ledgers
A method of parallel valuation accounting using ledgers to depict separate
accounting principles.
쐍 Parallel accounting with accounts
A method of parallel valuation accounting using separate sets of general ledger
accounts for specific accounting functions that are valuated differently in the
separate accounting principles.
쐍 Fiscal year variant
A variant that defines the start and end dates of the fiscal year and defines the
posting periods available during the year.
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쐍 Posting period variant
A variant that controls the open and closed periods for company codes. You can
assign multiple company codes to a single variant to control the periods jointly.
쐍 Document type
The document type categorizes business transactions and defines the relevant
account types and the number range of the documents.
쐍 Posting key
A key that defines whether a line amount is debited or credited and the type of
account posted to. A field status is also maintained on the level of the posting
key.
쐍 Tolerance group
Assigned to each user, it defines the maximum amounts a user can post, as well
as the maximum discounts they can grant.
쐍 Tax code
A key that controls the tax rate and tax account posted to.
쐍 Document splitting
A function that makes account assignments defined as splitting characteristics
to all lines of a document based on specific rules.
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
1.
Your customer operates 20 company codes in 10 different countries and three
continents. What is the minimum number of clients you must configure in
the SAP S/4HANA system to depict this scenario?
첸
A. 3
첸
B. 10
첸
C. 1
첸
D. 20
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Practice Questions Chapter 2
2.
What types of objects are maintained separately per client? (There are three
correct answers.)
첸
A. Master data
첸
B. ABAP programs
첸
C. Organizational units
첸
D. Transactional data
첸
E. Function modules
3.
True or False: You can install as many SAP Best Practices packages as needed
in the same client.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
4.
What can you manually select to copy when you copy a company code? (There
are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Controlling area assignment
첸
B. User profiles and roles
첸
C. General ledger account data
첸
D. Company code currency
첸
E. Document splitting rules
5.
What are the three basic steps required to define a new company code? (There
are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Adjust global parameters
첸
B. Copy existing company code
첸
C. Copy existing controlling area
첸
D. Define new segments
첸
E. Adjust basic and address data
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6.
Which of the following assignments can be adjusted for the company code?
(There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Company
첸
B. Fiscal year variant
첸
C. Segment
첸
D. Chart of accounts
첸
E. Leading ledger
7.
True or False: You need to assign the workflow variant to a company code to
be able to perform standard workflow scenarios such as parked document
approvals.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
8.
Which of the following organizational units are part of the enterprise structure of financial accounting? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Functional area
첸
B. Operating concern
첸
C. Business area
첸
D. Plant
첸
E. Segment
9.
Which of the following account assignments can you configure the system to
create complete balance sheet reports for? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Cost center
첸
B. Profit center
첸
C. Segment
첸
D. Company code
첸
E. Profitability segment
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Practice Questions Chapter 2
10. True or False: You assign the operating concern used for profitability analysis
directly to the company code.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
11.
True or False: To integrate financial accounting with Purchasing, you must
assign the purchasing organization to the company code.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
12. What types of chart of accounts are there? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Organizational chart of accounts
첸
B. Country chart of accounts
첸
C. Functional chart of accounts
첸
D. Operational chart of accounts
첸
E. Group chart of accounts
13. Which objects can define the maximum length of a general ledger account?
(There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Chart of accounts
첸
B. Field status group
첸
C. Account type
첸
D. Account group
14. True or False: With the block indicator set on the chart of accounts, you can no
longer perform postings to the company codes assigned.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
15.
Which fields in the company code definition of a general ledger account are
always required? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Sort Key
첸
C. Field Status Group
첸
B. Account Currency
첸
D. Group Account
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16. When creating a general ledger account and there are conflicting field statuses, which field status has the highest priority?
첸
A. Display
첸
B. Optional
첸
C. Suppress
첸
D. Required
17.
What is the secondary cost general ledger account type used for?
첸
A. To post to two cost controlling account assignments at the same time
첸
B. To post activities that aren’t from the main businesses of the company
첸
C. To post internal cost allocations in management accounting
첸
D. To post cost Controlling account assignments statistically for fixed asset
and material accounts
18. True or False: If you maintain a single value for the retained earnings account,
then for any P&L general ledger account you create, the P&L statement
account type is assigned automatically.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
19. What is the relationship between accounts of the operating chart of accounts
and the local chart of accounts?
첸
A. One operating account to many local accounts
첸
B. Many operating accounts to one local account
첸
C. Many operating accounts to many local accounts
첸
D. One operating account to one local account
20. You have to map two accounting principles for accounting. Using the
accounts approach to parallel valuation in SAP S/4HANA, which ledger must
you use?
첸
A. No ledger
첸
C. Extension ledger
첸
B. Leading ledger
첸
D. Special purpose ledger
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Practice Questions Chapter 2
21. True or False: When you create a new standard ledger from scratch, it’s
assigned to all company codes by default.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
22. You indicate that you’re posting to the ledger group of an extension ledger.
How many ledgers are updated?
첸
A. Only the extension ledger
첸
B. The extension ledger and the underlying ledger
첸
C. The leading ledger and the extension ledger
첸
D. It depends on the ledgers grouped in the ledger group
23. True or False: When using the accounts approach to parallel valuation for
mapping to accounting principles, you’ll essentially double the general ledger
accounts in the chart of accounts.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
24. True or False: You can use an extension ledger to depict a separate accounting
principle.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
25. True or False: SAP S/4HANA comes preconfigured with common accounting
principles and corresponding accounting rules and checks assigned.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
26. What is defined with the fiscal year variant? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Open and closed fiscal periods
첸
B. Start and end dates of the calendar year
첸
C. Start and end dates of the fiscal year
첸
D. Number of fiscal periods in a year
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27. How many custom currency types can you assign to a company code/ledger
combination?
첸
A. 6
첸
B. 8
첸
C. 10
첸
D. 12
28. What does the posting key define? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Account type
첸
B. Document type
첸
C. Tax code
첸
D. Debit or credit line
29. What can you control with the tolerance group? (There are three correct
answers.)
첸
A. Maximum amount per open item
첸
B. Maximum amount per document
첸
C. Maximum permitted payment differences
첸
D. Maximum tax amount
첸
E. Maximum exchange rate deviation
30. What do you define for a tax code? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Tax percentage rates
첸
B. Fixed tax amount
첸
C. Tax relevant accounts
첸
D. Valid tax types
31. Which document splitting setting for the segment characteristic will ensure
that no document line will be posted without a segment?
첸
A. Inheritance
첸
C. Mandatory field
첸
B. Zero balance
첸
D. Passive split
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Practice Questions Chapter 2
32. Your company code is assigned to two standard ledgers and one extension
ledger. You post an invoice with one expense line item with a 10% VAT (sales)
tax. How many line items are posted in the document entry view (table BSEG)?
첸
A. 2
첸
B. 3
첸
C. 4
첸
D. 6
33. Your company code is assigned to two standard ledgers and one extension
ledger. You post an invoice with one expense line item with a 10% VAT (sales)
tax. How many line items are updated in the Universal Journal (table ACDOCA)?
첸
A. 2
첸
B. 3
첸
C. 4
첸
D. 6
34. Which date defines the period a document can be posted to?
첸
A. Document date
첸
B. Valuation date
첸
C. Posting date
첸
D. Entry date
35. Which of the following fields can be configured as changeable in a document
header?
첸
A. Document Type
첸
B. Posting Date
첸
C. Document Date
첸
D. Document Reference
36. What fields do you have to enter to make a document reversal? (There are two
correct answers.)
첸
A. Document Type
첸
C. Posting Date
첸
B. Document Date
첸
D. Reversal Reason
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37. True or False: A negative posting reversal debits the credit line items and debits the credit line items of the original document.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
38. True or False: A customer account can be defined as the clearing account for
cross-company code postings.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
39. True or False: Using cost of sales accounting can lead to a different result
(profit/loss amount) at the end of a period compared to period accounting.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answer: C
The key word in the question is minimum. You have to think then if there are
any restrictions for how many company codes, countries, or even continents.
Because there are no restrictions on what kind of organizational units are
mapped on the client, the answer is that you can set everything up in a single
client.
2. Correct answers: A, C, D
If you understand the concept of client-dependent and client-independent
objects, this is an easy one. You can think of examples of objects for each category to find the correct option:
– Organizational unit: Company code is only available in the client created.
– Master data: General ledger account is only available within the chart of
accounts of a specific client.
– Transactional data: General ledger posting is posted to a company code, so
it’s only available on the specific client.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 2
ABAP code, whether programs or function modules, is always client-independent. If you change a program in a specific client, the change affects all the
objects in all clients.
3. Correct answer: A
True. Because each country has at least one SAP Best Practices package, it’s obvious that there has to be a way to support many packages on the same client. In
principle, you can install as many SAP Best Practices packages as desired in a
single client.
4. Correct answers: A, C, D
The three correct options are detailed earlier in this chapter (in the Section section); however, it isn’t always easy to remember so many details. To answer
this, then, you might consider which objects are defined or assigned on the
company code level. For example, this would directly eliminate splitting rules
because all splitting Customizing is on the client level. Users, roles, and so on
aren’t really discussed in the SAP S/4HANA financial accounting SAP Education
courses nor in this book. Remember, all correct answers must be referenced
directly in the financial accounting training materials. The closest we come to
discussing users, roles, and authorizations are the tolerance profiles, and even
those work across company codes.
5. Correct answers: A, B, E
Following are the three steps in the correct order:
– Copy an existing company code, specifically the company code that looks
most like the want you want to create.
– Adjust basic and address data by changing the name and address details of
the new company code.
– Adjust global parameters. All the core settings for the company code need to
be checked, such as the chart of accounts, fiscal year, and so on.
6. Correct answers: A, B, D
You need to be familiar with the core objects and their assignments. The leading ledger is assigned to all company codes because there is only a single leading ledger per client. The segments are defined on the client level and assigned
to profit centers. Yes, profit centers are assigned to company codes, so you
could argue about this (this is an example of an answer that would probably be
rejected in a certification exam).
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7. Correct answer: A
True. This is basically the definition of the workflow variant. The variant itself
is where rules are defined. In the certification, when an answer to a question
seems obvious, it usually is!
8. Correct answers: A, C, E
The functional area is used for cost-of-sales accounting in financial accounting,
the business area depicts a separate business division, and the segment is used
for segment reporting. The operating concern is a management accounting
(profitability analysis) organizational unit, and the plant is the basic logistics
organizational unit.
9. Correct answers: B, C, D
The company code is the default level for balance sheet reports in financial
accounting. The profit center and segment are both definable in document
splitting as splitting characteristics, and thus the system also can be configured
to produce balance sheets at their level. The cost center can only be posted for
P&L accounts that are cost elements, and the same goes for the profitability
segment.
10. Correct answer: B
False. The operating concern is assigned one to many to the controlling area.
The company code is assigned to the operating concern indirectly, through the
assignment of the company code to the controlling area.
11. Correct answer: B
False. When you don’t assign the company code to the purchasing organization, the system uses the plant to derive the correct one.
12. Correct answers: B, D, E
The operational chart of accounts and the country/local chart of accounts are
assigned to the company code. The group chart of accounts is assigned to the
operational chart of accounts. The other two types don’t exist. In the certification exam, the exam writers can’t make up objects that aren’t actually in the
system (they can use objects that exist but aren’t taught in the courses as wrong
selections, though). So this would be another rejected question that wouldn’t
be on a certification exam.
13. Correct answers: A, D
In the definition of the chart of accounts, you define the maximum length of
the accounts. In the account group, you define the number range; the number
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 2
range by default also controls the length of the field. Whichever is shortest
takes priority for the account length definition.
14. Correct answer: B
False. The indicator blocks the accounts in the chart of accounts from being
assigned to a company code. This won’t affect accounts already assigned before
this indicator was set and won’t stop you from posting to the accounts of the
chart of accounts.
15. Correct answers: B, C
The account currency and the field status group always need to be defined to create an account. These can’t be affected by the field status definition of the
account group. The group account is defined on the chart of accounts level, and
it’s indeed a required field when a group chart of accounts is assigned to the operational chart of accounts. The sort key isn’t a required field, but it’s very useful,
and filling it in is very much recommended to help with reporting on line items.
16. Correct answer: C
The Suppress field status has highest priority in this case. The priority in detail
is Suppress, Display, Required, Optional. This is the most common status prioritization in the SAP S/4HANA system.
17. Correct answer: C
You use secondary cost accounts to post transfer postings in Controlling. Among
all secondary cost accounts, the balance is always zero for a company code
because you can only debit a secondary account by crediting a secondary general
ledger account. Secondary cost general ledger accounts are new with SAP S/
4HANA. In the traditional SAP ERP system, you defined secondary cost elements
(the SAP S/4HANA system does this is as well via tables in the background).
18. Correct answer: A
True. You only need to define the retained earnings account manually if you’ve
defined more than one retained earnings account. In this case, however, automatic assignment is no longer possible, and you always have to input the correct type manually.
19. Correct answer: D
In this case, the relationship is one to one. When you assign a local chart of
accounts in the company code, you can only assign a local account to a single
account of the operational chart of accounts.
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20. Correct answer: B
Note the “must” in the question. As was the case from the new general ledger
already, all company codes are at a minimum assigned to the leading ledger.
21. Correct answer: B
False. A new standard ledger won’t be assigned to any company codes until you
manually make the assignment and configure the ledger settings. If you create
the ledger via copying, you can choose to copy the assignments and settings
from the original to the new one.
22. Correct answer: A
The ledger group that contains the extension ledger is generated automatically
when you create the ledger group, and there is no way to assign an extension
ledger to any other ledger group. Thus, when posting to the ledger group of the
extension ledger, you can only update the extension ledger.
23. Correct answer: B
False. You only need to create two sets of accounts for those accounts for which
there can be differences in valuation. This doesn’t mean all accounts need to be
duplicated. In most cases, independent of the valuation approach, the accounting entries can be valuated only in a single way for all accounting principles. For
these, you can have common accounts.
24. Correct answer: A
True. Although you have limitations because you can only perform manual
postings, you can assign an extension ledger group to an accounting principle
and thus have a complete, separate valuation.
25. Correct answer: B
False. Although a SAP Best Practices package or client 000 might indeed have
an accounting principle predefined, the accounting principle object carries no
valuation rules or checks in and of itself.
26. Correct answers: C, D
The open and closed periods are defined per period variant, and the start and end
dates of the calendar year are universally accepted and not defined in the SAP
system.
27. Correct answer: B
An SAP S/4HANA system supports 10 currency types in parallel per company code/
ledger combination, but two of these are always reserved. The company code currency and the global currency (controlling area currency) aren’t changeable. Thus,
you can assign up to eight custom currency types to fill the maximum 10.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 2
28. Correct answers: A, D
This one is straightforward; the posting key tells the system two things:
– What kind of account you’re posting to (general ledger, asset accounting,
accounts payable, accounts receivable)
– If the line is a debit or credit entry (for general ledger postings, 40 means
debit and 50 means credit)
29. Correct answers: A, B, C
The maximum exchange rate deviation is defined in the company code global
settings. The maximum tax amount isn’t a very plausible option here.
30. Correct answers: A, D
In Transaction FTXP, in which you define the tax codes, you define the valid tax
codes per country. Within the tax code definition, you assign the relevant tax
percentage rate to the tax types that are relevant. You define whether an
account is relevant for tax in the general ledger account maintenance on the
company code level.
31. Correct answer: C
The only selection that will absolutely guarantee that no document can ever be
posted without the segment is to set the segment as required. The system will
always raise an error and not post the document if a line is missing the segment
assignment.
32. Correct answer: B
The entry view is the document posted before taking into consideration document splitting and ledger-specific line items. So, it’s a pretty straightforward
calculation:
– One line for the supplier
– One line for the expense
– One line for the tax
Three lines total are posted in the entry view (updated in line item table BSEG).
33. Correct answer: D
The Universal Journal line items (updated in table ACDOCA) depict the document
after taking into consideration document splitting and ledger-specific line
items. Document splitting with one expense line won’t create new line items;
inheritance would add the relevant account assignments (typically profit center and segment) to the tax and supplier line items. The standard ledgers are
both updated with this document posting. The extension ledger values are
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updated: not by posting lines specific to the extension ledger, but through the
underlying ledger the extension ledger is assigned to. So, analytically you will
have:
– One line for the supplier for each standard ledger
– One line for the expense for each standard ledger
– One line for the tax for each standard ledger
Six lines total are posted in the Universal Journal.
34. Correct answer: C
The posting date is the only date that defines the period in which the system
will post the document to. If a period is already closed, you need to select a posting date in an open period. An exception here is defined for the special posting
periods: in case of posting to a special period (period 13, 14, 15, or 16 in a 12-period
fiscal year), you need to choose a posting date in the last period of the fiscal
year.
35. Correct answer: D
Only two fields can be defined as changeable in the document header segment
of a financial accounting document: the document reference and the document header text. The only way to correct any other wrong fields in the header
is to reverse and repost the document.
36. Correct answers: C, D
When you select a single document or multiple documents to reverse, you
must define the posting date for the reversal document and the reversal reason. The reversal document type depends on the original document’s document type. The document date isn’t entered manually and is the same as the
document date of the original document.
37. Correct answer: B
False. This statement describes a normal reversal. With a negative reversal, the
system posts a negative amount on the same debit/credit side as the original
document line items. This ensures the total debit/credit for the account isn’t
affected by the wrong posting.
38. Correct answer: A
True. There is no requirement that the clearing account be a general ledger
account only. You can define a customer or a vendor account to be posted to for
the clearing line items that balance intercompany postings for each company
code. You must define an appropriate posting key as well.
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Summary Chapter 2
39. Correct answer: B
False. Although the grouping of the amounts is different, the financial result is
always the same with either the cost of sales or period accounting methods. The
difference between the two is in the breakdown detail of the costs and revenues.
Takeaway
You’ve gained a good overview of all basic general ledger accounting objects and
configurations in SAP S/4HANA. You saw the basic organizational units that make
up the enterprise structure from the financial accounting perspective, and you
learned about their assignments and basic configurations. The same goes for the
master records such as the general ledger account and the profit center. You
should be familiar with the concept of parallel accounting and the two solutions
proposed by SAP to cover the requirement for multiple valuations. Document
splitting is a fundamental capability in SAP S/4HANA that provides the means for
corporations to report on segments for their legal statements. Finally, you should
understand how the basic transaction processing works for general ledger document posting and management.
If you’re already familiar with new general ledger accounting in SAP ERP, you’ll
have noticed that the differences aren’t groundbreaking. However, there is a lot of
difference in the underlying table architecture, which isn’t a subject in scope for an
associate-level certification. What the end user notices is the difference in the
frontend, where using SAP Fiori applications provides a dynamic and intuitive
environment.
Summary
General ledger accounting is the fundamental building block required for further
financial accounting configuration, and a solid setup here in full alignment to the
customer’s requirements is required for a successful SAP S/4HANA implementation project. You should now understand how common accounting requirements
are covered by the system, as well as how to manage the simple postings in general
ledger accounting.
In the next chapter, we’ll analyze the accounts payable and accounts receivable
master records, functions, and documents.
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Chapter 3
Accounts Payable and
Accounts Receivable
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Manage business partner accounts for customers and suppliers
쐍 Perform basic accounts payable and accounts receivable
transactions
쐍 Run dunning for receivables
쐍 Manage correspondence
쐍 Post to alternative reconciliation accounts
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The focus of this chapter is to explain accounts payable/accounts receivable component processes and configurations in SAP S/4HANA. It discusses the business
partner master record maintenance, accounts payable/accounts receivable invoicing and integration, manual and automatic payments, dunning, and correspondence.
Real-World Scenario
As a financial consultant, often you’ll be required to either configure the
accounts payable and accounts receivable components yourself or manage
the integration of these with the piece of the application you’re working on.
No business exists without customers, and it’s hard to imagine many businesses without any suppliers. The accounts payable/accounts receivable
components are tightly integrated with many components outside the SAP
ERP Financials scope, mainly purchasing and sales and distribution.
In SAP S/4HANA, the customers and suppliers are mapped through the business partner, a central master record that is common for other areas such as
purchasing, sales, human resources, real estate, and many more, including
the industry solution space. You need to understand where Customizing for
the business partner ends and Customizing for the customers and suppliers
begins.
Posting invoices, managing payments, performing dunning, and sending
correspondence are just a few of the transactions performed in the scope of
accounts payable/accounts receivable, and you need to be able to configure
these and guide customers to use them effectively.
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The purpose of this portion of the certification exam is to test your general knowledge of the accounts payable and accounts receivable components. The certification exam expects you to have a good understanding of the following topics:
쐍 Manage business partners
쐍 Manage invoices (customer and supplier)
쐍 Manage payments (customer and supplier)
쐍 Manage automatic payments
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
쐍 Configure and use dunning
쐍 Configure and use correspondence
쐍 Describe integration with Logistics (purchasing and sales)
쐍 Define terms of payment (and payment types)
쐍 Configure and use special general ledger indicators
Note
The accounts payable, accounts receivable topic makes up 20% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
In this chapter, we’ll discuss the business partner as the account assignment
through which you maintain customers and suppliers in SAP S/4HANA. We’ll analyze configuration, the use of terms of payment, and invoice management. We’ll
perform manual and automatic payments and explore the customizing for these
automatic payments. Then, we’ll execute dunning and print correspondence for
business partners. Finally, you’ll learn how to post to customers and suppliers
using alternative reconciliation accounts and review some of the reporting apps
for accounts payable/accounts receivable accounting.
Business Partners
Business partners in the SAP S/4HANA system represent entities with which your
company interacts for business purposes. In SAP S/4HANA, you don’t create customer and supplier master records directly; these are all created through the business partner object with a process called customer/supplier integration. In a new
SAP S/4HANA system based on best practices, the customer/supplier integration
is already configured and works seamlessly. In an SAP ERP system, planned to be
migrated, the consultant takes steps before (mostly) and after the transition to
SAP S/4HANA to prepare the integration with business partners in SAP (if it wasn’t
already used). The required configuration to transition to SAP S/4HANA isn’t in
scope for the application associate certification. It’s enough to understand the
basic settings for a business partner and where you need to configure the business
partner, customer, and supplier.
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Categories
Each business partner you create is assigned to one of three categories, which
define some of the general data fields you maintain (as shown in Figure 3.1):
쐍 Persons (i.e., a private individual)
Maintain a first and last name and add details such as gender and academic title.
쐍 Organizations (e.g., a company)
Enter details such as the name, legal form and entity, and industry.
쐍 Groups (e.g., a married couple)
Enter two names and the group type.
Figure 3.1 Business Partner Customizing Tree
You can’t configure additional business partner categories. After you create a business partner, it’s no longer possible to change the business partner category;
instead, you should create a new master record.
You define the type of business relation your company has with the business partner through the business partner role assignment, as shown in Figure 3.2. The business partner role of general business partner is automatically assigned to every
business partner. Here, you maintain general data such as name, address, contact,
and bank details. You can create a business partner in one or more roles; the general data will be common for all additional roles assigned.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
Figure 3.2 Business Partner Role Definition
Business Partner Roles
Although you can define your own business partner roles, in most cases the ones
delivered should suffice. However, you might want to define your own roles if you
need to manage the required fields or the number ranges assigned to the business
partner differently.
Business partners might have roles added and removed over time; for example,
when you’re still identifying potential suppliers for a product you need, you might
create multiple prospective suppliers to perform evaluations. This would be a custom business partner role, probably with more optional fields given that no actual
invoice document will be posted to the business partner at this stage. When you
select the actual supplier, you can delete the prospective role assignment in the
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business partner master record and create the business partner in the supplier role
and the supplier (financial accounting) role.
Role Grouping
By using the role grouping functionality, you can define which roles are maintained simultaneously (see Figure 3.3). This is used as a job aid to speed up master
data creation. Of course, this also means that a single individual or department
knows how to maintain all the relevant data fields correctly. If the company works
with central master data maintenance, it might make sense to group roles in this
way to make sure, for example, that a customer is always maintained for sales and
distribution as well as financial accounting, or that a supplier is maintained for
materials management in SAP ERP and financial accounting. Central maintenance
like this will mean that the business partner is completely ready to use after the
data is saved. It isn’t uncommon to have customers that the sales department has
“neglected” to maintain, for example. This means the business partner can’t be
used for sales operations.
Figure 3.3 Business Partner Role Groups
The role grouping shouldn’t be confused with the business partner grouping. The
business partner grouping is maintained separately and defines the number
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
assignment for the business partner master record. In addition, the grouping is the
characteristic that is assigned and determines the customer/supplier account
group when creating a customer or supplier. Each account group of the customer
and supplier that is used is assigned to an business partner grouping.
Number Range Definition
The number range for suppliers and customers in an SAP S/4HANA system should
generally be driven by the business partner, as shown in Figure 3.4. In the delivered
SAP Best Practices system, the customers and suppliers inherit the same number
as the business partners for which they are created.
Figure 3.4 Business Partner Groups and Number Range Definition
For the business partner to take the lead in number assignment for customers and
suppliers, the customer/supplier account groups are assigned to number range
intervals with external numbering. The business partner usually has an internal
number range assigned. When created, a number is assigned to the business partner. When the business partner is also assigned the supplier role, for example, the
system will create the supplier master record with the same number (the same
thing happens if the business partner is also extended with the customer role).
This way, the business partner, independent of its role, has a single recognizable
number throughout.
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Tip
Things are more complicated in a system converted (or to be converted) from an SAP ERP
system because suppliers and customers will have completely different and independent
account numbers. Usually the customer and supplier numbers are used for the initial
business partner creation, and the logic is switched when normal operation is resumed.
Information about the configuration of customer and supplier integration isn’t in scope
for the SAP Certified Application Associate—SAP S/4HANA for Financial Accounting Associates exam. However, it is in scope and part of the curriculum for the SAP Certified Application Professional—Financials in SAP S/4HANA for SAP ERP Finance Experts exam.
Business Partner Types
The business partner type is an additional grouping characteristic for the business
partner, as shown in Figure 3.5. The business partner type is connected to a field
status via which you can control the optional and required fields for maintenance.
Figure 3.5 Business Partner Types
For example, you might assign a payment block by default on travel expenses
from employees but not from managers. You make the payment block field a
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
required entry for the employee type so that you don’t forget to maintain it. With
the same types, an additional example is the contact person, for which it might be
required to enter the name and contact details of the assistant for users with the
manager business partner type, but the assistant entry would remain optional for
the employee business partner type.
Business Partner Field Attributes
You can define field selections in four separate levels for business partners (see
Figure 3.6):
쐍 Configure Field Attributes per Client
You define the field status for the business partner generically.
쐍 Configure Field Attributes per BP Role
You define the fields ready for entry for specific roles. This means on a first level
and with the default delivery, all customers share the same field status. This is
the same for all suppliers as well.
쐍 Configure Field Attributes per Activity
You assign different field statuses depending on the activity performed (e.g.,
create or change). This is often used to protect fields from changing after a master record has been created and posted to. The most common example is the
reconciliation account, which is usually set to required status during creation
and set to display-only status in the change activity.
쐍 Configure Field Attributes per Business Partner Type
You define the fields ready for entry for specific business partner types. Business partner types are optional and used only if you need an additional reporting element or a separate field status control level.
Figure 3.6 Business Partner Field Attributes
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The field status priorities for conflicts between these field status levels are the
standard priorities found in most areas of the SAP S/4HANA system (from strongest to weakest):
1. Suppress
2. Display
3. Required
4. Optional
Therefore, if a field is set as required on the client level and left optional elsewhere,
the field will be required.
It’s important to understand how the field statuses interact when the settings conflict for the same field for a business partner with multiple roles (i.e., conflicts
within the role maintenance level). In this case, a field status for a field might be
maintained differently in the different roles assigned. The priorities here are different from the standard priorities (from strongest to weakest):
1. Required
2. Optional
3. Display
4. Suppress
5. Not Specified
From this hierarchy, you can see that if a field is to be suppressed, it isn’t enough
to suppress it in a single role, it must be suppressed (or undefined) in all roles.
Customer and Supplier Account Groups
In the financial accounting component, you create and maintain account groups
for customers and suppliers. These group different customers and suppliers by
various criteria, such as location, size, or affiliation (see Figure 3.7). Here, for example, usually a separate account group is configured for domestic and foreign customers/suppliers. In Europe, you might also see a further categorization for
location such as EU or non-EU. You can define your own account groups in Customizing (and with the following apps: Account Groups Customer and Account
Groups Supplier).
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
Figure 3.7 Customer and Supplier Account Groups
Account Group Details
The following are the basic settings you maintain for the account group, which fall
into three screen areas (see Figure 3.8):
쐍 General Data
You can enter the Name of the account group, enter a Number Range (should be
external and driven by the business partner group), and select whether this is a
One-Time Account.
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Figure 3.8 Account Group Details
쐍 Field Status
The field status in the accounts payable/accounts receivable settings controls
which fields are ready for entry in the business partner maintenance (for the
accounts payable/accounts receivable–specific fields). Because of the overlap in
field status controls, it’s advised to keep these optional (the lowest priority) so
that you drive all field definitions from the business partners, as shown in
Figure 3.9.
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Figure 3.9 Optional Entries for All Fields
쐍 PartnerDetermProced
These partner functions define the business roles a partner plays in the sales
and distribution (for customers) and purchasing (for materials management)
processes. To make it clearer, the following are some examples of partner functions (for suppliers):
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– AZ: Alternative payee
– OA: Ordering address
– VN: Supplier
– CR: Carrier
– CA: Contract address
– GS: Goods supplier
– DP: Delivering site
As mentioned earlier, the business partner is connected to the account group (customer and supplier) through the business partner grouping shown in Figure 3.10.
By selecting the same number, you ensure that the business partner drives the
number assignment for the customer/supplier master record.
Figure 3.10 Business Partner Grouping Connection to Account Group
One-Time Accounts and Normal Accounts
An important categorization that can be made in the accounts receivable/
accounts payable account groups is between one-time and normal accounts. A
one-time account is used to post to customers or suppliers with which you don’t
have and don’t expect to have permanent business relations. For these cases, it
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doesn’t make sense to create a master record because it would be redundant. The
one-time customer or supplier uses a business partner master record without specific general, bank, and tax details. These are entered during posting of the actual
document in a special pop-up, which you can see in Figure 3.11.
Figure 3.11 One-Time Invoice Details
Payment details are specified per document but can also be defaulted in the master record of the one-time account. The separate details of individual one-time
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accounts are stored in the customer and supplier lists. Later, you can report in line
item reports on a one-time account by adding the supplier name.
One potentially important setting that you configure for customers and suppliers
is to define the fields that trigger the dual-control workflow (Figure 3.12). If enabled,
the system will require an approval step to confirm certain changes in the master
records. Payments to the supplier or from the customer are blocked until the
change is confirmed by a user with the authorization to do so.
Figure 3.12 Sensitive Fields Definition
You use the Confirm Customer List (Accounting) and Confirm Supplier List
(Accounting) apps to display the accounts for which approval for changes are
pending.
General Data
When creating the general data of a business partner, the section common for any
and every role assigned, you maintain the basic data, which includes business
partner grouping (also defines the number given) and identification details
(depends on the business partner category). This is shown in Figure 3.13.
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In the Additional Information area of the screen, you can maintain overall blocks
that will apply to all roles for posting (both customers and suppliers), payment,
purchasing (for suppliers), billing, and delivery (for customers).
You can also maintain the corresponding Customer and Alternative Payee fields
for suppliers and the corresponding Supplier and Alternative Payer fields for customers.
Figure 3.13 Supplier Master Data Maintenance: General Data
By selecting the Alternative Payer Allowed in Document/Payee in Document indicator, you can enter an alternative payer/payee (even one not maintained in the system) directly when processing an invoice. You can enter a list of allowed payer/
payees in the master record of the business partner and select the valid one at the
time of document entry.
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When you assign a customer in a supplier master record (or vice versa), you can
choose to show a single balance for the business partner. You can also clear open
amounts from the business partner/customer with open items of the business
partner/supplier. To do this, you set Clearing with Supplier and Clearing with Customer in the company data section of the customer and supplier roles.
You then assign the relevant roles. Figure 3.14 shows some of the most relevant
standard roles for suppliers and customers. You can also see the validity dates of
the assigned roles. A role can be assigned temporarily.
Figure 3.14 Business Partner Roles: Customers, Suppliers
After assigning roles, you enter the Address and Standard Communication details,
as shown in Figure 3.15. These are still on the general business partner role level, so
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the details are common for all roles and maintained once for the business partner.
You can also assign different address details to different time periods (e.g., when a
business partner moves).
The most important communication detail that must be entered by default is the
communication language. Any correspondence performed with the business partner is printed (or generally output) in the language maintained here.
Figure 3.15 Business Partner Address and Communication Details
Other data that you maintain on the general business partner role level includes
bank details (ID, Account Number, Account Holder, and, if valid, the IBAN), as shown
in Figure 3.16.
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Figure 3.16 Bank Details for Supplier/Customer
Finally, in many countries, the tax numbers are important fields because they’re
the unique business partner identifiers and because this information is often
required in reports.
For customers and suppliers, you use the company code details shown in Figure
3.17 (maintained separately per assigned company code) to maintain essential
information for performing transactions in financial accounting, such as the following:
쐍 Reconciliation Account
This is the reconciliation account posted to when you post to the customer or
supplier account. The reconciliation account is a general ledger account that
can only be posted to through a customer or supplier.
쐍 Sort Key
This sort key value is used to populate the Assignment Number field in the line
items of customer/supplier documents, automatically transferring the values
of other fields such as the Document Number, Posting Date, Reference Number,
and more. You can also combine the values from multiple fields.
쐍 Payment Terms
The default payment terms for payment of invoices define the number (if any)
of installment payments and any discount percentages. Discounts are tied to
payment deadline intervals. These are proposed when posting an invoice for
the account.
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Figure 3.17 Supplier Company Code Details
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쐍 Payment Methods
These are the allowed payment methods, such as bank transfers, checks, and so
on.
쐍 Tolerance Group
Leaving this blank assigns the business partner to the default tolerance group
defined.
쐍 Posting Block/Payment Block
With posting blocks, you can’t post any document to the business partner. With
payment blocks, only payments are restricted.
쐍 House Bank
This is the default bank from which you pay or receive payments.
쐍 Business Partner
Entering another business partner in the head office enables the head office/
branch accounting scenario. In certain cases, the branch of a company might
sell goods as an independent entity; however, the accounting for these sales is
performed centrally. With customers, for example, sales orders are posted with
the branch business partner account. The sales and transaction figures, however, are posted to the defined head office account directly. Payments are also
cleared centrally by the head office. Correspondence can be dealt with either
with the branches directly or with the head office (breaking down values per
branch). You select decentralized processing if you want correspondence and
dunning to be handled by the branches.
쐍 Individual Payment
Selecting individual payments ensures the system generates a separate payment document for each invoice.
쐍 Clearing with Customer
This allows the system to perform clearing between supplier and customer
items (when the supplier is connected to a customer and vice versa).
쐍 Correspondence
Correspondence details can also be maintained separately per company code
assignment.
쐍 Withholding Tax Type/Withholding Tax Code
Withholding tax details are also maintained at the company code level.
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The purchasing data for suppliers and sales data for customers are shown for reference purposes in Figure 3.18 and Figure 3.19. In an SAP S/4HANA system, materials
management and sales and distribution details are transferred as characteristic
values on the line items of the accounting document and stored in the Universal
Journal for reporting.
Data such as the purchasing group can be transferred to the financial accounting
document with the account-based CO-PA characteristics.
Figure 3.18 Supplier Purchasing Data
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Figure 3.19 Customer Sales Data
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You can see that payment terms are maintained also in the purchasing/sales
details. This is for liquidity forecasting when posting purchase and sales orders;
these terms have priority over those maintained at the company code level (but
both can be changed manually).
Finally, you can maintain analytical contact details for the business partner. As
shown in Figure 3.20, you can maintain personal data for the contact person, contact details such as phone numbers and email address, and specific address details
such as building, floor, and office.
Figure 3.20 Business Partner Contact Details: Supplier
Payment Terms
The terms of payment can be defined for your transactions with business partners
to determine the dates and amounts due to be paid or received. We will go over
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various types of payment terms, including setting up discounts and installment
payments. We will also discuss payment blocks and payment block reasons, as well
as setting up tolerances for customers and suppliers.
Payment Term Definition
The system comes with various predefined payment terms, but these often don’t
cover the complete requirements of customers. The configuration application for
payment terms offers a lot of flexibility in defining the specific terms valid for
your business transactions.
Figure 3.21 Payment Term Definition
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You define Payment Terms with a four-digit alphanumeric code and the Sales Text
field. You can also use the Own Explanation field to enter an explanation that
replaces the automatically generated Explanations shown at the bottom of Figure
3.21. The following are the important definitions you can make in the configuration screen:
쐍 Day Limit
The day limit defines up to which day in the month the payment term is valid.
When used, this field usually has the value 15, meaning the payment term is
valid to be used for documents with an invoice date up to the 15th of any given
month. Day limits are a key field for payment terms, meaning that you can have
the same four-digit alphanumeric payment term key multiple times with different day limits. In other words, payment term ABCD can have multiple different
rules depending on the invoice date of an invoice.
쐍 Account Type
The account type defines whether a payment term is valid for vendors, customers, or both. The setting is used to avoid making a wrong entry and to simplify
the selection for the end user (fewer selections when they use the search help).
You must maintain at least one account type.
쐍 Baseline Date Calculation
With these entries, you can define a standard baseline date for calculation of the
payment terms. The Fixed Day field defines a specific baseline date in the current month. Entering “20”, for example, would set the baseline date to the 20th
of the invoice month. You can set a month offset to this date by entering a value
in the Additional Months field. Continuing the example, entering “1” in the Additional Months field would set the baseline date to the 20th of the month following the invoice date. A manual entry in the Baseline Date field can override the
proposed date from the calculation.
Tip
If you indicate day “31”, the system automatically corrects the calculation to the last day
of the month for months with fewer than 31 days (including February). If you enter the
“30”, the system will use the 30th day for months with 31 days.
쐍 Pmnt. Block/Pmnt. Method Default
Here you can set a default payment block and payment method to be proposed
by the system when you use the specific terms of payment. For example, you
might want to connect a payment term indicating payment with the payment
method of a check and so on.
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쐍 Default for Baseline Date
You can select to have the system propose a baseline date in a document based
on the following dates:
– No Default
You always have to update the baseline date manually. This can be the case
when the baseline date has no reference to dates entered in the documents
(e.g., you agree to start calculation after a spare part is installed in a machine,
which can be a date different from the delivery date of the spare part).
– Document Date
The system transfers the date entered for the invoice. This is the most common default setting.
– Posting Date
The system proposes a baseline date based on the posting date of the invoice.
– Entry Date
The system proposes the system date at the time of data entry as the baseline
date. The user can’t manually change the entry date but can change the proposed baseline date.
쐍 Payment Terms
This is where you define the actual terms for the payments. You can enter twoday/date-related discount percentages, and payment between the second and
third dates would not have a discount applied. In Figure 3.22, you can see an
example with a discount of 3% for the first 14 days, 2% for payment within 20,
and a final due date 30 days from the baseline date (defaults to the posting date
entered).
Installment Payments
You can also use installment payments; in this case, you would be able to automatically split the open amount into multiple installments with different due dates.
To do this, you define a “base” payment term and a separate payment term for
each installment. To use the installment terms, you assign the base payment term
to master records and the line items of documents posted, and the system automatically sets the due dates in accordance to the rules defined (shown in Figure
3.22).
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Figure 3.22 Installment Payment Configuration
The connection of the “installment” terms to the “base” terms is performed in a
separate Customizing transaction in which you assign each installment payment
term to the base payment term and define the order and the percentage due for
each installment.
In Figure 3.23, you see one of the payment terms for installments; the others generally only differ in the No. of Days. This is the first installment, so later installments will have a progressively larger number of days.
Figure 3.23 Example of Installment Payment Term
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When posting credit memos, if the credit memo has a direct reference to an
invoice, it inherits the same payment terms and due dates as the invoice. If there
is no link to an invoice, the credit memo is due on the baseline date.
Note
You can enter payment terms for a credit memo without a link to an invoice if during
posting you enter “V” in the Reference field in the header details of the credit memo.
Payment Block Reasons
The payment block reasons (called a block key in the payment term definitions) are
used to indicate the reason for blocking a payment (for reporting), but they also
can have the following definitions (see Figure 3.24):
쐍 Change in Pmnt. Prop.
This checkbox allows the processor of the payment proposal to unblock items
so that the payment program can clear them.
쐍 Manual Payments Block
This checkbox allows you to block an item from being cleared with a manual
payment.
Figure 3.24 Payment Block Reasons
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쐍 Not Changeable
This checkbox is only relevant for payment workflow scenarios, in which the
block is removed only through an approval process.
Customer/Supplier Tolerance
As in the general ledger tolerance profile analyzed in the chapter on general ledger
accounting, you can also maintain tolerances for customers and suppliers.
Figure 3.25 Customer/Supplier Tolerance Settings
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A slew of settings is provided again to specify the details (see Figure 3.25), but the
gist is that when a payment difference is within tolerances, the difference is posted
automatically as a cash discount adjustment or an unauthorized deduction. If the
difference is larger than the tolerance, it must be processed manually.
Invoicing
There are three major ways to post invoices in SAP S/4HANA:
쐍 Directly in financial accounting, without integration with other components
쐍 Through Purchasing, integrated with financial accounting
쐍 Through sales and distribution, integrated with financial accounting
In all cases, the entry information is similar, but with the integration, you enter
fewer additional details directly in the financial accounting journal entry because
these come ready from the purchase orders and sales orders. For the financial
accounting journal entry, you first select the company code and then maintain the
following details:
쐍 Document (invoice) date and the posting date
쐍 Amount and currency
쐍 Tax code and whether the tax amount is calculated automatically
쐍 Reference (usually the invoice number)
쐍 Short explanation text
Tip
When using the apps for entering outgoing or incoming invoices, you get information
about the customer or supplier entered directly on the header section of the screen (see
Figure 3.26). You see the most basic address and bank information and can branch
directly to the master record as well. You also can open a report directly for the open
items of the customer/supplier.
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Figure 3.26 Manual Invoice: Financial Accounting
Invoice Payment Details
After filling in the customer/supplier account information and any other fields
marked as required, you can check the Payment details tab (Figure 3.27). Here you’ll
see the chosen payment terms, as well as the calculated baseline and due dates.
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Figure 3.27 Invoice Payment Details
The system will also display the details of the planned discounts according to the
chosen payment method; you can also change these detailed definitions manually
on the line item. You can directly enter a cash discount (CD), the relevant payment
method (Payt. Meth.), payment currency (PmntCurrcy) and amount in said currency (Pmnt./C. Amt.) and your House Bank details. Another potentially important
entry field is the payment block reason (Pmnt. block).
On the invoice entry screen, you have the option to display a side Tree with input
help for your entries. You can select from three types of objects:
쐍 Screen Variants for Items
For the line items of the invoice, you select the relevant expense (or revenue)
accounts, and then you must enter a controlling account assignment. When
entering the line items for the expenses/revenues, there is an overwhelming
number of account assignments and fields to select for entry. Because of this,
you can define screen variants for the displayed fields to help the user make the
choices relevant for the entry (Figure 3.28). There are a few standard variants
delivered by SAP, and you can create your own as well using Transaction SHD0
(Transaction Variant).
쐍 Account Assignment Templates
The account assignment template acts as a “prefilled” document. When you
save a template, all general ledger account line items entered are saved without
the amounts. Templates make sense for recurring expenses without a fixed
periodicity. Account assignment templates are personal by default; however,
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you can also create global templates by starting their name definitions with a
forward slash ("/").
쐍 Held Documents
If, for example, you get distracted by something urgent in your mailbox or you
need to ask someone something about the posting while entering a document,
you can save the document as a held document. This ensures that you won’t
lose the data you’ve entered up to that point. You can retrieve documents to
complete and post them from the Held Documents folder in the Tree. Only the
user that created the held document can see and retrieve the document to continue working on it. Unlike with document parking, a held document doesn’t
receive a document number.
Figure 3.28 Screen Variants
In addition to the options in the Tree, there are other features that can speed up
document entry. You can enter values for the parameter ID in the user maintenance under the Parameters tab. The system defaults the parameter ID when in relevant application screens. The value defined in the parameter ID field works for
many applications and reports. Figure 3.29 shows the “without SAP Fiori” way of
finding and maintaining parameters:
1 Find the field you want to default (e.g., Company Code), and select the (F1) help.
2 In the pop-up screen, select the Technical Details button.
3 In the new pop-up screen, find the Parameter ID field.
4 Go to the user maintenance (Transaction SU01), under the Parameters tab, and
enter the Parameter ID and the Parameter Value you want to default for the
selected user. End users use the Maintain User Profile screen (Transaction SU3)
to enter parameters in the same way, but only for the users they log on as.
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Figure 3.29 Parameter ID Values
With SAP Fiori, it’s much easier to maintain the parameter ID for the end user (in
fact, it’s transparent that the user is maintaining a parameter ID). In the user settings, under Default Values, a list of fields per component is displayed (Figure 3.30).
The user can set a single value here or, where it makes sense, more than one value
as a default (using the Additional Values option). Setting multiple values or ranges
of values makes more sense for reporting.
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Figure 3.30 SAP Fiori Launchpad User Settings: Default Values
Accessing the Accounting Editing Options screen gives the user a lot of control over
many posting parameters for document entry and document display. There are
too many detailed options to go over, but you can see the available selection in
Figure 3.31.
Tip
It helps to visualize screens during the exam; however, you’re generally not expected to
remember screens and fields. Understanding the options available and how to use them
is the expectation.
The standard screen for posting purchasing invoice verifications is like the screen
for posting ingoing/outgoing invoices (Figure 3.32). When building the line items,
you enter the purchase order (PO) reference, and here you can, for example, reference a PO. When you reference a document, the line items are transferred with the
relevant account assignments. You can confirm the entries as they are from the PO
if correct or change them to match the actual invoice if there are differences.
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Figure 3.31 Accounting Editing Options
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Figure 3.32 Integrated Invoice Posting: Purchasing
A billing document can be an order-related invoice, delivery-related invoice, credit
memo, or one of many other types (see Figure 3.33). A billing document is open
until it’s posted to financial accounting. Many of the sales and distribution field
values are transferred to the Universal Journal through accounting-based standard profitability analysis (CO-PA) characteristics. These values can then be analyzed in financial accounting and Controlling reporting.
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Figure 3.33 Billing Document and Generated Accounting Documents
Manual Payments
Broadly speaking, posting a manual incoming payment clears customer open
items, and posting a manual outgoing payment clears supplier open items. This is
reversed for clearing credit/debit memos.
On the screen for posting payments (there is little difference between incoming/
outgoing), you enter the following data (Figure 3.34):
쐍 General Information
In this area, you enter the company code, posting date, document date, value
date (the date on which the payment is actualized), and reference.
쐍 Bank Data
In this area, you enter the bank general ledger account, house bank ID and
account, amount and currency, any transaction fees, and an assignment (usually filled automatically by the relevant sort key).
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쐍 Open Item Selection
In this area, you enter the supplier or customer who is making or receiving the
payment and select Show Items to get a list of open items posted.
Figure 3.34 Manual Payment: Outgoing Payment
In the Open Items list, when you select the relevant open items (invoices, debit or
credit memos, unassigned payments) to clear, the items are transferred to the
Items to Be Cleared list. Here the discount per item is proposed per the payment
method due dates/discounts. You can also change the proposed discount in accordance with tolerances assigned to the user and customer/supplier. When the Balance of the document (displayed at the top right of the screen) is zero, you can
then simulate the entry to check all the proposed line items. Once confirmed, you
can post the document. The open items are cleared, and the payment document is
assigned as the clearing document in the cleared line items.
Posting on Account
You can select to post on a customer/supplier account when you post a payment
to a customer or supplier account without reference to a specific item (see Figure
3.35). This is used when clearing isn’t possible at the time of entry. When clarified,
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you usually match the payment with the relevant open items. This option can be
used when a payment difference is too large to manage in other ways.
Figure 3.35 Posting on Account
When payment differences do arise, and they are outside your assigned tolerance
limits (or you don’t want to post the difference as a loss), you can select to post a
partial payment or handle the difference with a residual item or even with a separate payment difference posting. You can enter (customizable) reason codes to
indicate the reason for the difference.
A partial payment doesn’t clear the open item; both the open item and the payment remain as open items on the account and are connected through the reference to the invoice. When a third item is received, or sent, you then clear the three
items among themselves (e.g., open item and two payments, or invoice item, payment, and credit/debit memo).
With the residual item, the system clears the payment and the open item and generates a new open item from the difference. Both the payment and the original
open item are cleared. The new open item is posted under a new document that
references the original document. The new item can inherit the payment terms of
the original item or be assigned different ones.
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Finally, you can handle the difference manually by posting, for example, to a separate general ledger account or posting on account. You can also write the difference off as unrecoverable through manual posting to a loss (or gain) account.
Foreign Currency
Another type of payment difference can occur from currency exchange differences. The exchange rate at the time of invoicing for invoices in foreign currency
can be different from the exchange rate at the time of payment. The payment is
made with the correct foreign currency amount; however, you have a loss or gain
from the currency fluctuation.
In Customizing, you assign a revenue or expense from the foreign currency valuation account to the reconciliation accounts (and any general ledger accounts) that
have transactions in foreign currencies. The definition is per reconciliation or general ledger account and can be valid for the following:
쐍 All currencies and currency types
쐍 Specific currencies
쐍 Specific currency types
쐍 Specific combinations of currencies and currency types
The system handles all such differences for all currencies and currency types automatically, posting the realized profit/loss to the relevant accounts if all Customizing settings are maintained.
Automatic Payments
The automatic payment program in SAP S/4HANA is designed to manage outgoing (and incoming) mass payment transactions. It’s fully customizable to adapt to
the specific needs of each implementation in any country. You can make domestic
payments, foreign payments, and intercompany payments; clear down payments
and open items between customers and suppliers; and more.
The automatic payment program first generates a payment proposal based on the
parameters you set. You can modify the payment proposal (e.g., manually block or
unblock items for payment) as required and then process the payment. Depending
on the payments made and the payment methods used, the system will print
checks and prepare electronic bank transfer files or lists of payments for manual
execution.
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Tip
The academy and certification focus on The automatic payment program’s Customizing,
outgoing payment proposal and run, and the payment medium file export. Other functions aren’t analyzed in much detail. In addition, although the European Union’s Single
Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an interesting subject, it’s out of scope for the certification
and won’t be analyzed in this guide.
Customizing the Payment Program
Most Customizing required for the automatic payment program (see Figure 3.36),
outside the configuration of invoice posting and business partner master records,
is performed through Transaction FBZP (though the Customizing transactions
also can be found separately in the SAP IMG tree).
Figure 3.36 Customizing the Payment Program (Transaction FBZP)
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Note
The House Banks button and link in Figure 3.36 is no longer valid with SAP S/4HANA. It
leads to the old Transaction FI12, which has been replaced with the new bank account
management applications that work in SAP Fiori and Web Dynpro.
Company Codes
The first Customizing settings you must define are some basic specifications for
any company codes involved in payment transactions, as shown in Figure 3.37:
쐍 Sending Company Code
This is the company code that interacts with the business partner. It’s usually
the company code for which you’re making the definition. If left empty, the Paying Company Code is defaulted also as the Sending Company Code.
쐍 Paying Company Code
Here you enter the company code that participates in the payment transactions. This can be the same as the company code for which you’re making the
definition or another company code when, for example, payments are processed centrally. Both the sending and paying company code play a role in the
grouping of the payment transactions, and a separate payment document will
be processed when any of these are different. Items can be grouped into one
payment for company codes with the same paying company code and the same
sending company code.
쐍 Separate Payment per Business Area
If business areas are used, the system can be made to produce a separate payment document for each business area.
쐍 Pyt. Meth. Suppl.
These payment method supplements act as an additional characteristic to split
the payment documents. You create the two-digit keys and assign them in customer and supplier master records. These are then copied to the document as
well, where you can change the proposed value coming from the master record.
쐍 Tolerances Days for Payable
This parameter allows you to specify a grace period in the form of the number
of days by which the cash discount period and the period for the net payment
may be exceeded (to perform a delayed payment).
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쐍 Outgoing Pmnt. with Cash Disc. From
You enter the minimum percentage rate for which the system will post a payment early to receive a discount. Discount percentages lower than this rate are
ignored, and payment is executed at the due date for net payment.
쐍 Max. Cash Discount
When checked, the maximum cash discount is always used when paying supplier invoices even if the payment is made after the predefined period.
Figure 3.37 Company Code Payment Settings
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쐍 Sp. G/L Transactions to Be Paid/Sp. G/L Trans. for Exception List
You can set the special general ledger transactions for customers and suppliers
that you want to include or exclude from the payment run.
Customization
For each company code that has been defined as a paying company code, you can
define the following details (Figure 3.38):
쐍 Minimum Amount for Incoming/Outgoing Payment
Any payments below the amount threshold you define here aren’t made.
쐍 No Exchange Rate Differences/No Exch. Rate Diffs. (Part Payments)
This checkbox determines whether the program will calculate and post
exchange rate differences.
Figure 3.38 Paying Company Code Settings
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쐍 Separate Payment for Each Ref.
This checkbox determines whether the program will perform a separate payment for each document reference. Clearing between customer/supplier items
isn’t performed in this case (unless the reference is the same).
쐍 Bill/Exch. Pymt.
This checkbox determines whether the program is to process bills of exchange.
쐍 Direct Debit Prenotifications
This checkbox determines whether to print direct debit prenotifications to
inform the payer of a coming direct debit before the collection date.
쐍 Forms
You can define a SAP script or a PDF-based default form for the payment advice
note and the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) accompanying sheet. You also
define some standard texts (e.g., address details) that are to be used in the
forms.
Payment methods have separate configurations on the country level and on the
company code level because a company code might not make use of all payment
methods defined for the relative country.
Country Level
On the country level, you define first which payment methods are valid (e.g., SEPA
direct debit is valid for European countries, so you would define it only for those).
A payment method (Pymt. Meth.) is represented by a single-digit alphanumeric
key and a short Description (Figure 3.39).
You define the following by payment method and country:
쐍 Payment method for
In this area, you determine whether the payment is used for incoming or outgoing payments.
쐍 Payment method classification
In this area, you control which other control keys you can define (e.g., if it’s an
allowed payment to perform employee payments).
쐍 Required master record specifications
In this area, you might need to maintain additional data on the business partner if required per the payment method definition.
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Figure 3.39 Payment Method: Country Settings
쐍 Posting Details
In this area, you define how the posting is handled for the payment method
you’re defining:
– Document Type for Payment
You specify the document type the system will use to post the document
with the payment program.
– Clearing Document Type
You specify the document type to be used by the system to post cross-company code payments.
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– Payment Order Only
If selected, the system doesn’t post a payment document, so no clearing is
performed. Instead, a payment order is generated with information that will
be used later to clear the open items.
쐍 Payment Medium
The payment medium format that defines the form of the data media exchange
(DME).
Note
In SAP S/4HANA, only the payment medium workbench (PMW) can be used for DME files.
The RFFO* reports are obsolete.
쐍 Currencies Allowed
The currencies allowed to be used for posting with the payment method. Leave
this definition empty if you don’t want to restrict it.
For each company code, you select which payment methods are valid from the
ones defined on the country level. For each one used, you define the following
(Figure 3.40):
쐍 Amount Limits
You define a Minimum Amount and Maximum Amount allowed for the payment
method. When the amount is to be payed is outside the defined limits, the payment method isn’t used. If you manually enter the payment method in a line
item, the limits are ignored, and the payment method is used. As an example, if
you’ve set the maximum amount for checks to $10,000 USD, and there is an
open item of $11,000 USD, the payment program won’t select the item for payment for this payment method.
Note
The distribution amount (Distribution Amnt.) tells the payment program to group payments so that they don’t exceed the set distribution amount. This only works if the system can make payments below the set amount for all payment groupings. As an
example, say that you set a distribution limit of $15,000 USD, you have two open items to
pay of $17,000 and $16,000 USD, and you have two credit memos for $2,500 and $3,000
USD. In this case, the system makes two payments of $14,000 and $13,000 USD ($17,000
USD – $3,000 USD and $16,000 USD – $2,500 USD, respectively). If you had a single credit
memo of $5,500 USD instead of the two separate ones, the system would not split the
credit amount. In this case, the payment method isn’t selected, and the system would use
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either a different payment method or place the items in the payment exception list, if no
valid payment method could be assigned automatically. The distribution amount check is
made even if you’ve set the payment method manually for the open item.
쐍 Foreign Payments/Foreign Currency Payments
You define whether the payment method can be used to pay foreign business
partners and whether a foreign currency can be used for payment (among the
currencies defined on the country level of the payment method).
In addition, you define whether transfer to a bank abroad is allowed. If not, the
payment method isn’t applicable unless the business partner maintains a bank
account in the country of the paying company code.
쐍 Grouping of items
The system can group payments of items according to the following criteria:
– Single Payment for Marked Item
All items for which the specific payment method is entered explicitly are
paid individually with separate documents.
– Payment per Due Day
A separate payment is made per due day defined by the payment terms for
the item.
– Extended Individual Payment
Each open item is paid with a separate document. An exception is made for
credit memos that reference the invoice; in this case, the payment is consolidated. This setting is incompatible with the distribution amount limit.
쐍 Bank Selection Control
The system can be set to optimize the payments:
– Optimize by Bank Group
The system selects the optimal pair of banks (you configure bank grouping
separately in the bank master). This can be used to avoid transfer charges, for
example.
– Optimize by Postal Code
This prioritizes the house bank that is geographically nearest to the address
of the business partner. This might make sense if you print and send checks
by mail, for example.
쐍 Form Data
You define the name of the issuer printed on the form or output in the payment
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medium and how the correspondence in payment transactions (payment
advice notes, checks, bills of exchange) is sorted.
쐍 Pyt. Adv. Ctrl.
You define the number of lines printed in the form for the note to payee and
when to print a payment advice note (not shown in Figure 3.40).
Figure 3.40 Payment Method: Company Code Settings
This concludes the configuration of the payment media for company codes. We’ll
very briefly go over the PMW and form definition, as these are advanced subjects
and not in scope in any real detail for the certification.
Payment Medium Workbench
The PMW is a tool to define and create DME formats. These can be used directly
during the payment run. The formats are usually defined in the data medium
exchange engine (DMEE).
SAP delivers many common standard payment formats for countries. These can
be copied and changed in Customizing through the DMEE without requiring any
technical skills. You change the payment format using an application, as shown in
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Figure 3.41, which shows the XML structure of the SEPA Credit Transfer form on the
left. The PMW also handles payment advice notes centrally and the definition of
notes to payees.
Figure 3.41 DMEE Tree Definition for SEPA Credit Transfer
When you execute the payment run for the payment program, the generic payment medium program is triggered to create the payment media using the definitions for the form as maintained in the DMEE Customizing.
After completing the configurations for the payment methods, you define how
the system selects the bank from which to perform payments through the automatic payment program. Figure 3.42 shows in the left hierarchy the individual
steps that are configured.
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Figure 3.42 Bank Selection for Payment Program
The configuration involves the following screens and settings:
쐍 Ranking Order
You define the order in which the house banks are to be considered for payment
(Figure 3.43). The definition is per paying company code. You rank the banks per
payment method and currency. You can leave either or both the payment
method (PM) and currency (Crcy.) blank to make a more generic ranking for the
banks.
쐍 Bank Accounts
You define the bank account ID and bank subaccount that is posted for each
house bank, payment method, and currency combination (Figure 3.44). You can
leave the Currency field blank, but the House Bank, Payment Method, Account ID,
and Bank Subaccount are required.
쐍 Available Amounts
You can manually set the amount available in the bank accounts for payment
(Figure 3.45). The payment program won’t use the house bank if there aren’t
enough funds available here.
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Figure 3.43 Define Ranking Order
Figure 3.44 Bank Account Definition
Figure 3.45 Available Amount Definitions
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쐍 Value Date
The value date is calculated as the day of the payment run plus the days to value
(Figure 3.46). Most transactions take at least a day to be processed, depending
on the payment method. Cash management in SAP S/4HANA uses the value
date for cash flow reporting and liquidity forecasts.
Figure 3.46 Value Date Definition
쐍 Expenses/Charges
When posting incoming and outgoing payments, bank charges can be entered
for any expenses relevant to the payments made or received. Figure 3.47 shows
how you can connect amounts charged to the amount of the payment for printing on the payment form. The system doesn’t post the amount defined here;
that’s done manually in a separate process.
Figure 3.47 Charges Definition
After customizing the bank determination, that concludes all Customizing for
automatic payments. We’ll now go over the steps of performing an automatic payment run up to and including creating the payment media.
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Automatic Payment Run
When setting up a new payment run, you enter the Run Date and Identification
(Figure 3.48). These fields act as a key for identifying the specific payment run.
Figure 3.48 Payment Run Parameter Identification
Payment Selection Parameters
Based on the parameters you define, the system chooses which open items to evaluate for payment. You enter the following data to set the parameters (Figure 3.49):
쐍 Company Code
Each run can be executed for multiple company codes belonging to the same
country (enter one after the other separated by a comma).
쐍 Payment Method
You define which payment methods can be used in the run. If you’ve set a
method in an open item that isn’t included, the open item is ignored. You can
enter multiple payment methods per run.
쐍 Posting Date
This is the date on which the system will post the payments. Often you can align
the run date with the posting date, but there is no requirement to do so.
쐍 Docs Entered up To
You set the cutoff date for documents to be evaluated for payment. Invoices
with a posting date later than this date are ignored.
쐍 Customer Items Due By
You can set the due date up to which customer items are to be evaluated. You
set the date by which an open customer item must be due for it to be included
in the payment run. If you leave the field blank, the system takes the payment
run posting date as the due date limit. If you want items that aren’t due until
after the posting date to be paid, enter a later date in this field.
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Figure 3.49 Payment Selection Parameters
쐍 Next Payment Date
You enter the date for which you’ll execute the next payment run. The system
will evaluate open items and pay items that would be overdue if you waited for
the next payment run or to take advantage of discounts offered for early payment.
쐍 Exchange Rate Type
You can enter a specific exchange rate type with which you would like to calculate the currency translations.
쐍 Supplier/Customer
You define which suppliers and customers you want the payment run to evaluate for payment.
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쐍 Free Selection
You can flexibly choose values for fields from the entered documents or master
records that you want to use to select specific line items for payment. You can
use a field as a criterion for including or excluding the items from the list. You
could, for example, evaluate only items, customers, and suppliers that have no
payment block.
쐍 Additional Log
This option provides more detailed logs for the item selection.
Review
After entering the selection parameters, you can schedule the payment proposal
run. You can also execute it immediately. Depending on the number of items to
evaluate, the system processes the proposals and provides the payment proposal
for evaluation and revision.
When reviewing the proposal, you receive a list of items that will be paid and a list
of exceptions (Figure 3.50). The system selects and groups the items into payments per the Customizing settings and the parameters you set.
Figure 3.50 Revise Payment Proposal
Depending on the configurations you’ve made, the system will create documents
for the items that will have less of a discount (or no discount) on the proposed next
payment run date or that will be past due on the proposed next payment run date.
The system will put items in the Exceptions list for various reasons, and for each
item you’ll receive a message detailing those reasons. The following are a few
examples of messages you might receive:
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쐍 Item is blocked for payment.
쐍 Account is blocked for payment.
쐍 Unconfirmed change to master record.
쐍 Alternative payee is blocked for payment.
쐍 Unconfirmed change to payee master record.
쐍 No valid payment method found.
쐍 Payment method in the document should not be considered in this run.
쐍 Payment methods for this run are not specified in master record or in item.
쐍 Minimum amount for payment has not been reached.
Some of the causes for having items placed in the Exceptions list can be eliminated
directly from the screen for revising the payment proposal (Figure 3.51). You can
enter payment methods manually for items for which the method wasn’t determined, and you can do the same for bank details. You can also unblock items for
payment, depending on the blocking reason code of the item.
Figure 3.51 Review Payments
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Documents that are in the payment run are blocked from being modified (outside
the screens of the payment program) to avoid any inconsistencies. You also can’t
post manually to any of the items in the Payments list at this point. If you need to
change an invoice line item or perform a manual payment, you can delete the payment proposal, perform your changes, and re-execute the payment proposal.
When you have a final proposal that you’re happy with, you schedule the payment
run.
Payment Run
The system will post the proposed payment documents and clear the relevant
open items. The postings will include all relevant foreign currency gains/losses,
tax and withholding tax amounts, and discount amounts. The payment is made
against the defined bank subaccount. The usual process is for the subaccount to be
cleared with the main bank account upon receipt of the bank statement.
Note
In countries where you must receive a bank statement confirming payment before posting a payment, you can select the Payment Order Only checkbox in the payment methods definitions of the relevant country.
The payment document generated is just like the document of a manual payment
with some special characteristics:
쐍 The run date and identification are written on the header text of the document.
쐍 If the system can determine a value date from the payment method and bank
definitions, it uses this date. If not, the system uses the posting date as the value
date.
You can use the automatic scheduling application for the payment run to automate the payment run process. You enter the same parameters as are available in
Transaction F110. After you’ve entered the parameters, you can save a variant for
the report and use the variant to schedule the program to run in the background.
You can create periodic runs if you use identical parameters.
You can view the output of the payment program using the Revise Payment Proposal app if you selected the Proposal Run checkbox (see Figure 3.52).
If the checkbox isn’t selected, the payment run will be performed (with the option
to also print the payment media). You can view the results of the payment run in
the Manage Automatic Payments app, in the Summary tab (Figure 3.53).
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Figure 3.52 Schedule Payment Runs
Figure 3.53 Manage Automatic Payments: Payment Run Review
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Payment Media Creation
The relevant payment media can be generated at the same time the payment run
is performed, or you can generate these in a second step after the payments are
made. In this case, you select the payment run by entering the Run Date and Identification and then selecting the Payment Medium Format (Figure 3.54).
Figure 3.54 Payment Medium Creation
Figure 3.55 shows partial output from the XML file generated for a SEPA payment
that uses a form provided with the system.
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Figure 3.55 Payment Medium XML Form Example
Dunning
The dunning process is used to remind customers (and sometimes suppliers that
have a debit balance) to pay overdue open items. The reminders sent out can
become progressively stricter and carry a late payment penalty as well. Dunning
with SAP S/4HANA is a rule-based automated process you control through the
dunning configuration and execution applications.
Basic configuration for dunning includes three steps (see Figure 3.56):
1. Define Dunning Areas
2. Define Dunning Keys
3. Define Dunning Block Reasons
Figure 3.56 Basic Settings Configuration
Define Dunning Areas
Dunning areas are used to subdivide a company into more areas responsible for
dunning (Figure 3.57). These are optional, and if you don’t define them, the system
essentially uses the company code as the single dunning area.
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Figure 3.57 Configure Dunning Areas
Define Dunning Keys
Dunning keys can be assigned to line items for two basic reasons (Figure 3.58):
쐍 To restrict the dunning level of an item so that the item will be dunned up to the
level indicated here
쐍 To output an item separately in the dunning notice
Figure 3.58 Define Dunning Key
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Define Dunning Block Reason
Items blocked for dunning aren’t considered for dunning when you execute a
dunning run. You define various dunning block reasons (the ones in Figure 3.59
are delivered with the system/best practices) to classify the item blocks and use
them as filtering characteristics in reports.
Figure 3.59 Define Dunning Block Reasons
Dunning Procedures
The dunning procedure is the main Customizing object for dunning (Figure 3.60).
It’s maintained at the client level and assigned to partners.
Figure 3.60 List of Dunning Procedures
SAP provides standard dunning procedures predefined through best practices.
Additional procedures can be created in Customizing freely. These are represented
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by a four-digit alphanumeric code. In the overview maintenance for a dunning
procedure, you enter a description and then maintain the following settings
(Figure 3.61):
쐍 Dunning Interval in Days
You enter how often dunning is to be performed for a business partner. If you
run dunning weekly, and this value is set to 14 (days), the items of the partner
will be analyzed every second run.
쐍 Number of Dunning Levels
Dunning levels are used to progressively apply stricter warnings and penalties
to the dunning letters sent to the partners. With this entry, you define how
many levels are to be applied.
쐍 Total Due Items from Dunning Level
This field defines the dunning level from which all the due items of the business
partner account are totaled, regardless of days over due date.
쐍 Min. Days in Arrears (Acct.)
This setting defines how many days overdue at least one open item must be
before dunning is performed for the partner.
쐍 Line Item Grace Periods
This setting defines how many days of grace are given to each line item before
being dunned. An item overdue two days with a grace period of three days
won’t be picked up by dunning. Note however that this setting doesn’t affect the
total number of days an item is in arrears, and it’s the number of days in arrears
that counts for calculating the dunning level.
쐍 Interest Indicator
This is assigned for dunning procedures for which you want to calculate interest. The indicator assigned here controls the way interest is calculated—for
example, whether it’s per item individually or an overall overdue amount. By
default, the value entered for the Interest Indicator is defaulted from the dunning procedure if the interest calculator isn’t maintained directly in the master
record of the business partner. You can use the Ignore Interest Ind. in Master
Record checkbox to change the default behavior.
쐍 Public Hol.Cal.ID
You assign the public holiday calendar to take public holidays into consideration for requesting payment.
쐍 Standard Transaction Dunning/Dun. Special G/L Transactions
You select whether the procedure is valid for standard line items, for special
general ledger line items, or for both.
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쐍 Dunning Even for Credit Account Balance
By default, if the partner maintains a credit balance, no dunning is performed
(even if some open items are overdue). This indicator overrides the default
behavior.
쐍 Reference Data
You can have the dunning procedure reference another procedure to use the
same dunning text definition without separate maintenance.
Figure 3.61 Maintain Dunning Procedure
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Dunning Level Maintenance
After maintaining the basic data, you maintain details for the dunning levels, dunning charges, dunning texts, and dunning special general ledger indicators (Figure
3.62).
Figure 3.62 Dunning Level Maintenance
For each dunning level, you define the following:
쐍 Days in Arrears
The number of days past due until the partner is assigned to a dunning level.
The system proposes values for the first level according to the grace period
maintained and adds the dunning interval days to define each next level. You
can also manually change days per level.
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쐍 Calculate Interest?
This indicates whether interest on the due amount is to be calculated and
charged.
쐍 Always Dun?
This indicates that a dunning letter is sent out for each dunning run (in accordance to the dunning interval) even if there were no changes in the dunning
levels of the line items or any additional items need to be added to the dunning
letter.
쐍 Print All Items
All open items are printed in the dunning letter to the customer (meaning those
not yet overdue as well). This gives the customer a view of the complete open
balance in detail.
쐍 Payment Deadline
The days you enter here are added to the issue date of the dunning run and create the payment deadline.
Dunning Text Maintenance
In the maintenance for dunning text, you assign a form for each level of the dunning procedure (Figure 3.63). The editing/creation of forms in accordance with customer standards is a job that a technical consultant takes over.
The form assigned defines the wording and formatting of the dunning letter you
send to your customers and suppliers per dunning level. Figure 3.64 shows an
example of the form output for the 3rd dunning letter (with interest) as delivered
by SAP.
Figure 3.63 Dunning Text Maintenance
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Figure 3.64 Dunning Letter Template Printout Preview
Dunning Charges
Dunning charges are defined per currency. You enter the relevant charge either as
a fixed amount or as a percentage rate. To calculate the charge when using percentage rates, the percentage rate is multiplied by the total of all overdue items in
a dunning notice.
Optionally, for each dunning level, you can set multiple charges depending on the
minimum overdue amount (Figure 3.65). For example, you can set that for values
up to €1,000 EUR you charge a fixed €10 EUR, and for values above that, you
charge 1%.
Figure 3.65 Dunning Charges
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You can set a minimum overdue amount for changing a dunning level (Figure
3.66). The configuration is per currency. In addition to setting an absolute amount,
you can also define the minimum to depend on a percentage of the total open
items of the business partner per dunning area. This is useful, for example,
because you might generally consider €1,000 EUR a reasonable minimum
amount for the fourth dunning level, but if you have customers that have
€1,000,000 EUR in open items, you probably don’t want to send aggressive letters
for what is proportionally a small amount. By selecting the NoRed. checkbox (no
reduction), the system will leave a partner in the higher level even if the minimum
amount is no longer reached. Finally, as an additional specification, you can set a
separate minimum amount for calculating charges based on percentages.
Figure 3.66 Dunning Procedure Minimum Amounts
Special General Ledger Indicators
You define which specific special general ledger indicators are valid for the dunning procedure by selecting them out of the complete list of indicators available
(Figure 3.67).
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Figure 3.67 Special General Ledger Indicators Valid for Dunning
Company Code Settings
In the Environment section of the dunning procedure definition, you maintain the
dunning settings per company code (Figure 3.68):
쐍 By Dun.Ar. (dunning by dunning area)
Selecting this checkbox makes the system post dunning notices separately for
each dunning area, instead of for each company code.
쐍 By Dun.Lev. (separate dunning notice for each dunning level)
You can also indicate that separate notices should be printed for the partners
per the dunning level. In this way, a single business partner could receive more
than one dunning notice.
쐍 Ref.Co.Code. (reference company code)
By using this field, the assignment of forms is derived from the entered company code. This is useful for company codes with forms that share the same layout.
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쐍 Dun Co.Cd. (dunning company code)
You can enter a different company code for dunning, allowing for central dunning letter processing. In this way, a business partner that does business with
multiple company codes will receive a single dunning notice. The dunning frequency and dunning block definition are maintained on the individual company codes.
Figure 3.68 Company Code Dunning Definitions
In addition to the company code definitions, you can enter sender details for the
dunning notices (sometimes driven by legal requirements), such as address, tax
number, and bank details. You can also add a company logo graphic.
Dunning Groupings
The final (optional) setting for dunning concerns dunning groupings; here, you
define a two-digit code and description together with up to two document fields
for grouping. The system will group dunning notices that share the same values in
the fields defined. You can select whether the grouping is valid for suppliers, customers, or both.
An example use case for grouping is to group all items that refer to the same sales
order. Another example is to group dunning notices for specific projects through
the WBS element, as in the example in Figure 3.69.
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Figure 3.69 Dunning Grouping Key Definition
Dunning Details
Dunning details are entered in the business partner master record. You maintain
fields such as the Dunning Procedure, Dunning Level, and Grouping Key, as shown in
Figure 3.70.
Figure 3.70 Dunning Details in Business Partner
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You also can enter the dunning key (Dunn. Key) or a dunning block reason
(Dunn.Block) directly on the document business partner line item (Figure 3.71).
Figure 3.71 Dunning Details on Business Partner Line Item
Dunning Run
You complete a dunning run by executing the following steps:
1. Enter selection parameters for open items to be evaluated. You enter the following fields (Figure 3.72):
– Run On
The date of the dunning run.
– Identification
A key to identify the specific run (in conjunction with the date).
– Dunning Date
The date of dunning, which will be printed on the dunning notices and form
the basis for calculating days in arrears.
– Docmnts Posted up To
The system uses this date as a cutoff for selecting items. The system will evaluate the document dates of the documents.
– Company Code
The company code(s) for which you are executing dunning.
– Customers/Vendors
Account ranges for customers and vendors.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
2. Schedule the dunning run. The system will evaluate all the relevant items and
provide a dunning proposal.
3. Modify the dunning proposal. The accounts receivable accountants will evaluate the proposed list of dunning notices, the levels assigned to each item, and so
on. You can execute the proposal run again after deleting the initial proposal.
4. Print and send the dunning notices. The system groups the notices as configured.
Figure 3.72 Dunning Parameters for Dunning Run
Correspondence
The correspondence functionality in SAP S/4HANA provides standard ways of
communicating various information with suppliers and customers. You can use
correspondence ad hoc to send information, or you can set up scheduled periodic
jobs to provide standardized communication.
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Correspondence Types
The basic Customizing object for correspondence is the correspondence type. The
correspondence type defines what’s communicated to your business partners. The
system comes with many preconfigured correspondence types such as payment
notice, account statement, open items list, and so on.
Correspondence types are valid cross-client. When defining a correspondence
type, you enter a five-digit code and the description. You can also select the following settings (Figure 3.73):
쐍 Acct Required
Indicates that you must enter a specific account as a parameter to print the correspondence.
쐍 Doc.Necessary
Indicates that you must enter a specific document number to print the correspondence.
쐍 Individual Text
Indicates that you must select the language in which to print.
쐍 Cross-Comp.Code
Indicates that the correspondence type can be used across company codes.
쐍 Date details
You can define up to two custom dates to be entered. If selected, you also name
them appropriately.
For each correspondence type, you define the print program and variant to enter
(Figure 3.74). The system comes with default assignments and standard forms for
each delivered payment method. You can select different combinations of programs and variants per company code or use the same for all. Each variant is
assigned a form. Forms are customizable, which is a job performed by technical
consultants.
Many fields in the business partner master are used to create correspondence such
as address, tax, and bank details. The accounting details, payment definitions, correspondence, and withholding tax details are used per company code.
You can assign a default correspondence type to the tolerance group. Maintaining
the tolerance group for a business partner makes the correspondence type the
default type for the partner.
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Figure 3.73 Details for Correspondence Type
Figure 3.74 Print Program for Correspondence
Payment Differences
When you have payment differences in line items, you can assign reason codes
(Figure 3.75). Reason codes also can be assigned to default correspondence types. If
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they aren’t, you can define the correspondence type manually. When entering a
partial payment with a residual item, for example, you can assign a reason code to
the residual item. The residual item will be associated with a correspondence type
through the reason code, and you can request and print the relative correspondence.
When an invoice has multiple line items with differing reason codes, the system
will use the default correspondence type set for the business partner and ignore
the line item definitions.
Figure 3.75 Payment Differences Reason Code Definition
Printing Correspondence
You can print correspondence using the Create Correspondence app (Figure 3.76).
You must select a company code and the correspondence type. Depending on the
correspondence type, you might have to input a customer or supplier account, a
document number, and additional date definitions. After maintaining the
required data, you can choose to print a preview to validate before the final printout. You can also send the correspondence electronically through email (or fax it).
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Figure 3.76 Example of Correspondence
Special General Ledger Accounting
Special general ledger indicators are used in conjunction with customer and supplier postings to modify the general ledger reconciliation account posted to
during a transaction to depict a different business posting. Cases in which you
might need to post to different general ledger accounts include down payments
received or sent, down payment requests, guarantees, security deposits, and so on.
Special general ledger indicators are defined on the client level, and the system
comes with many types preconfigured through SAP Best Practices content (a selection is shown in Figure 3.77). You can generally group the special general ledger
indicators into three categories:
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쐍 Down payments
쐍 Bills of exchange
쐍 Others, such as transferring amounts to doubtful receivables or guarantees
Figure 3.77 Special General Ledger Indicators for Customers
In addition to the business categories of the special general ledger transaction,
there are also different types from a system perspective:
쐍 With offsetting entries
These can be configured with a fixed offsetting account determination (automatic offsetting entries), meaning you enter, for example, the customer line
with the special general ledger, and the offsetting line item is set previously in
Customizing of the special general ledger. An example is the posting of guarantees (paid or received), for which the offsetting account is given. These are either
included in the notes section of the financial statement or aren’t included at all.
They can be also configured to not have a fixed offsetting account (free offsetting entries). You enter, for example, the customer line with the specific special
general ledger, and you also enter the offsetting line item manually. An example of this is posting received payments to specific bank subaccounts.
쐍 Noted items (without offsetting entries)
These aren’t included in the financial statement and are used to keep track of
and trigger (manual or automatic) incoming and outgoing payments or dunning. The most typical example for this kind of entry is the down payment
request. These entries post a single line item to the customer or supplier
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
account without any effect on the balance of the account (or the values of the
general ledger, of course).
Configuring Special General Ledger Indicators
You can configure existing general ledger indicators and create new indicators in
Customizing. Special general ledger indicators are single-digit and cross-client, so
choose the codification carefully. Figure 3.78 shows an example of the configuration for the guaranteed given special general ledger indicator. When creating or
maintaining an indicator, you maintain the following data:
쐍 Noted Item
Whether the special general ledger is a noted item.
쐍 Rel.to Credit Limit
Whether the special general ledger influences the credit limit (and relevant
checks performed through SAP Credit Management).
쐍 Commitments Warning
Whether a user posting to an account with a balance on a special general ledger
reconciliation account receives an information message about the existence of
said amount for the posted business partner. This is useful, for example, to warn
users of existing down payments when posting a payment document.
쐍 Target SP. G/L Ind.
For noted items, you configure the follow-on special general ledger indicator
that “clears” the noted item. For example, in the down payment process, the
special general ledger indicator F used for the down payment requests (a noted
item) references the special general ledger indicator A used for down payments
(a free offsetting entry).
쐍 Special G/L transaction types
Whether the indicator is for down payments, bills of exchange, or other purposes.
쐍 Posting Key
The relevant posting keys to post debits and credits.
You also define the alternative reconciliation general ledger account to use per the
main reconciliation account. In Figure 3.79, the system is set up to post to the same
alternative account (12411000) for all reconciliation accounts. However, this isn’t a
requirement; you can assign separate special general ledger accounts for each
main reconciliation account if required.
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Figure 3.78 Special General Ledger Properties for Guarantees Given
Figure 3.79 Special General Ledger Indicator Account Definition
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Tip
In a traditional SAP ERP system, you indicate that the general ledger account is managed
with line items. The SAP S/4HANA system is completely based on line items, so the indicator isn’t even a switch you toggle for general ledger accounts. All general ledger
accounts are line-item managed.
You enter the special general ledger indicator manually when making postings in
financial accounting (Figure 3.80). To use a special general ledger indicator, the
system posts to customers and suppliers with the posting keys listed in Table 3.1.
Account Type
Posting Key Description
Customer
09
Special general ledger debit
Customer
19
Special general ledger credit
Supplier
29
Special general ledger debit
Supplier
39
Special general ledger credit
Table 3.1 Posting Keys for Special General Ledger Indicators
In many SAP Fiori applications, the posting key isn’t entered manually but is
assigned automatically by the system when you assign a special general ledger
indicator to the line item (Figure 3.80).
Figure 3.80 Entering Special General Ledger Indicator During Financial Accounting Postings
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Down Payments and Down Payment Requests
Down payments and down payment requests are also integrated with purchasing
and sales and distribution.
In purchasing, when you post a PO, you indicate (on the PO header and the relevant line items) that a down payment is required (for an example of down payment category selections, see Figure 3.81). This creates a down payment request in
financial accounting, a noted item with special general ledger indicator F. When
you make a down payment, you assign the relevant PO lines, and this removes the
down payment request obligation (the system automatically assigned special general ledger indicator A to the down payment posting). When you post the final
invoice from the supplier, you assign the down payment to the invoice so that the
system knows to connect the invoice open item with the down payment debit
amount. The down payment is automatically moved from the down payment reconciliation account to the main reconciliation down payment account.
Figure 3.81 Down Payment Category Selection on Purchase Order
In sales and distribution, on the other hand, when billing is performed with the
FAZ billing type, the system triggers a down payment request (special general ledger indicator F) to be sent to the customer, indicating you expect the down payment by the agreed due date. When the down payment is received, the noted item
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
is deleted. The down payment request is replaced by the down payment once
received (special general ledger indicator A). When an item is invoiced, the associated down payment is moved to the normal reconciliation account as a credit
open item and can be cleared against the invoice together with the received payments.
Posting to Different Reconciliation Accounts
There is an additional option for you to post to a different reconciliation account
when posting to customers. You can configure the reconciliation account as ready
for input during document posting. You don’t even need to enter a special general
ledger indicator in this case. This might be required if your system uses a confusing amount of special general ledger indicators to support all the requirements for
posting to alternative accounts. There are three steps to make the reconciliation
account selectable during document entry:
1. Select the Rec.Act. Ready checkbox (reconciliation account ready for input) in
the general ledger account master record definition (Figure 3.82).
Figure 3.82 Reconciliation Account Ready for Input
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2. Change the account group for reconciliation accounts to allow you to maintain
the reconciliation account, as shown in Figure 3.83. (The default setting for
account groups delivered with SAP S/4HANA is for the field to be suppressed.)
Figure 3.83 Mark Reconciliation Account Ready for Input
3. Configure the valid alternative reconciliation accounts per reconciliation
account to indicate the options a user has for entry (Figure 3.84).
Figure 3.84 Define Alternative Reconciliation Account
The field will now be ready for entry when you select an account with the main reconciliation account you made the settings for, as shown in Figure 3.85.
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Figure 3.85 Reconciliation Account Ready for Input
Reporting
There is no reason to go into detail about the various reporting options provided
because they aren’t in focus for the academy and certification (reports are more
related to business processes than configuration). There are several reports, especially for managers, that give a quick view of various accounts payable and
accounts receivable key figures, via which you can drill down to analyze potential
problem areas (Figure 3.86).
Starting with the 1809 release of SAP S/4HANA, overview pages also are offered for
key metrics and reports for the accounts receivable and accounts payable (Figure
3.87 and Figure 3.88) accountants.
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Figure 3.86 SAP Fiori Live Tile Reporting
Figure 3.87 Accounts Receivable Overview
The accounts receivable overview page (Figure 3.87) has several reports that display useful information on the front page, which you can drill into to get more
detail. Highlights of the available reports include the following:
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 3
쐍 Receivables amount breakdown by accounting clerk, company code, risk class,
or country.
쐍 Receivables aging analysis, which is a breakdown of the amounts to be received
by due date.
쐍 Days sales outstanding, which indicates the average number of days that a company takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made.
Figure 3.88 Accounts Payable Overview
The accounts payable overview page (Figure 3.88) displays useful KPI reports and
live tiles with important information on the front page. As always, you can drill
into each report to get more detail, create printouts, and perform further analysis.
Highlights of the available reports include the following:
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쐍 Payable aging analysis for amounts due and undue, which is a breakdown of the
amounts to be paid by due date.
쐍 Days payable outstanding, which analyzes the average number of days a company takes to pay its suppliers. This is shown in two separate reports and different calculations:
– In the direct days payable outstanding, you can check the top 10 suppliers
with the highest or the lowest days payable outstanding.
– In the indirect days payable outstanding, you can check the days payable outstanding on the aggregate level for the last 12 months using rolling monthly
averages for the accounts payable balance and purchases.
쐍 Cash discount utilization shows how well you are taking advantage of cash discounts by comparing actual discounts versus potential discounts.
There are also many “typical” analysis reports for business partner account balances and line items (Figure 3.89).
Figure 3.89 Balances Report
You can configure report-to-report links to jump from the balances of a period, for
example, to the line items that make up that balance. All balance reports are in real
time and read directly from the line item information, offering a summarized view
that you can analyze via the same characteristics posted to a line item. There is no
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Important Terminology Chapter 3
separate storage for balance amounts and a limited selection of reporting characteristics from preconfigured aggregation tables.
The customer and supplier line item reports offer additional functionality to filter
based on the item status (open or cleared). You can select whether to include special general ledger transactions. An example output is shown in Figure 3.90, in
which open items and normal items are selected. From the report output, you can
select which fields you want to view and save specific layouts and selection criteria
items directly to perform reversals, send correspondence, set or remove dunning
blocks, and block/unblock items for payment. You can also click on the account to
go directly to the relevant master record details or click on the document number
to open the full details of the line items.
Figure 3.90 Manage Line Item Report
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 Business partner
The unifying master record for customers and suppliers in all SAP S/4HANA
subsystems from financial accounting to materials management, sales and
distribution, human resources, and so on. The system is set up with real-time
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integration with the financial accounting customer and supplier, so all master
record details are driven by the business partner.
쐍 Business partner categories
Defines if the business partner is a person, organization, or group. The setting
controls some of the basic data.
쐍 Business partner role
These define the types of business relations your company has with the business partner. Field definitions can be maintained on the business partner role
level. Examples of roles include customer (financial accounting) and supplier
(financial accounting). All business partners are assigned to the general business partner role. You can define business partner role groups for business partner roles that should be maintained simultaneously.
쐍 Business partner grouping
The grouping defines the number range of the created business partner. For the
customer/supplier integration with business partners, the customer and supplier account groups are assigned to the business partner grouping.
쐍 Business partner type
The business partner type is an additional grouping characteristic for the business partner for which you can define a separate field status.
쐍 Customer/supplier account groups
These group customers and suppliers by various criteria in financial accounting. In SAP S/4HANA, they are mostly entered as reporting filter criteria because
many of the financial accounting business functions associated with the
account group are now controlled by the business partner configuration.
A major role of the account group is to separate normal customers and suppliers from one-time customers and suppliers. For one-time accounts, you enter
details during posting and don’t maintain a permanent master record.
쐍 Terms of payment (payment terms)
These define the dates and amounts due to be paid to or received from your
business partners. You define the rules for the terms in Customizing and assign
them to the business partners and your document line items.
쐍 Payment block reasons
These indicate the reason for blocking a payment and control how payments
are unblocked.
쐍 Payment methods
These define the valid way to send and receive payments. They are defined on
the country level and on the company code level. The valid payment methods
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Important Terminology Chapter 3
are also defined on the business partner level. The payment method can be
maintained on the document line item if the valid method is known during
posting.
쐍 Payment medium workbench (PMW)
This application handles all electronic payment medium creation and definitions. You define the XML forms for the DME in the DMEE Tree and assign them
to payment methods.
쐍 Automatic payment program
This application handles payment transactions for customers and suppliers.
You define the selection parameters for the open item selection. The application first generates a payment proposal. After the proposal is reviewed and
revised, you execute the payment run. The system generates the payment documents and clears the relevant open items. The program also generates and
prints the payment media accordingly.
쐍 Dunning program
This application generates dunning letters that you send to customers (and
suppliers with a debit balance) to inform them of payments due. After entering
the selection parameters for the dunning program to select the accounts to analyze, the application produces a dunning proposal list. You review and revise
the list and proceed to print out the dunning letters.
쐍 Dunning areas
The dunning areas subdivide a company code into areas of responsibility for
dunning. This allows you to configure different rules and criteria for dunning in
different business areas.
쐍 Dunning block reasons
The block reason is assigned to document line items to exclude them from dunning. You can assign a preconfigured dunning block reason or define your own
in Customizing.
쐍 Dunning procedure
The dunning procedure is assigned to business partners to activate dunning for
them. The procedure defines the number of dunning levels that can be assigned
and all the rules for calculating the dunning level, dunning charges, dunningrelevant special general ledger indicators, and the dunning letter forms and
texts.
쐍 Correspondence type
To align with your customers and suppliers on amounts owed, open items,
and so on, you can use the correspondence functionality of the system to
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communicate in a standardized way. The correspondence type defines the form
of communication that is printed or sent.
쐍 Special general ledger indicator
Special general ledger indicators are used to post to different reconciliation
accounts than the main reconciliation account defined in the customer/supplier master record. The special general ledger indicators are defined on the client level and control the business transaction being executed. Special general
ledger transactions are either noted items, free offsetting entries, or automatic
offsetting entries. Down payment requests, down payments, bills of exchange,
guarantees, and individual value adjustments are examples of transactions that
use the special general ledger functionality.
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
1.
Which business partner categories does the system support? (There are three
correct answers.)
첸
A. Group
첸
B. Agency
첸
C. Person
첸
D. Organization
첸
E. Public sector
2.
You’ve mistakenly created your business partner with the wrong business
partner category. You’ve saved the data but haven’t made any postings. What
can you do to correct this?
첸
A. Change the setting directly in the business partner master record.
첸
B. Contact the system administrator to change the table entry in the backend.
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Practice Questions Chapter 3
첸
C. Create a new business partner using the correct category.
첸
D. Delete the company code assignment for the business partner, correct the
category, and reassign the company code.
3.
True or False: After assigning a role to the business partner and saving your
data, you’re no longer able to remove the role assigned.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
4.
True or False: The business partner role grouping is where you assign the business partner number range.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
5.
You’re configuring a new SAP S/4HANA system. What are your options for
defining the number range assignments for business partners?
첸
A. The supplier drives the number range used.
첸
B. The customer drives the number range used.
첸
C. The business partner drives the number range used.
첸
D. Whichever account is created first drives the number range used.
6.
Which business partner objects can you define field statuses for? (There are
two correct answers.)
첸
A. Account group
첸
B. Client
첸
C. Role
첸
D. Type
7.
Which field cannot be changed during document posting for the one-time
customer?
첸
A. Customer Number
첸
C. Customer Industry
첸
B. Customer Name
첸
D. Customer Country
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8.
True or False: Bank details for a business partner are part of the general business partner role.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
9.
Which field in the business partner master can you configure so that the document reference is transferred to the line item?
첸
A.Assignment
첸
B. Reference
첸
C. Line Item Text
첸
D. Sort Key
10. A business partner is both a customer and a supplier. The customer has a sizable open amount unpaid. You want to make sure that the payment program
posts no outgoing payments to the business partner until he has paid part of
the outstanding amount. How can you do this?
첸
A. Assign an overall payment block in the general business partner role
details.
첸
B. Assign a central purchasing block in the general business partner role
details.
첸
C. Assign a payment block in the customer business partner role details.
첸
D. Assign a payment block in the supplier business partner role details.
11.
What can you achieve by using the head office/branch scenario?
첸
A. Settings changed for the head office master record will be transferred to the
branch account.
첸
B. Postings made to the head office also can be paid to the branch account.
첸
C. Invoices posted to the branch become open items for the head office.
첸
D. Correspondence and dunning letters are printed and sent to both the
branch and the head office.
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12. Which configuration can you use to define separate payment terms for the
same terms of payment key?
첸
A. Day limit
첸
B. Company code
첸
C. Country
첸
D. Installment payment
13. You’ve agreed to terms of payment with a business partner that is a customer
and a supplier. The same terms are to be used both ways (incoming and outgoing). You’ve defined a new terms of payment key, but when trying to update
the supplier business partner role, you don’t find the payment term available
to select. What must you do?
첸
A. Create a new payment term for the supplier business partner role.
첸
B. Enter the payment term manually during invoicing.
첸
C. Maintain the account type in the terms of payment.
첸
D. Change the field status of the business partner role to make the payment
terms an optional field.
14. You’ve negotiated payment terms that include three installment payments
with your customer. How many terms of payment must you define?
첸
A. 1
첸
B. 2
첸
C. 3
첸
D. 4
15.
What does assigning a screen variant during document entry do?
첸
A. It defaults values for fields in the document line item.
첸
B. It changes the fields that are ready for entry in the document header.
첸
C. It changes the fields that are ready for entry in the line items.
첸
D. It defaults values for fields in the document header.
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16. When setting up the system, you want to maintain default values for users of
a company code. Which application do you use?
첸
A. User Maintenance
첸
B. Maintain User Profile
첸
C. Default Values (SAP Fiori)
17.
Your customer doesn’t want to implement profitability analysis, not even
account-based, because the company doesn’t understand its value. Which
argument would you use to persuade the customer?
첸
A. Profit and loss statements can be analyzed by sales-specific characteristics.
첸
B. Balance sheets can be analyzed by sales-specific characteristics.
첸
C. Sales orders can be forecasted as liquidity items in cash flow reports.
첸
D. Down payment integration can be performed with sales and distribution.
18. What can you enter in the header section of the Post Outgoing Payments app?
(There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Value date
첸
B. Bank fees
첸
C. Discount amount
첸
D. Customer
첸
E. Payment terms
19. You receive a payment for an invoice that is smaller than the owed amount.
How can you manage payment differences in the Post Incoming Payments
app? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Partial payment
첸
B. Residual item
첸
C. Change due date
첸
D. Reject payment
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20. When a payment in foreign currency clears the amount of the invoice exactly
in the foreign currency but in the local currency is more than the invoiced
amount, what does the system do?
첸
A. Post to profit from exchange rate differences.
첸
B. Leave the amount as an open item to be reconciled with open amounts in
the future.
첸
C. Return the difference back to the customer.
첸
D. Adjust the local currency amount to clear the invoice exactly.
21. What is the correct order of steps when configuring the payment programs?
첸
A. All company codes, paying company codes, payment methods in country,
payment methods in company code, bank determination
첸
B. All company codes, payment methods in country, paying company codes,
payment methods in company code, bank determination
첸
C. All company codes, bank determination, paying company codes, payment
methods in country, payment methods in company code
첸
D. All company codes, paying company codes, payment methods in country,
payment methods in company code, bank determination
22. In the payment method settings for the company code, what options do you
have for payment optimization? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Optimization by due date
첸
B. Optimization by discount
첸
C. Optimization by bank group
첸
D. Optimization by postal code
23. What can you change for items that are in the exceptions list of the payment
proposal? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Payment block
첸
B. Payment term
첸
C. Payment method
첸
D. Bank selection
첸
E. Reason code
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24. On what level do you assign dunning areas?
첸
A. Client
첸
B. Company code
첸
C. Functional area
첸
D. Segment
25. When assigning dunning charges to a dunning procedure, what options do
you have? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. To assign a fixed amount without assigning a dunning charge percentage.
첸
B. To assign a fixed amount and a percentage. The system posts the larger
amount.
첸
C. To assign a fixed amount and a percentage. The system posts the smaller of
the two amounts.
첸
D. To assign a dunning charge percentage without assigning a fixed amount.
26. True or False: You can assign correspondence types directly to a payment difference reason code.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
27. True or False: You can change all delivered special general ledger indicators
and assign your own to business processes.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
28. At which point is the down payment request created in the integrated down
payment process with purchasing?
첸
A. Purchase requisition
첸
B. Purchase order
첸
C. Goods receipt
첸
D. Invoice verification
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 3
29. True or False: The special general ledger indicator is the only way to post to a
customer or supplier using a different reconciliation account.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
30. Which KPIs can you find on the accounts payable overview page? (There are
two correct answers.)
첸
A. Day sales outstanding
첸
B. Cash discount utilization
첸
C. Aging analysis
첸
D. Collection effectiveness index
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answers: A, C, D
The partner categories are person, organization, and group. These are fixed categories; you can’t change or add any. Agency and public sector fall into the
organization category.
2. Correct answer: C
The only way to correct this is to create a new business partner and mark the
erroneous one for deletion. Changing this isn’t a matter of authorization, nor
does it make any difference if you’ve posted on the business partner or
assigned it to a company code. However, if you’ve posted, the best option is to
reverse the documents and repost on the correct business partner.
3. Correct answer: B
False. You can change the role assignment, and some roles are even designed to
be temporary roles.
4. Correct answer: B
False. This is incorrect. You assign the business partner number range in the
business partner grouping. The role grouping is only useful for performing
common maintenance of more than one business partner role and has no part
in the number range definition.
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5. Correct answer: C
In a new SAP S/4HANA system, the business partner is defined first and is
assigned a number. The customer and supplier created for the business partner
inherit the business partner account number.
6. Correct answers: C, D
This is a bit of a trick question. In the certification, you won’t see trick questions,
so kudos if you got this one right! All the objects displayed can have a separate
field status definition, but only two of them can be considered business partner
objects: business partner role and business partner type.
7. Correct answer: A
The customer number can’t be changed. The customer number isn’t an identifying characteristic for one-time customers because more than one will share
it! You can enter the customer name, industry, country, and other address and
bank details during the posting transaction in the special pop-up window.
8. Correct answer: A
True. Bank details, meaning the business partner’s bank accounts for where
they receive and from where they send their payments, are assigned in the General Data section and are thus common and usable independent of the assigned
business partner roles. The bank details you might enter in the customer/supplier payment section (House Bank, Account ID) are per company code and
define from where the company code should pay or receive payments.
9. Correct answer: D
The sort key defines what is transferred to the assignment field on the line item.
Here, you shouldn’t be confused by the field names and remember where
everything belongs. The assignment is the actual field where such information
is transferred; the reference is a document header field. The line item text can
carry the information (not automatically, except maybe with a substitution),
but more importantly it’s a document-level field and not maintained on the
business partner. Remember to read exactly what the question is asking for.
Don’t get distracted by answers that seem to fit but, in the end, have nothing to
do with the question.
10. Correct answer: D
Here, D is the obvious choice. An overall payment block would block incoming
payments as well as outgoing, which is the same as assigning the block on the
customer. A purchasing block would mean you wouldn’t be able to use the supplier to order goods, which isn’t mentioned as a desired outcome in the scenario. Blocking the supplier for payment ensures that you won’t pay for any
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 3
open items, at least not without a manual supervision of the payment. (Don’t
let questions like this one with a lot of text cause you to panic during the examination for fear of running out of time. The writing guidelines for questions
generally maintain that the questions should be concise and carry mostly only
information absolutely required to answer the question. This means, in most
cases, it’s a good idea to read every detail of the question. It also means that
most questions aren’t very long, so you can afford to spend a little more time
on the few longer ones without worrying about running out of time.)
11. Correct answer: C
The definition of the head office/branch scenario is to have centralized open
item and payment management. Thus, C is the only answer that fits the bill.
There is no kind of automatic master data synchronization with a head office.
You pay the head office because that is where the open item is, and correspondence can be sent either to the head office or to the branch depending on the
setting in the decentralized processing field.
12. Correct answer: A
The day limit key allows you to do this. The day limit together with the terms of
payment are the key fields in the relevant definition, which means you can differentiate either field to have an additional payment term. You can have multiple term of payment definitions differentiated by the day limit. The level you
would need to change to create terms of payments with the same key otherwise
would be the client because the terms of payment are client-dependent.
13. Correct answer: C
This is a troubleshooting question, which tests understanding and knowledge
of the functionality of the system. However, these questions aren’t often used
in the exams because it’s hard to make them unambiguous. In this example,
the terms of payment (answer C) must have been configured without the supplier account type. However, one could argue that A would work as well, and
yes, it would. B also kind of works, but it’s no real solution. D is clearly wrong;
the specific payment term was missing per the scenario in the question, and D
would indicate the field itself was missing, which isn’t implied anywhere. So
why is C the correct choice? It’s by far the most proper way to handle the situation. Creating additional records when you could use what is there just adds
noise to an already complex system. You want to always try and simplify for the
end users.
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14. Correct answer: D
To configure installments, you need a base payment term and then an additional payment term per number of installments. In Customizing, you assign
each installment payment term to the base payment term.
15. Correct answer: C
The screen variant is an entry that simplifies the line item section of the screen
by displaying only those items that are required to be entered or at least a much
smaller selection of account assignments than what is on the standard line
items. The screen variant has no effect on the header section, and it has no predefined values attached to it.
16. Correct answer: A
As a consultant, you would use the user maintenance applications (Transaction
SU01 or, better yet, Transaction SU10). With these transactions, you can change
users other than your own. Both the user profile and the default values in the
SAP Fiori launchpad are limited to defaulting values only for the logged-on
user.
17. Correct answer: A
This question is borderline as far as whether it can be answered with the content in this book. Although we try to be consistent with the “everything can be
found in the materials” rule, there are some questions for which it helps (but
isn’t strictly required) to have some “outside” experience to answer. In this
case, you know that many fields coming from sales and distribution are transferred to the Universal Journal as values of CO-PA characteristics. Anything that
finds itself as information on the line item in the Universal Journal can be analyzed in reports, including the P&L statement, so A is the correct answer. The
distractors here are wrong: CO-PA is updated for P&L accounts, so no balance
sheet entries (usually); liquidity forecasting has nothing to do with CO-PA; and
the same is true for payment and down payment processing. SAP recommends
that account-based CO-PA be activated for all SAP S/4HANA systems by default,
even if a customer won’t initially make use of it.
18. Correct answers: A, B, D
This is a straightforward question for which it helps to be able to bring the entry
screen to your mind. If that doesn’t work, you can think of eliminating distractors. The Discount Amount is a line item setting because it might be different for
the items you clear. The same is true for the Payment Terms field (which would
be weird to change during the payment entry).
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 3
19. Correct answers: A, B
The standard way of handling payments that are smaller than the assigned
open items is to create either a partial payment or a residual item. If neither
works, you handle the differences manually (post to general ledger or post on
account).
There is no functionality to reject a payment. You could return it on the bank
level, but generally you would post the payment and then talk to the customer
to understand the amount discrepancy. Changing the due date is irrelevant to
how or if you post the payment.
20. Correct answer: A
This is a straightforward question with a simple answer: differences from currency exchange are posted automatically to the accounts you’ve specified in
Customizing for profits or losses from exchange rate differences.
21. Correct answer: D
The correct configuration order is:
– All company codes, where you assign paying company codes to the ones
that don’t perform payments.
– Paying company codes, where you configure the company codes that do
perform payments.
– Payment methods per country, where you define usable payment methods
for different countries.
– Payment methods per company code, were you setup the ones valid for
each company code, out of the ones available for the country.
– Define the bank determination for the automated payments.
22. Correct answers: C, D
This is a very specific question that concerns settings on a Customizing screen.
There you can select to optimize per bank group, meaning the system will give
priority to paying from bank accounts that are in the same bank group as the
business partners. You can also optimize by postal code, meaning the preferred
bank will be the closest (according to postal codes) to the business partner.
23. Correct answers: A, C, D
You can remove the blocking reason (if it’s allowed by the definitions in Customizing), you can enter or change the payment method, and you can enter or
change the selected house bank account. In addition, although not one of the
answer options, you could also alter the discount amount (per the tolerances
allowed).
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24. Correct answer: B
Dunning areas are used to subdivide company codes into areas of responsibility for dunning, so the answer is the company code where you assign these.
Dunning areas might well reflect either segments or functional areas, but there
is no system connection or assignments between these.
25. Correct answers: A, D
You can assign either an absolute value for the dunning charge or a percentage
(which is calculated off the total amount of the overdue items). You can’t select
both. You enter the charges per level and per outstanding amount, so that is
where you can differentiate the charges assigned.
26. Correct answer: A
True. In the definition of the payment difference reason codes, you can indeed
assign a specific correspondence type to generate correspondence for the difference.
27. Correct answer: B
False. This wasn’t discussed specifically in the chapter, but it’s good to know.
There are certain processes that are tied to the specific special general ledger
accounts being configured in a specific way. For example, the down payment
integration scenario uses F for down payment requests and A for down payments. These shouldn’t be changed.
28. Correct answer: B
You enter that a down payment is expected in the PO, and this generates the
down payment request in financial accounting.
29. Correct answer: B
False. As mentioned, you can also configure the reconciliation account field to
be changeable/selectable during document posting. This eliminates the need
for a special general ledger transaction in certain cases.
30. Correct answer: B, C
The correct answers are the ones that pertain to payables functions instead of
receivables. You want to track cash discounts to make sure you are taking
advantage of all discounts offered, so that is one. The other correct answer is the
aging analysis; if the answer was specifically payables aging, it would be a dead
giveaway. There might be some instances like this in the exam as well, in which
answer options are made a little more “general” without making them wrong
or unfair. The two other options are receivables key performance indicators, so
you can be sure they are wrong.
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Summary Chapter 3
Takeaway
You now understand the role the business partner plays in the SAP S/4HANA system, especially for accounts payable/accounts receivable accounting. You know
how to configure the roles and fields within the business partner master record.
You also understand the integration of business partners with customers and suppliers.
You can configure, assign, and use the payment terms that define when open
items are due. You understand the baseline date calculation and its importance in
assigning the due date. You can configure and use payment installments. You can
define and assign payment blocking reasons and tolerance groups for customer
and supplier payments.
You’ve seen how to post incoming and outgoing invoices directly in financial
accounting and understand the integration with purchasing and sales and distribution. You can perform manual payments to clear open items and configure and
use the automatic payment program to execute payment runs.
You can manage communication with your business partners both by configuring
and executing dunning and by using correspondence. Finally, you can post to
alternative reconciliation accounts using special general ledger indicators, which
you set up in Customizing, or by making the reconciliation account field ready for
input during posting.
Summary
Accounts payable and accounts receivable accounting are very integrated components, being the direct communication point for purchasing and sales and distribution. However, accounts payable and accounts receivable also offer a complete
standalone solution capable of handling many customer and supplier business
operations autonomously. The components are designed to be flexible to adapt to
the requirements of your company, local legal authorities, and the business partners you do business with.
The SAP S/4HANA system offers useful applications for processing payments,
dunning, and correspondence. The functionality is proven and is taken over
mostly fully from the SAP ERP system. With SAP S/4HANA, SAP is focusing on
offering specialized applications that integrate seamlessly with the core SAP
S/4HANA product and take advantage of the power and flexibility of SAP HANA.
For example, one of the latest developments from SAP for accounts receivable
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accounting is to incorporate machine learning with SAP Cash Application. Manually matching payments to invoices is a labor-intensive accounting process, but
with machine learning, the application can learn payment-matching patterns and
significantly boost automatic matching rates.
In the next chapter, we tackle the subject of asset accounting, another component
with quite a few integration points, but also its own set of organizational units,
master data, and daily and periodic business processes.
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Chapter 4
Asset Accounting
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Create and maintain charts of depreciation and
depreciation areas
쐍 Create and configure asset classes
쐍 Create and maintain asset master records
쐍 Process asset transactions
쐍 Manage assets under construction
쐍 Perform periodic processing and valuation
쐍 Use asset reporting
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The focus of this chapter is to explain asset accounting processes in SAP S/4HANA.
It discusses basic organizational units of asset accounting, such as the chart of
depreciation and asset classes, integration of asset accounting with the general
ledger, asset accounting transactions, and period-end closing in asset accounting.
Real-World Scenario
Fixed asset accounting is one of the most important financial accounting
components, and depending on the company and the industry, managing
fixed assets and their valuations can be a major part of the accounting
department tasks. Fixed assets have their own accounting language you have
to understand and translate into system configurations and processes.
As a separate component, asset accounting has its own set of organizational
units, master records, and daily and periodic activities. Asset accounting is a
very mature product in the SAP S/4HANA system and can flexibly cover
almost all situations. It’s rare that companies will use a separate specialized
system to process fixed assets, and even then you need to take care of many
integration points. Finally, designing and performing the migration of fixed
assets can be one of the major activities you must help with during a new
implementation project when the customer is developing a new greenfield
system.
As a financial accounting consultant, you might not get to work with fixed
assets in every project you participate in, and this might cause you to forget
some of the details. If your expertise is with management accounting, you
might never really work directly with fixed assets. Fixed assets have integration points with investment management, overhead cost accounting,
the project system, purchasing, plant maintenance, and, of course, many
core financial accounting components, such as general ledger accounting,
accounts payable, and accounts receivable. The closer integration of financial accounting components in an SAP S/4HANA system means it’s more
important than ever to have a complete view of all major financial accounting components, especially those that share the same table through the
Universal Journal architecture.
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The purpose of this portion of the certification exam is to test your knowledge in
asset accounting handling with SAP S/4HANA. For the certification exam, you
need to have a good understanding of the following topics:
쐍 Organizational units in asset accounting and their integration with the general
ledger and Controlling
쐍 Asset class configuration
쐍 Asset master records management
쐍 Asset transactions
쐍 Asset depreciation and valuation configuration
쐍 Asset parallel valuation accounting
쐍 Asset year-end closing
쐍 Asset reports
쐍 Manual legacy data transfers
Note
The asset accounting topic makes up 20% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
In this chapter, we'll look at the concepts and business processes of asset accounting in an SAP S/4HANA system. We’ll go over the organizational units, the master
data, and the daily and periodic business transactions. We’ll also look at special
asset categories like low-value assets and assets under construction. Finally, we’ll
discuss the asset migration activities.
Fixed Asset Accounting
Asset accounting in the SAP S/4HANA system provides the means for managing
and monitoring fixed assets. Asset accounting is a subsystem of financial accounting: you can use asset reports to provide detailed information about actual transactions, current balances, and future planned asset values.
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Asset accounting is integrated with other components outside financial accounting. For example, when an asset is purchased or produced in house, you can
directly post the invoice receipt, goods receipt, or withdrawal from the warehouse
to assets in the asset accounting component. All actual asset transactions update
the Universal Journal directly on the individual asset level.
The asset accounting functions in the system cover the entire lifecycle of the asset,
from the purchase order or initial acquisition (which can also be an assets-underconstruction settlement to the final asset) all the way to the asset retirement. The
system calculates most of the values for depreciation, interest, and other purposes
between these two points in time automatically. This transactional information
and simulations of future values can be accessed using standard reports, either on
the individual asset level or for multiple assets at the same time.
Each country has specific basic accounting rules for asset accounting. For this reason, the SAP S/4HANA system comes with a basic configuration for all countries in
accordance with the local principles. Figure 4.1 shows the default details for Germany. Most fields are changeable to accommodate for rule changes or special
cases for specific customers.
Figure 4.1 Country Information
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
Chart of Depreciation
A chart of depreciation is a directory of depreciation areas arranged according to
business requirements. It’s used to organize legal requirements for the depreciation and valuation of assets. Each chart of depreciation contains the rules for the
evaluation of assets valid in a specific country (or economic area). Usually, you
would create one chart of depreciation for all company codes of a country.
You determine the types of valuation for which you need different depreciation
areas in accordance to the needs of your customer before you implement asset
accounting. To define a chart of depreciation, as shown in Figure 4.2, you generally
copy a template chart of depreciation 1 delivered through an SAP Best Practices
package or from the standard templates defined per country in client 000. You
can modify or delete any depreciation areas copied over from the standard chart
of depreciation that aren’t needed. After you copy the chart of depreciation, you
need to update the Description 2 because the description of the chart you copied
is probably not the one you want.
Figure 4.2 Copying Chart of Depreciation
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The chart of depreciation essentially becomes active when it’s assigned to a company code. Each company code that uses asset accounting is assigned to a chart of
depreciation, as shown in Figure 4.3. Each asset created is assigned to the company
code and inherits the valuation settings configured in the chart of depreciation
through the company code.
Figure 4.3 Assigning Company Code to Chart of Depreciation
Depreciation Areas
You use depreciation areas to calculate the value of fixed assets according to different accounting principles or for other separate valuation purposes. You manage
the depreciation terms and values necessary for the valuation in the depreciation
areas assigned to each asset, as shown in Figure 4.4. A depreciation area can serve
to update the general ledger through posting in accounting or to calculate statistical values for reporting purposes. A chart of depreciation can have up to 99 depreciation areas.
In an SAP S/4HANA system, you create a depreciation area for each additional currency type maintained on the ledger/company code level so that values are available in all relevant currencies.
The depreciation areas are identified by two-digit numeric keys. You should assign
a meaningful description to the area. Each depreciation area must be assigned to
an accounting principle and through the accounting principle to a ledger group.
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
Figure 4.4 Depreciation Area Definition within Chart of Depreciation
Configuration
For each depreciation area, you can access the details screen to configure the settings further, as shown in Figure 4.5. The following are the main settings:
쐍 Real Depreciation Area
For a real depreciation area, values are normally committed to the database.
When you don’t select this checkbox, the depreciation area is a derived area,
meaning its values are based on values of other areas.
쐍 Area Does Not Post
This is for areas you create for purely reporting purposes, such as areas for other
currencies.
쐍 Area Posts in Real Time
When using the ledger approach to parallel valuation, this is the standard setting for depreciation areas that post both acquisition and production costs
(APC) and depreciation to the general ledger. With the accounts approach to
parallel valuation, only one area has the real-time setting. The reasons are technical only.
쐍 Area Posts Depreciation Only
This is for areas that don’t post APC values but only post depreciation. The most
common such area is one that is used for cost-controlling valuations.
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쐍 Area Posts APC Immediately, Depreciation Periodically
This is used when using the accounts approach for all areas that post both types
of values to the general ledger, minus the one that is set to post in real time.
쐍 Value Maintenance
Various rules that define what kind of values are allowed for various valuations.
Tip
Depreciation is always posted periodically; there is no such thing as real-time depreciation posting because it’s a periodic activity. On the other hand, the calculation of depreciation is always a real-time activity and is performed with any change that affects the
value or useful life of an asset.
Figure 4.5 Configuring Depreciation Area
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
Derived Depreciation Areas
Derived depreciation areas are usually areas for which the values are calculated
from combining values of two or more other areas (adding or subtracting values
from each), as shown in Figure 4.6. They are commonly delta areas, which give an
immediate view of the difference between two valuations.
Tip
Derived areas were common in SAP ERP because they were required for handling parallel
asset accounting with ledgers before the introduction of new asset accounting with SAP
ERP 6.0 EHP 7.
Figure 4.6 Derived Depreciation Area Settings
Asset Class
The asset class is the main structuring element for fixed assets. You can define any
number of asset classes in the system, and the definition is on the client level
(Figure 4.7). You use asset classes to structure your fixed assets according to various criteria, such as type of asset, default valuation settings, and others. All assets
are assigned to an asset class when they are created.
The SAP S/4HANA system has common asset class categories preconfigured with
the SAP Best Practices packages. You can create as many extra asset classes as
required from your customer.
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Figure 4.7 Asset Classes Definition
When you create an asset class, you define the four-digit code, a long text, and a
short text, as shown in Figure 4.7. You can also create new asset classes by simply
copying an existing asset class. The default values of the depreciation area section
are also copied automatically.
You can change the values after copying. In the details of the asset class (Figure
4.8), you define the following:
쐍 Account Determ.
This field controls the general ledger accounts posted for the various asset
transactions.
쐍 Scr.Layout Rule
This field controls the fields that are ready for input during asset master record
maintenance.
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
쐍 Number Range
This field controls the number the asset will receive when you save the master
record.
쐍 Status of AuC
This controls whether the asset class is used to create assets under constructions.
Figure 4.8 Asset Classes Configuration
In a separate Customizing transaction, you can store default values for fields per
asset class. You can define defaults in the master data section of the asset master
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and in the depreciation section, where you define entries per depreciation area.
These values are proposed and are changeable.
If you want to ensure that specific fields are filled with specific values, you can
define and use a substitution rule.
Account Determination
You can post both the asset balance sheet values and the depreciation values from
the individual depreciation areas to separate balance sheet accounts or income
statement accounts in the general ledger, as shown in Figure 4.9. You specify the
accounts per chart of accounts and depreciation area individually in the account
determination key. You define the account determination keys in asset accounting Customizing, and after configuration you assign the key in the particular asset
class.
Figure 4.9 Configuring Account Assignment
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Key Concept Refresher
Chapter 4
The account determination keys usually have a similar codification and name as
their relevant asset classes. The same account determination key can be assigned
to many asset classes, although some customers might prefer the maximum flexibility offered by assigning a different account determination to each asset class.
Because the account determination details are maintained per chart of depreciation and chart of accounts, you can use the same account determination keys to
support the specific reporting needs of any company code in any country.
On the detailed level, you maintain the specific balance sheet and profit and loss
accounts for any asset transaction relevant for the assets of the supported asset
classes, as shown in Figure 4.10.
Figure 4.10 Details of Account Assignment: Balance Sheet Accounts
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When using the ledger approach to parallel accounting, all depreciation areas can
have the same account definitions per depreciation area. The posting is differentiated on the level of the ledger group assigned.
When using the accounts approach, you need to maintain a separate set of
accounts per depreciation area, so you don’t have the same value posted to the
same account.
All balance sheet accounts defined in the account determination are asset reconciliation accounts.
Screen Layouts
The screen layout for the asset determines which fields in the asset master records
are used. You specify for each possible field within the asset master record whether
it’s required, optional, display-only, or suppressed (hidden).
You configure different sets of keys for the master data section of an asset and the
depreciation details. You define screen layout rules for the master record section
flexibly and assign them to the asset classes (Figure 4.11 1). The same screen layout
can be valid for many asset classes. The logical field groups (Figure 4.11 2) are predefined, as are the fields inside these field groups 3.
In addition to defining the field status, you can select additional checkboxes for
the following:
쐍 Class (asset class)
This defines that you can set a default value for this field on the asset class level.
쐍 MnNo. (main asset number)
This defines that the field can be changed on the main asset master level.
쐍 SbNo. (asset subnumber)
This defines that the field can be changed for the asset subnumber. If this option
isn’t selected, the value is inherited from the main asset and can’t be changed.
쐍 Copy
This defines whether the field value is copied over from an asset used as a reference for creating another asset.
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Figure 4.11 Asset Master Data Screen Layout
Tab Layout Definition
In addition to defining the field status, you can also maintain the tab layout of the
asset master maintenance. In the tab layout definition, you assign the logical field
groups (Figure 4.12 2) to tabs.
The goal when defining both the field status and the tab layouts is to make available all needed fields without overwhelming users with too many choices and
fields that are never maintained.
Unlike the master record screen layouts, the depreciation screen layouts are
assigned per asset and depreciation area, as shown in Figure 4.12 1. The default layout per depreciation area is proposed per asset class. SAP provides two depreciation screen layouts by default, and you can copy these to create and assign your
own. The possible definitions per field are the same as for the master record layouts, as shown in Figure 4.12 2.
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Figure 4.12 Asset Depreciation Data Screen Layout
User-Defined Fields
Because assets are complex accounting subjects and customers have various field
requirements, SAP S/4HANA offers custom fields that customers can use to define
their own values for various purposes. All fields are reporting criteria, and you can
select and filter by the fields and display the values for these fields in reports. In
Customizing, you can define values for the following custom fields:
쐍 Evaluation Groups 1 to 5
These fields can be used flexibly to store any kind of information. There are four
keys that are four digits long and one key that is eight digits long. For each key,
you can maintain a description. You can set a default value for each per asset
class if this is allowed by the screen layout definition.
쐍 Environmental Protection
This checkbox is used to save the reason for an environmental protection
investment.
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쐍 Reason for Investment
This field is used for entering an explanation for the capital expenditure.
쐍 Asset Super Number
This can be assigned to assets for grouping purposes.
Asset Master Data
Asset master records are defined and created to mirror your fixed assets used in
your daily business. Master data for assets include the main asset number and the
asset sub-number, which is an asset that refers to an asset main number.
You create asset master records by using one of the following methods:
쐍 Entering the company code and asset class, entering data in the required fields,
and adapting the standard values proposed by the asset class
쐍 Entering a reference asset and changing the fields proposed from the copy of
the referenced asset
In addition to single asset creation, you can also create multiple asset master
records by entering the number of similar assets to be created. In this case, you
maintain the values for the first asset and then either use the exact same details
for all other assets or maintain separate values for certain fields, as shown in
Figure 4.13. The range of fields available for you to change is customizable. You can
always make additional changes after saving all the new assets in a second step.
Figure 4.13 Changeable Fields During Mass Creation of Assets
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In the default tab layout, in the Time-Dependent tab, you make assignments to
cost accounting objects, such as cost centers, internal orders, and WBS elements,
but also location, profit center, and segment. The reason the tab is called TimeDependent is because you can define period intervals for the assignments. Therefore, a printer ordered by and used for a couple years by one department can move
to a new location and charge depreciation to a different cost center from the third
year on. Report outputs and tasks, such as the depreciation posting run, read the
data as valid for the asset on the period/year selected.
You can also use the asset subnumber functionality. An asset subnumber is a separate asset that is still connected to the main asset number. The main asset is automatically given the subnumber 0. Each asset subnumber will have the same asset
number but a separate subnumber. You can define the subnumber to be given
internally or externally. Usually external assignment is defined internally for data
migration, and when the migration is complete, it’s reverted to internal. An example of a use for subnumbers is to monitor subsequent improvement made to an
asset. In some cases, it might also make sense to be able to report on the separate
components that comprise an asset by having each component defined as a subnumber. The subnumber usually inherits data from the main asset; the inherited
fields are defined in the field status Customizing.
Integration with Plant Maintenance
The equipment is the main master record in the plant maintenance component of
the SAP S/4HANA system. SAP provides standard integration between the fixed
asset master record and the equipment:
쐍 You can enter the relevant equipment numbers manually in the asset master
record, or you can update a single asset in the equipment master record. Note
that an asset can be assigned to multiple equipment master records, but not the
other way around (Figure 4.14).
쐍 You can configure the system to create and assign an equipment master record
when you create a new asset master record (Figure 4.15).
쐍 You can configure the system to change the account assignments of the asset
when the equipment is changed and vice versa (Figure 4.15).
쐍 You can set up workflows to notify users assigned to plant maintenance roles
when new master records are created in the asset or equipment component
(Figure 4.15).
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Figure 4.14 Equipment in Asset Master Record
Figure 4.15 Specify Conditions for Synchronization of Master Data
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Asset Transaction Types
Every transaction in asset accounting carries an asset transaction type. There are
groups of transaction types for specific operations:
쐍 Acquisitions
쐍 Retirements
쐍 Transfers
쐍 Postcapitalizations
쐍 Investment support measures
쐍 Depreciations
쐍 Write-ups
The group a transaction type is assigned to defines a lot of basic characteristics for
the transaction, such as which value fields are updated, the valid fiscal year (current or previous), the sign (positive, negative) of the sum of the postings for a fiscal
year, and more. The transaction type groups are hardcoded system settings and
can’t be changed.
In addition, each transaction type has a set of controls that you configure. The
specifications can differ according to the transaction type group.
Depending on the transaction type group of the transaction type, you define settings such as the following:
쐍 Debit/Credit
쐍 Capitalize/Retire
쐍 Document Type
쐍 Posting to Affiliated Company
쐍 Post Gross/Net
쐍 Asset History Sheet Group
In Figure 4.16, you can see the definitions maintained for transaction type 100 of
group 10 (Acquisition). The SAP S/4HANA system comes with transaction types
preconfigured that should cover most customers’ requirements.
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Figure 4.16 Asset Transaction Type Configuration
Asset Acquisitions
An asset acquisition capitalizes an asset and usually signifies the start of the depreciation calculation. There are three basic ways to post external acquisitions in SAP
S/4HANA:
쐍 Acquisition with automatic offsetting
쐍 Acquisition integrated with accounts payable
쐍 Asset acquisition with purchase order integrated with materials management
Let's explore these further.
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Acquisition with Automatic Offsetting
The acquisition with automatic offsetting entry is often used to capitalize an asset
for which the invoice isn’t yet received or has been received and posted to the supplier already. With a posting of this type, the system debits the assets and credits a
predefined offsetting account. The idea is that the offsetting entry will be balanced
back to zero with the pending (or posted) invoice entry. To make it simpler to
understand, let’s assume an asset is worth $10,000 USD, and you need to capitalize
it first, as shown in Table 4.1.
Line Item
Account
Debit/Credit Amount
1
Asset clearing
Debit
$10,000
2
Offsetting account
Credit
$10,000
Table 4.1 Asset Capitalization with Offsetting Entry
The invoice is posted in a second step (example with 10% tax), as shown in Table
4.2.
Line Item
Account
Debit/Credit Amount
1
Supplier account
Credit
$11,000
2
Offsetting account
Debit
$10,000
3
Tax account
Debit
$1,000
Table 4.2 Supplier Invoice to Offsetting Account
The second line from each table is for the same amount on the same account, but
with opposite directions for debit/credit; thus, the offsetting account is balanced
to zero.
On the initial screen for posting the acquisition (Figure 4.17), you have the option
to select an existing asset master record or create one on the fly. You can also post
to a specific accounting principle (or even depreciation area). The usual minimum
fields required to create an asset are available on the screen (Asset Class, Description, and Cost Center). The MasterData button is also available to fill in additional
details. From the same screen, you can select to post to multiple assets at the same
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time. The transaction is very simple: you enter the date definitions, the amount,
and, where valid, the quantity and line item text. This is enough information to
post, but there is a screen with more details where you can make additional definitions.
Figure 4.17 Asset Acquisition Transaction Data
You can see the additional details screen in Figure 4.18. The Document Type, Offsetting Account, and Transaction Type fields will all be filled automatically from the
settings in Customizing if you don’t manually alter them. The rest of the fields are
optional and will remain blank by default.
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Figure 4.18 Asset Acquisition Additional Details
Acquisition Integrated with Accounts Payable
Acquisition integrated with accounts payable is used when purchasing an asset
without a purchase order. In this case, the FI posting updates both the accounts
payable and the asset accounts in a single step. The typical (single asset) acquisition entry is shown in Table 4.3.
Line Item
Account
Debit/Credit Amount
1
Supplier
Credit
$11,000
2
Asset clearing
Debit
$10,000
3
Tax
Debit
$1,000
Table 4.3 Accounts Payable Integrated Asset Acquisition
The application used to enter this type of document is the complex posting screen.
In this case, you fill the document header first and start building up each line item
in a separate screen. You must manually enter the posting key for the second line
(70 to debit the asset) and the transaction type (100 for asset acquisition). In Figure
4.19, you can see the line item for the asset; you can add another asset acquisition
line by entering the posting key, (asset) account, and transaction type at the bottom of the screen, in the Next Line Item section. By selecting the More button, you
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can enter the Reference Date, which is the asset value date the system will use as
the asset capitalization date.
Figure 4.19 Accounts Payable Integrated Acquisition
Asset Acquisition with Purchase Order Integrated with Materials Management
Asset acquisition with purchase order integrated with materials management is
probably the most common acquisition method for most companies. It creates a
posting like the one created by the accounts payable integrated posting, but with
the purchase order details and posted through the materials management invoice
verification. In this case, the flow of documents is as follows:
쐍 (Optional) purchase requisition
A purchase requisition is often the first step of the purchasing workflow. At the
purchase requisition phase, you might already have and assign a specific asset
master record in the document. Most commonly, though, this is done in the
next stage.
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쐍 Purchase order
The purchase order is a required step in purchasing assets with materials management. To order an asset, you enter the assignment category A in the line of
the purchase order, which will allow you to enter an asset in the account assignment. An important decision to make when entering the purchase order is if
you’re posting a valuated goods receipt or not.
쐍 Goods receipt/invoice receipt
With a valuated goods receipt, the asset is capitalized when you post the goods
receipt with the value defined in the purchase order. With the invoice receipt,
the system will adjust the value of the capitalized asset if required. In this case,
the goods receipt isn’t valuated (probably the more common case for assets),
the asset isn’t updated during goods receipt, no values are posted until the
invoice receipt, and no adjustment postings are required because the value is
based on an actual invoice. With the nonvaluated goods receipt, the system still
uses the goods receipt date as the asset capitalization date.
In integrated external acquisitions, the system posts the entry document without
a ledger group specification, and, as shown in the tables previously (Table 4.1, Table
4.2, Table 4.3), by debiting the asset clearing account. At the same time, the system
creates an additional document for each additional accounting principle. These
documents balance the technical clearing account back to zero.
The additional documents post a debit to the actual asset reconciliation account
while crediting the asset clearing account. The accounting-principle-specific documents post to the ledger group assigned to the accounting principle and indicated
in the relevant depreciation area. For example, if you update two accounting principles in parallel, the system will post one operational document, debiting the
asset clearing account, plus two accounting-principle-specific documents (one for
each accounting principle) in which each document debits the (same) asset clearing account.
In Figure 4.20 you can see the system output when selecting the asset accounting
view. To switch between the accounting principles, you select AP/Currency 1. The
accounting principle you are viewing is displayed in the Document Header Info
section. In the figure, you can see the IFRS document posted to ledger group 0L 2
and the local GAAP document posted to ledger group 2L 3.
The asset technical clearing account is an asset reconciliation general ledger
account that isn’t entered in the asset account determination. Instead, there is a
separate step to define the technical clearing account for integrated asset acquisition.
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The accounting-principle-specific documents can be designated to have a different document type than the entry document. A common setting here is to define
that for supplier invoices (document type KR), the system posts accountingprinciple-specific documents to document type AA (asset document).
Figure 4.20 Simulation of Asset Acquisition
Note
The preceding is valid for the ledger approach to parallel valuation. When you’re using
the accounts approach, the concept is similar, and the operational document is identical;
however, the details of the accounting-principle-specific documents are different. Specifically, one accounting-principle-specific document clears the asset technical clearing
account, but the rest of the documents (depending on the number of mapped accounting
principles) post the clearing balance to a different clearing account. This is because with
the accounts approach, you can’t differentiate the posted ledger; you always post to the
leading ledger. If all accounting principles posted to the same technical clearing account,
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the account wouldn’t be balanced. In this case, the zero balance for the books are
achieved through matching the asset technical clearing account with the acquisition offsetting account defined for each depreciation area in the account depreciation.
In the accounts approach, all depreciation areas must be assigned to a ledger group/
accounting principle; however, all ledger groups are assigned to a single (leading) ledger.
Gross and Net Document Types
In the standard system, you will find two kinds of document types for asset capitalization posting:
쐍 Gross document types (e.g., AA or KR) capitalize the full amount of an invoice
(minus tax), independent of the cash discount (Figure 4.21).
Figure 4.21 Gross Entry: Cash Discount Ignored
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쐍 Net document types (e.g., AN or KN) will capitalize the invoice amount minus
tax, minus the expected cash discount based on the payment terms of the
invoice line item (Figure 4.22).
Figure 4.22 Net Entry: Cash Discount Considered
Note
At the time of payment of the invoice, the amount capitalized for a net posting will be
recalculated if the cash discount differs from the one calculated during posting. This
adjustment will occur automatically in a company code with document splitting activated. If document splitting is not active, you can execute the Profit and Loss Adjustment
program to correct the capitalization amounts for the relevant asset, as shown in Figure
4.23.
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Figure 4.23 Profit and Loss Adjustment
Asset Retirements
There are two basic ways to perform asset retirements: scrapping and selling. Both
lead to the asset being removed from your asset registry, as opposed to assets that
have been fully depreciated, which remain, even with no accounting value.
Asset sales to customers are generally performed through financial account, and
not sales and distribution. This is because selling assets usually isn’t a normal business activity for most companies. As in the case of the acquisition integrated with
the supplier, the posting is performed through the complex posting transaction.
Posting an Asset Sale Invoice
To post an asset sale invoice, you debit the customer and credit the general ledger
Revenue from Fixed Asset Sale account. You don’t credit the asset directly with
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posting key 75 and a sale transactions type. The revenue account has a special configuration provided by its field status group to accommodate asset retirements.
When using this account, you mark the Asst. Retirement checkbox, and the system
produces a pop-up window to enter details for the asset sale (see Figure 4.24).
Figure 4.24 Asset Details Pop-up When Selling an Asset
Creating Asset Retirement
The Create Asset Retirement pop-up window (Figure 4.24) is where you enter definitions for the following:
쐍 Asset
This is the asset (or asset subnumber) the sale concerns. You can only enter a
single asset per line, so you just add lines crediting the revenue from the fixed
asset sale account.
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쐍 TransactionType
This is the retirement transaction type with the default 210 for a normal asset
sale in the current fiscal year proposed by the system. You can change this if
required.
쐍 Asset Val. Date
The asset value date is the date for calculations in asset accounting. This date is
very important for calculating the profit or loss from the asset sale.
쐍 Compl. Retirement
This checkbox indicates whether the asset is to be fully or partially retired.
Tip
If you’re performing a partial retirement, you indicate the retirement amount, retirement
quantity (if relevant), or the percentage of the asset to be retired. The system adjusts the
values accordingly, and the asset will remain in the asset registry of the company with
the reduced value.
Asset Sale Line Items
When performing a retirement, the system calculates all related values automatically and updates all accounting principles and gain/loss accounts. In Figure 4.25,
you can see an example of the lines generated for an asset sale. The lines without
the ledger group are the ones we manually enter during posting (customer, revenue from asset sale). The other lines are generated automatically and are accounting-principle-specific lines. That is because the calculations depend on the values
for each accounting principle and different depreciation amounts, and accounting-principle-specific postings need to be taken into consideration. The system
will calculate the depreciation up to the asset value date indicated. In our specific
example, the asset was sold for $50,000 USD, the acquisition value is $40,000
USD, and the depreciation up to the point of the sale was $2,500 USD. Therefore,
the profit for the sale is $12,500 USD. The revenue from the asset sale is balanced
by the clearing from the asset disposal account. The posting is similar for the other
accounting principles (only the values and ledger group will change). Note that it’s
possible to have a profit in one accounting principle and a loss in another, and the
account is adjusted for each.
You can also perform asset sales without customer integration. In this case, the
transaction looks like the nonintegrated asset acquisition with the addition of a
tab with specifications for a partial retirement.
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Figure 4.25 Asset Sale Line Items
A similar application is used for asset scrapping, except there is no customer and
no revenue, which means no profit. You can also perform a partial scrapping by
selecting an amount, percentage, or value. The application offers facilities to perform scrapping for multiple assets.
Retirements Worklist
The SAP S/4HANA system offers the possibility to perform retirements (nonintegrated sale or scrapping) using a worklist. In this case, you perform the following:
1. Execute the report with the specific selection criteria to select the exact assets
you want to retire.
2. Create a worklist for the items. You must indicate the purpose of the worklist
(retirement with/without revenue), as shown in Figure 4.26.
3. If there is revenue, distribute the revenue to the selected assets.
4. Edit/release the worklist.
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Figure 4.26 Worklist Creation from Asset Balances Report
Asset Transfers
Asset transfers are transactions that remove values from one asset and transfer
the same value to another one. Two types of transfers are supported: intracompany and intercompany. Let’s explore both of those individually.
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Intracompany Transfers
Intracompany asset transfer is performed within a company code between two
asset master records of the same or different asset classes, as shown in Figure 4.27.
There are two main reasons for posting an asset transfer:
쐍 The initial asset wasn’t created in the right asset class. You create a new asset (in
the correct class) and transfer the values to this new asset.
쐍 You want to transfer part or the full value of the asset to different assets to better depict the asset components—for example, to track the location of each on
the asset.
Figure 4.27 Asset Transfer within Company Code: Intracompany
Note
You could also use the asset transfer to settle assets under construction, but this isn’t the
recommended method.
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Intercompany Transfer
An intercompany transfer represents the transfer of an asset from one company
code to another within the same corporate group, as shown in Figure 4.28. The system posts a retirement for the sending company and an acquisition for the receiving company code. On the corporate group level, it’s a transfer that should balance
to zero in the group asset history sheet. An intercompany asset transfer within a
corporate group may be necessary for one of the following reasons:
쐍 The asset has moved, making it necessary to assign the asset to a new company
code.
쐍 Due to a reorganization at the corporate group, you must assign assets to a different company code.
Figure 4.28 Asset Transfer: Intercompany
A differentiator for the type of transaction that will be posted is whether the company codes between which the transfer is taking place are assigned to the same
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company. If this is the case, the transfer is posted as a transfer. If the company
codes are assigned to different companies, the system posts a retirement in the
sending company code and an acquisition in the receiving company code.
Transfer Methods
The transfer method (see Specifications for Revenue in Figure 4.28) defines the way
values are transferred between the assets. There are three transfer types: the gross
method, the net method, and the new value method.
The gross method is the most common, in which the historic values of the asset
are all transferred to the new asset (see Table 4.4).
Asset
Acquisition and
Production Cost
Accumulated
Depreciation
Sender
20,000
4,000
Receiver
20,000
4,000
Table 4.4 Gross Method
The net method transfers the net book value of the sender to the receiver (see
Table 4.5).
Asset
Acquisition and
Production Cost
Accumulated
Depreciation
Sender
20,000
4,000
Receiver
16,000
Table 4.5 Net Method
The new value method capitalizes the new asset at a manually entered revenue
amount (Table 4.6).
Asset
Acquisition and
Production Cost
Accumulated
Depreciation
Sender
20,000
4,000
Receiver
15,000
Table 4.6 New Value Method
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In the rare case in which you’re transferring an asset between company codes that
are assigned to different charts of depreciation with mismatched depreciation
areas, you can create cross-company-code (or cross-system) depreciation areas
that will map the depreciation areas between the differing charts of depreciation.
The mapped depreciation areas have the same function and significance in all
charts of depreciation within a corporate group but with different keys. The crosscompany depreciation area is only defined by a key and description and carries no
depreciation definitions of its own.
Low-Value Assets
Low-value assets (LVAs) are always completely depreciated in the year in which
they are acquired. You generally don’t have to report on their values individually.
LVAs are maintained in specific LVA asset classes.
In Customizing, you configure the maximum value an asset can have to be considered an LVA. This is done on the country level (see Figure 4.29) but can be specified
on a lower level as well and specifically per company code and depreciation area.
Figure 4.29 Configuration of Low-Value Assets
LVAs can be managed individually, and in this case the acquisition value for the
single asset is compared to the maximum amounts defined for each depreciation
area.
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Alternatively, LVAs are managed collectively in accordance with the quantity
posted. In this case, the value of the acquisition is divided by the quantity entered,
and this value is then compared to the maximum amounts.
Assets Under Construction
Assets under construction require a separate asset class because they must be displayed in separate accounts for the financial statement. An asset under construction doesn’t post depreciation, and this is guaranteed in the system by the assigned
depreciation key 0000 (Figure 4.30).
Figure 4.30 Asset Under Construction Depreciation
Tip
You can theoretically calculate depreciation for internal reporting purposes on a depreciation area that doesn’t post values. Special tax depreciation and investment support can
be posted to an asset under construction.
Even when an asset under construction has been fully capitalized, it’s still possible
to post credit memos, meaning negative acquisition and production costs values
must be permitted.
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When the assets under construction move from the under construction phase to
the useful life phase, the values are transferred to one or more final assets. This
(depending on the assets under construction asset class type) can be done either in
a one-step summary settlement (e.g., an intracompany asset transfer) or with line
item management. By settling line items, you have full control over which posted
values are capitalized in each individual depreciation area. You must first assign a
settlement profile to the company code. You then define distribution rules per
expenditure and depreciation area to define what value percentage or amount
goes to which final asset.
In Figure 4.31, you can see an example of an asset under construction with five separate lines. Three lines are for the IFRS accounting principle and two for the local
GAAP. The green traffic light in the first column indicates the settlement rule is
maintained.
Figure 4.31 Settlement Maintenance per Line on Assets Under Construction
In Figure 4.32, you can see the definition of the settlement rule. In the first column
you define the settlement category (like fixed asset or cost center). In the second
column, you specify the settlement receiver. In the fourth column displayed, you
define the settlement percentage.
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Figure 4.32 Settlement Rule Maintenance
You don’t have to perform a full settlement of the asset values because you might
continue the assets under construction project and produce other assets, or you
might post the remaining value as an operating expense instead.
Asset Depreciation
Depreciation posting is a periodic activity that is executed during period-end closing. The depreciation itself is calculated and stored in the asset accounting component for each asset after any asset transaction or change to the master record that
might influence the calculated depreciation. The system uses the calculated depreciation values when posting the depreciation, and depreciation isn’t recalculated
for the execution.
Calculation of Depreciation
Calculation of depreciation is based on depreciation keys assigned to the asset per
depreciation area. The depreciation key calculation is controlled through the calculation methods assigned to the key. The various types of calculation methods
are listed here but not explored because analyzing the details of what each method
controls is beyond the scope of the associate certification:
쐍 Base method
쐍 Multilevel method
쐍 Declining-balance method
쐍 Period control method
쐍 Maximum amount method
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You create new depreciation keys usually to comply with new legal regulations. In
most cases, it’s adequate to copy and modify an existing method and then assign
it to a new depreciation key that is in turn copied from the closest similar depreciation key. You need to execute a recalculation of depreciation in cases in which a
new key is assigned to assets. This will update the planned values of depreciation.
In Figure 4.33, you can see the assignment of the calculation method to a depreciation key.
Figure 4.33 Depreciation Key Definition
If the acquisition and production costs value of the asset changes in a year (e.g.,
due to a partial sale), the depreciation posted already for the year isn’t changed;
however, the depreciation of the next period will be adjusted in accordance with
the period interval definition. In the most common case, the new depreciation values calculated for the asset and the system will catch up the differences immediately in the following period. As an example, if the value of the asset is reduced, the
system will post less depreciation in the period of the reduction than the new periodic depreciation amount is calculated as to catch up with the increased depreciation posted in the prior months.
Time-Dependent Depreciation Definitions
You can make time-dependent changes to an asset’s depreciation terms, meaning
you can define a new period interval from which date the new depreciation settings are effective. The definitions you can make with time dependency are as follows:
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쐍 Depreciation key
쐍 Useful life (year or period)
쐍 Variable depreciation portion
쐍 Absolute or percentage scrap value
When using time dependency, the system won’t catch up or smooth the values
over the remaining periods/years. In the depreciation area, allowed values are
maintained and any change to depreciation terms must always comply with the
value rule definitions of the affected depreciation area.
Figure 4.34 Depreciation Details for Asset
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In Figure 4.34, you can see the detailed depreciation area definitions for an asset.
Selecting More Intervals takes you to the screen shown in Figure 4.35, on which the
intervals are displayed.
Figure 4.35 Intervals for Depreciation Details
Depreciation Posting Run
The depreciation posting run posts depreciation to the general ledger accounts in
financial accounting, as shown in Figure 4.36. The transaction debits the depreciation expense account and credits the accumulated depreciation account for each
asset and depreciation area per the account determination of the asset class. For
example, for a company code with 100,000 active, not fully depreciated assets and
three depreciation areas that post depreciation, the system will post 300,000 document line items.
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Figure 4.36 Scheduling Asset Depreciation Run
There are two major advantages of posting with this level of detail:
쐍 No need for reconciliation of components
There is a single source of truth, which means you can blindly trust your reporting.
쐍 Depreciation will be posted even when some assets cause errors
The program posts depreciation for all assets that it can. If you re-execute
depreciation for the period (usually after correcting the problems), the system
will only post the missing lines for the assets that caused problems. If you’ve
closed the period before the assets could be corrected, the system will adjust the
depreciation (e.g., post double the amount) in the following depreciation run.
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Because one side of the depreciation posting is to an expense account, the system
also posts to a controlling account assignment. Most commonly, this is the cost
center maintained on the asset account master record.
The depreciation program is always executed in the background (and usually off
system peak usage hours). The depreciation run can be executed as a test run
online for up to 1,000 assets. The test run can run for unlimited assets as a background job. Testing the depreciation run might be useful to find assets with errors
before committing the actual depreciation run. Because the test run can be executed at any time, and not only during period end, you can start correcting problems early on.
After you execute the depreciation posting, the system outputs a log, and you can
select the detailed log option to see every line item posted per depreciation area, as
shown in Figure 4.37. A similar log can be produced for test runs as well.
Figure 4.37 Depreciation Posting Run Log
Asset Year-End Process
As the asset accounting balances are made up of line items that are in the Universal Journal, the carryforward for these items is executed through the balance carryforward program in general ledger accounting. The balance carryforward is
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executed usually near the very end of the current fiscal year or at the very beginning of a new fiscal year. To post to asset accounting in a new fiscal year, the balance carryforward must be executed successfully.
In asset accounting, you can have up to two fiscal years open at the same time. The
idea is that you open a new fiscal year with the balance carryforward, and you close
the previous fiscal year when the previous year is closed for any accounting transactions. If you already have two years open, you won’t be able to post to a third fiscal year even if the balance carryforward has been performed for the new year.
To close a fiscal year, you execute the year-end closing program (Figure 4.38). The
program checks that depreciation is posted fully and there are no assets that contain errors. If the year-end closing program finds no errors, it blocks posting in
asset accounting for the closed fiscal year. If for some reason you need to post in a
closed year, you can reset the year-end closing. You’ll need to close the year again
through the year-end closing program.
Figure 4.38 Year-End Closing for Asset Accounting
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Asset Reporting
Asset reporting is how you keep track of all the asset balances and transactions and
can simulate depreciation values in future periods. There are two basic report categories: reports for individual assets and reports for multiple assets. We’ll go over
the most important reports for each category.
Asset Accounting Overview
With this app (Figure 4.39) you can view multiple KPIs and asset accounting
reports in a single screen. The app can be used as a central operations and information hub. You can drag and drop the cards shown to organize reports according to
your priorities. You can utilize filters and built-in navigation links to related apps.
The follow is a list of the key reports the app displays:
쐍 Asset Balances
Shows total planned asset net book values as of the end of the current fiscal
period
쐍 Asset Acquisitions
Shows the total value of acquisitions within the selected period
쐍 Asset Retirements
Shows the total value of retirements within the selected period
쐍 Open Purchase Orders (Account Assignment A)
Shows relevant items by either Value Still to Be Invoiced or Value Still to Be
Delivered
쐍 Asset Transactions by Period
Shows the proportion of acquisitions and retirements in the selected period
쐍 Depreciation to Be Posted
Shows value to be posted by depreciation type for the current period
쐍 Asset Depreciation Values
Shows asset depreciation values for the current period
쐍 Asset Master Worklist
Shows current number of assets by status
쐍 Assets Under Construction
Shows assets under construction in the current period
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쐍 Asset Transactions
Shows acquisitions and retirements displayed by Asset Class, Account Determination, and the like
쐍 Origin of Assets
Shows asset origin displayed either by Country or Supplier
Figure 4.39 Example of Asset Accounting Overview Page
Asset Value Report
The most important report for checking values for an individual asset is the Asset
Values SAP Fiori application (or the asset explorer, as it’s called in the SAP GUI), as
shown in Figure 4.40.
You can get a complete overview of the planned and posted values of the asset per
depreciation area and year. You can check and directly display the transactions
posted to the asset in the year. You can see and drill down to the related objects of
the asset such as the cost center, general ledger account, supplier, and so on. You
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can also perform value simulations based on what-if scenarios—for example,
based on changing the depreciation key. In addition, in the Comparisons tab, you
can compare values (plan and actual) between different depreciation areas. Finally,
you can view the details and valuation methods of the depreciation key assigned
to the asset and selected depreciation area.
Figure 4.40 Asset Values Report (Asset Explorer)
Asset Balances Report
The Asset Balances report gives you a quick overview of the balances for multiple
assets, as shown in Figure 4.41. The range of assets, company code, ledger, depreciation area, year, currency type, and period up to which the values should be
selected are mandatory fields when executing the report. There are also many
more filters you can add to specify the assets (general ledger account, asset class,
etc.).
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The output displays various key figures such as APC value, deprecation posted, and
net book value. There are predelivered key figure variants for different purposes.
Using the Navigation Panel, you can easily add or remove report characteristics to
rows and columns. You can also export to a Microsoft Excel file for further calculations.
Figure 4.41 Asset Balances
Asset History Sheet
The final report to remember is the Asset History Sheet, shown in Figure 4.42. This
sheet is a legal requirement in some countries, and SAP offers predefined layouts
that cover the local legal requirements for those countries. The report application
itself is like the Asset Balances report but uses a specific key figure group and is
more focused on showing the changes to asset values within a year. You can create
your own key figure groups in Customizing.
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Figure 4.42 Asset History Sheet
Asset Legacy Data Transfer
The data migration of legacy data from a previous system to an SAP S/4HANA system is a very important process in which you must match the settings of an old
system, whether an SAP ERP (usually the easy case) or a non-SAP system. You then
usually use a mass transfer method to perform the actual data migration.
Migration Preparation Customizing
To prepare for data migration in the system, you perform the following customizing steps:
1. You ensure the company code status allows data migration (Figure 4.43). This is
allowed when the company code is set to status 1 or 2. Status 0 is what you set
for a productive company code to ensure the data integrity is protected for
“accidental” migration activities.
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Figure 4.43 Set Company Code Status
2. You define the offsetting account for legacy data transfer. In this Customizing
activity, you specify the general ledger account used for transferring asset balances.
Note
The asset offsetting account is assigned in a financial statement item with other
accounts for the legacy data transfer (such as other general ledger account balances and
customer/supplier open items). The total of all accounts for the legacy data transfer must
balance to zero when all migration activities are complete.
3. You define the document type to be used while posting. In the standard system,
document type UE is predefined for all migration activities.
4. You define the takeover date per company code (Figure 4.44). This is the date of
the last period closed in the legacy system. Up to this date, SAP S/4HANA uses
the values from the legacy system; from this date forward, SAP will calculate its
own values.
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Figure 4.44 Defining Date for Legacy Data Transfer
5. If the migration takes place mid-year, you define the last posted period in a second customizing screen, shown in Figure 4.45.
Figure 4.45 Mid-Year Asset Takeover
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Performing Data Migration
The process to manually create a legacy asset is similar to the one for creating
assets during normal operation, the main difference being that you must enter the
capitalization date manually and you (usually) input the Original Asset, which corresponds to the asset number in the legacy system (Figure 4.46). The transaction is
also different in this case (Transaction AS91, accessed through the SAP GUI).
Figure 4.46 Legacy Data: Master Record Origin Details
You post the transfer values using a separate step (Transaction ABLDT; Figure 4.47).
The system posts a separate Universal Journal entry for the takeover values of each
asset, debiting the asset account, crediting the accumulated depreciation, and
crediting the remaining balance to the offsetting account defined.
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Figure 4.47 Entering Manual Takeover Values
In an actual project, you would generally not perform a manual migration for
assets unless the number of assets is extremely limited. For this, in addition to the
manual transfer, the following automatic (mass-compatible) transfer methods are
available:
쐍 Legacy data transfer using Microsoft Excel (Transaction AS100)
An example form is shown in Figure 4.48.
쐍 Legacy data transfer using legacy system migration workbench (Transaction
LSMW)
In this case, you often perform a screen recording of the manual transaction
and upload a file for batch execution.
쐍 Legacy data transfer using business application programming interface
(BAPI)
In this case, you create a custom program together with a technical consultant.
Figure 4.48 Excel Legacy Master Record Form
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Important Terminology Chapter 4
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 Chart of depreciation
The chart of depreciation organizes all depreciation areas valid for a country.
Asset accounting is activated for a company code by assigning the chart of
depreciation to the company code.
쐍 Depreciation area
The depreciation area is used to calculate values according to various legal and
internal reporting requirements. Each depreciation area is assigned to an
accounting principle. A depreciation area can post all values, post only depreciation, or not post at all.
쐍 Asset class
The asset class is used to group assets according to basic criteria, including the
general ledger accounts updated, the default valuations and depreciation settings, and the nature of the asset. All assets are assigned to an asset class, which
is used to control the data maintenance screen and number range.
쐍 Account determination
The account determination is where all balance sheet and profit and loss
accounts are assigned per depreciation area for acquisition and production
costs, depreciation, and special reserves postings. You assign the account determination to one or more asset classes.
쐍 Asset transaction type
The transaction type holds definitions for all aspects of an asset transaction,
such as if it’s a debit or a credit, if the asset is capitalized or retired by posting,
and more. Each transaction type belongs to a transaction type group that
defines many characteristics of the transaction. Examples of groups include
acquisitions, retirements, transfers, and depreciation.
쐍 Technical clearing account
The technical clearing account facilitates external asset transactions (acquisitions from suppliers, sales to customers, etc.). The account is posted in the operational document and is credited by the accounting-principle-specific
documents, so it always balances to zero after each posting.
쐍 Asset value date
You define this date during posting, for which the transaction is updated for
asset accounting. This date is the basis for deciding the capitalization date and
ordinary start date for depreciation for asset acquisitions and the retirement
date for asset sale or scrapping.
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쐍 Low-value asset (LVA)
An LVA is an asset that has an acquisition value below a predefined threshold.
These assets are posted to a separate LVA class and are depreciated fully within
the year of acquisition.
쐍 Asset under construction
This asset is being built/produced and acts as a cost collector for capital and
other expenditures. When the asset is complete (or at various other intervals),
the asset under construction is capitalized into a final asset.
쐍 Depreciation key
This key defines the way the depreciation is calculated for an asset, including
the method for depreciation (straight line, variable), the depreciation start date
definition (in relation to the acquisition date), and more.
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
1.
Which system components are directly integrated with asset accounting?
(There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Bank account management
첸
B. Investment management
첸
C. Purchasing
첸
D. Plant maintenance
첸
E. Quality management
2.
What is true for assigning charts of depreciation to company codes?
첸
A. All company codes of a single country must be assigned to the same chart
of depreciation.
첸
B. Each company code can be assigned to a different chart of depreciation.
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Practice Questions Chapter 4
첸
C. You assign company codes only to charts of depreciation delivered by SAP.
첸
D. A company with company codes in multiple countries can use a single
chart of depreciation for all.
3.
True or False: A single depreciation area can post to multiple ledgers.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
4.
What is true for real depreciation areas?
첸
A. They are set to always post to the general ledger.
첸
B. Each can be assigned multiple currency types.
첸
C. You can post transactions to them independently.
첸
D. They can have values calculated from combining other depreciation area
values.
5.
Two assets (belonging to the same company code) post depreciation to different general ledger accounts. What does this mean for the assets? (There are
two correct answers.)
첸
A. The assets belong to different asset classes.
첸
B. The assets are assigned to separate account determinations.
첸
C. The assets post acquisition and production costs values to separate
accounts.
첸
D. The assets are assigned to separate cost centers.
6.
True or False: Two assets in the same asset class, belonging to different company codes but with the same chart of depreciation, can post to different
accounts.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
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7.
How can you default a value for the cost center in the entire asset class for
buildings?
첸
A. By using asset subnumbers
첸
B. By changing the assigned screen layout
첸
C. By changing the assigned tab layout
첸
D. By entering it in default account assignments for the general ledger
account
8.
Which of the options are types of user fields? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Group Asset
첸
B. Serial Number
첸
C. Evaluation Group
첸
D. Asset Super Number
9.
When you copy an asset, the asset text is copied as well. How can you avoid
this?
첸
A. By changing the assigned screen layout
첸
B. By changing the assigned tab layout
첸
C. By changing the asset class definitions
첸
D. By creating a dummy reference asset with no text
10. For which kind of asset is the asset main text always prefilled?
첸
A. Asset super numbers
첸
B. Group assets
첸
C. Asset subnumbers
첸
D. Mass-created assets
11.
You execute a report based on the location and are missing an asset. What
might have happened? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. The asset has been fully depreciated.
첸
B. The asset was sold to a customer.
첸
C. The equipment assigned to the asset was moved.
첸
D. The asset was partially scrapped.
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Practice Questions Chapter 4
12. True or False: The document type maintained in the asset transaction type is
proposed but can be changed manually during posting.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
13. Which transactions lead to asset capitalization? (There are three correct
answers.)
첸
A. Purchase order in purchasing
첸
B. Valuated goods receipt
첸
C. Assets under construction settlement
첸
D. Intracompany transfer
첸
E. Nonvaluated goods receipt
14. True or False: In both the ledger and accounts approaches, the technical clearing account is posted to by all accounting-principle-specific documents.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
15.
True or False: When posting an integrated asset sale to a customer, you enter
a debit for the customer with posting key 01 and credit for the asset with posting key 75.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
16. When making a partial sale, how can you choose to calculate the amount of
value reduction for the asset? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. By quantity
첸
B. By posted depreciation
첸
C. By profit (or loss)
첸
D. By retirement amount
첸
E. By percentage
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17.
True or False: To post intercompany asset transfers, you maintain the crosscompany code clearing accounts.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
18. When you post an amount to an asset in the LVA class that is above the threshold for the maximum value, how does the system respond?
첸
A. The system produces an error message; for you to post, you must split the
asset or post to another asset class.
첸
B. You receive a warning message; the asset is posted, but the depreciation key
is adjusted to normal depreciation.
첸
C. The system posts the value up to the LVA threshold and posts the rest to the
generated asset subnumber.
첸
D. The system adjusts the asset quantity to the value that keeps the asset
below the maximum threshold.
19. You have an invoice for transport expenses for your assets under construction. These expenses can be capitalized per IFRS but not in the local GAAP.
What is the best way to handle this?
첸
A. Post the invoice to the assets under construction and manage settlement
per depreciation area.
첸
B. Post the invoice to a clearing account and clear it per ledger group (capitalize for IFRS, expense for local GAAP).
첸
C. Post the invoice to assets under construction, and, after settlement, post a
partial scrapping for the local depreciation area.
첸
D. Post the invoice twice: once as an expense to the local ledger group and
once more to IFRS.
20. The cross-company code depreciation area is required in which of the following intercompany transfers?
첸
A. For all intercompany asset transfers
첸
B. For transfers with nonmatching depreciation areas
첸
C. For transfers between company codes in different countries
첸
D. For transfers in which you also change the asset class
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 4
21. An online test run for depreciation is limited to how many assets?
첸
A. 100
첸
B. 1,000
첸
C. 10,000
첸
D. No limit
22. True or False: You can select to execute the depreciation posting run for a single depreciation area.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
23. True or False: With the depreciation run completing even when assets have
errors, you no longer should worry about fixing assets with errors.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
24. When should fiscal year close for asset accounting be carried out?
첸
A. Directly before balance carryforward
첸
B. Directly after balance carryforward
첸
C. When the previous fiscal year is closed
첸
D. When the last nonspecial period of the previous year is closed
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answers: B, C, D
Investment management is tightly integrated, especially with assets under
construction. Purchasing is integrated with asset accounting already from the
purchase requisition phase, and the asset is a required field on the purchase
order for asset acquisition. plant maintenance integrates through the equipment master record connection to the fixed asset master. Bank account management isn’t directly integrated with fixed assets, and the same is true with
quality management, which integrates with materials management.
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2. Correct answer: B
There is no limitation on the number of charts of depreciation created for a
country. You assign a chart of depreciation to each company code, and again,
there is no rule to assign the same one to company codes belonging to the same
country. You can use a standard chart of depreciation as delivered by SAP, but
if you want to make modifications, it’s advised that you copy it and then modify the new chart. Asset accounting has very different accounting rules in different countries, so you wouldn’t use the same chart of depreciation across country borders. Even if things look the same to begin with, laws and regulations
change all the time, and you never know when a country will impose a rule
incompatible with other countries.
3. Correct answer: A
True. This is true but is a kind of tricky question. You assign an accounting principle to the depreciation area. The accounting principle is assigned to a ledger
group. The ledger group can have multiple ledgers assigned, so many ledgers
can by updated by a depreciation area.
4. Correct answer: C
In asset accounting transactions that aren’t integrated with accounts payable/
accounts receivable, you can choose to post them to specific depreciation areas.
In addition, if a depreciation area isn’t valid for an individual asset, you can
deactivate it. The asset values then won’t be updated for the deactivated area
even for external transactions (an expense or loss account is debited to balance
the technical clearing account in such cases). A real depreciation area doesn’t
have to post to the general ledger; each area is assigned a specific currency type.
Calculating values from other areas is the exact reason for having derived (not
real) depreciation areas.
5. Correct answers: A, B
The definite obvious answer here is that the assets have different account
determinations. This also means the assets belong to different asset classes
because an asset class is assigned to a single account determination. Although
unlikely, the acquisition and production costs account could be the same
between separate account determinations. The cost center has no bearing on
the selected accounts.
6. Correct answer: A
True. Here, as with the certification questions, you need to read the question
through and find the essence of the information given. There is almost no
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 4
chance that some piece of information is given to distract. Here, the key is that
the company codes can have different charts of accounts assigned. Because the
accounts in the account determination are defined per chart of accounts, the
two assets could post to separate accounts.
7. Correct answer: B
In the screen layout, you can define that a field can be set on the asset class
level. You can do the same for the subnumbers, but another main asset in the
asset class wouldn’t be limited. The tab layout only affects the positioning of
the tabs. The cost center assigned to the asset can’t be affected by a rule in the
default account assignments.
8. Correct answers: C, D
This is a straightforward knowledge question. You usually answer these by a
combination of knowing part of the right answer and dismissing some of the
wrong answers. The evaluation groups and asset super numbers can be maintained in Customizing and assigned to assets to cover customer requirements
for extra fields and groupings. The group asset is a depreciation characteristic;
the serial number is a standard field that often ties in with equipment from
plant maintenance.
9. Correct answer: A
You define which fields get carried over when an asset is used for reference in
the screen layout. This isn’t maintained in the tab layout or the asset class. The
dummy reference asset isn’t a good solution; it’s more of a hack workaround,
and you wouldn’t ever do something like this. Nevertheless, the option probably wouldn’t appear in the certification exam because ambiguous answers are
avoided.
10. Correct answer: C
The asset subnumbers inherit the asset main text from the main asset number,
and this can’t be changed.
11. Correct answers: B, C
When an asset is integrated with the equipment, changes in the equipment can
be configured to update the asset. An asset sold will no longer show up in the
company code reports. Fully depreciated assets show up in reports because
they are still active in the company, and partial scrapping would not deactivate
the asset either.
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12. Correct answer: A
True. You do maintain a default document type for posting in the asset transaction type. This is defaulted in certain transactions when you don’t enter a
separate one manually. An example in which this can be changed is the integrated acquisition posting with supplier, in which document type KR is used
instead of transaction type 100 with the default of AA.
13. Correct answers: B, C, D
An asset is capitalized when processing a valuated goods receipt. The invoice is
used for confirmation/adjustment of the amount. In contrast, with a nonvaluated goods receipt, the asset will be capitalized from the invoice entry. When
you settle the line items posted to an asset under construction to the final
assets, those are capitalized. When you post an intracompany asset transfer,
the asset is capitalized on the asset value date. The purchase order doesn’t capitalize an asset; that happens either on goods receipt (for a valuated goods
receipt) or during invoicing.
14. Correct answer: B
False. In the accounts approach, only one accounting-principle-specific document posts to the technical clearing account. The rest of the documents post to
a different clearing account. If each document posted multiple times to the
same account, the account would end up with a balance.
15. Correct answer: B
False. On the credit side, you must enter the revenue account for an asset sale.
This is a special account with the field status group for asset sales that allows
you to select the asset, dates, and values. You don’t post a credit directly to the
asset.
16. Correct answers: A, D, E
When you select a partial sale in the asset retirement pop-up, you can choose to
sell a specific quantity of the asset (if applicable); the value is adjusted based on
the amount for sale/total amount fraction. When you select a retirement
amount, you directly input the amount of value reduction as a number value.
The percentage method simply splits the value based on the percentage
entered. You can’t use the other options to determine the value.
17. Correct answer: B
False. An intercompany asset transfer works through a different mechanism
than financial accounting cross-company postings and doesn’t require separate cross-company account definitions.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 4
18. Correct answer: A
When you try to post above the maximum value for an asset created in the LVA
class, the system produces an error. You can only post up to the maximum
amount for assets in this class. In this case, you would check if you can split the
posting or more likely create the asset in a “normal” asset class. The other
options have one thing in common: the system is making a lot of decisions and
automations. As a rule, the default system keeps things simple. Too much automation runs into problems when dealing with processes and transactions that
might be done very differently depending on the company.
19. Correct answer: A
Answer A is the best one because it uses the assets under construction functionality as it’s intended to be used. You collect the production-related
expenses on a single item (as you would use an internal order or a project), and
then you settle the amounts. In SAP S/4HANA, the settlement is defined on the
depreciation area, so you can manage the capitalization separately per accounting principle. Questions with “what is the best” phrasing aren’t part of the certification exam because they are ambiguous, and the questions and answers in
the certification exam must be as straightforward as possible.
20. Correct answer: B
The cross-company code depreciation area is used exactly for cases in which
the sender has areas that need to be mapped to areas with different codification
on the receiver side. You might need it for transfers that are between counties,
but you also might not because you might need it for the case of the changing
asset class. In questions such as these, you look for the answer that answers the
question in all cases.
21. Correct answer: B
This is a pure knowledge question; you either know it or you don’t. When these
kinds of questions are in the certification exams, the exam authors try to make
them at least cover useful topics. In this case, this is useful knowledge but not
essential.
22. Correct answer: A
True. Depreciation can be posted for a single depreciation area or a single
accounting principle. For an example of why this might be used, you can close
periods per ledger at different times, so this might be required in certain periods.
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23. Correct answer: B
False. The fact that you can maybe go about closing a period without having
successfully posted to an asset doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fix things as
soon as possible. If you leave something problematic as is for too long, the fiscal
year change program won’t be able to close a previous fiscal year, and you’ll be
locked in without being able to post to the next fiscal year.
24. Correct answer: C
The SAP S/4HANA system allows for two open fiscal years for you to manage
the closing postings of a fiscal year and start posting in the new fiscal year. You
close a fiscal year when you close the books of the previous year and you’re sure
there will be no more postings to assets in the closed fiscal year.
Takeaway
You’ve gained a good overview of all basic asset accounting organizational units,
and you understand the connections between the chart of depreciation and the
company code. You also recognize the relation of the depreciation area with the
accounting principles and how asset accounting integrates with the general ledger. You’ve learned how to set up and use asset classes to group assets per the business needs and reporting requirements of your customers. You know how to
create assets and asset subnumbers, as well as how to make creating and maintaining assets easier for end users through manipulation of the screen fields and layouts.
You learned about the basic daily transactions posted to assets such as acquisitions, sales, and transfers. You also were introduced to special asset categories
such as assets under construction and LVAs. You should also understand the closing process in asset accounting—both periodic and annual. Finally, you now
understand the concept of data migration and how assets and values are brought
over to the SAP S/4HANA system from the customer’s legacy system.
If you’re familiar with classic asset accounting as opposed to the new asset
accounting used in SAP S/4HANA, you should see the benefit in clarity provided by
the real-time update of all accounting principles, posting to depreciation areas by
selecting them in the transactions, and of course having full clarity on the line
item level in the Universal Journal.
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Summary Chapter 4
Summary
Asset accounting is a large subsystem in the SAP S/4HANA Finance line of business. In addition to being fully preconfigured for each country through best practices, it’s configurable to a very detailed level to accommodate all the varying
customer, industry, and legal requirements you might come across. You’re now
able to interpret business requirements and understand where and how to implement them in the system. You also can configure master records and explain all
the basic transactions and processes within the asset accounting subsystem.
In the next chapter, we’ll review the closing activities in financial accounting in
detail.
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Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Creating financial statements
쐍 Managing posting periods
쐍 Carrying forward balances
쐍 Posting accruals and deferrals
쐍 Executing foreign currency valuation
쐍 Performing value adjustments
쐍 Regrouping receivables and payables
쐍 Performing closing activities for materials management
쐍 Using SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit
쐍 Performing intercompany reconciliation (ICR)
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The focus of this chapter is on explaining the basic steps of the financial accounting closing process in SAP S/4HANA. It discusses financial statement versions, balance confirmations in accounts payable and accounts receivable, foreign currency
valuation, reserves for bad debt, open item reclassification, the SAP S/4HANA
Financial Closing cockpit, and intercompany reconciliation.
Real-World Scenario
As a financial consultant, you need to have a good understanding of the periodic activities that must be carried out in the system by the accounting
department. These activities are crucial to a business because many functions can’t be processed unless these activities are completed successfully.
Closing activities are usually handled by the general ledger accounting
department, and other activities are the responsibility of the accounts payable and receivable departments. Some activities are performed monthly,
and some are annual. You need to be able to guide your customer to perform
these activities.
You also should have an overview-level knowledge of SAP Financial Closing
cockpit, as many SAP customers streamline and track closing activities
through it. It’s also the default choice when a process spans systems outside
SAP S/4HANA. Finally, you need to understand how the process of ICR is performed on a high level, including the logic behind real-time reconciliation
with SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (SAP BPC).
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The purpose of this portion of the certification exam is to test your general knowledge of the closing activities for financial accounting. The certification exam
expects you to have a good understanding of the following topics:
쐍 Manage financial statement versions and create financial statements
쐍 Maintain the open and closed periods
쐍 Post the balance carryforward
쐍 Output an audit trail report
쐍 Manage accruals and deferrals with manual postings
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쐍 Prepare balance confirmations
쐍 Execute foreign currency valuation
쐍 Post value adjustments
쐍 Perform accounts payable/receivable regrouping
쐍 Perform closing for materials management
쐍 Use the SAP Financial Closing cockpit
쐍 Manage ICR
Note
The financial closing topic makes up 15% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
The closing process for financial accounting concerns all modules we’ve reviewed
thus far in the book. We’ll look at how to produce the financial statements, perform closing in the general ledger and accounts payable/receivable, utilize the SAP
Financial Closing cockpit, and perform ICR. The closing operations for asset
accounting have already been described, so we’ll omit those here.
Financial Statement Version
Financial statements are official reports you’re legally required to output at least
annually. The basic reports you define in the system are the balance sheet and the
profit and loss statement. In SAP S/4HANA, you maintain the financial statement
version to produce the financial statements, as shown in Figure 5.1. In addition,
because the financial statement version is a structured way of grouping accounts,
you can create financial statement versions for other internal and external reporting purposes and for planning.
You define financial statement versions in Customizing using a four-digit alphanumeric key and a description. The basic task of the financial statement version is
to deliver a structured view of your chart of accounts in accordance with local and
global accounting principles.
The SAP Best Practices packages deliver template financial statement versions for
each country installed with texts maintained in the local language as is generally
required by local authorities. When creating a new financial statement version,
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you can reference an existing one and make the changes required. You’ll need to
remember to maintain the translation for nodes and items added to this.
Figure 5.1 Financial Statement Versions List
Definitions for the Financial Statement
In the general definitions of the financial statement version, you maintain the following, as shown in Figure 5.2:
쐍 Maint. Language
This is usually the official language that the report will be printed in.
쐍 Item Keys Auto.
This indicator specifies whether the identification keys of the financial statement items are assigned manually or automatically. Automatic assignment
uses an ascending numeric order beginning with 1. If you assign keys manually,
these must be unique within the financial statement version. In general, set the
keys manually when you want to enter an explanatory text for them. This key
identifies an item in the financial statement version; as such, it must be unique
within the financial statement version.
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쐍 Chart of Accounts
You can choose to assign a specific chart of accounts to a financial statement
version; however, this field is optional. You can define financial statement versions without specific chart of account assignments.
쐍 Group Account Number
You set this indicator for financial statement versions that are used for the
group chart of accounts. In this case, you enter account numbers from the
group chart of accounts.
쐍 Fun.area perm.
This allows you to assign functional areas in the financial statement version. If
you activate this indicator, you can assign functional areas in addition to
accounts to the individual nodes of the financial statement version. In this case,
the financial statement version can’t be used for planning purposes.
Figure 5.2 Definitions for Financial Statement Version
Financial Statement Version Item Hierarchy
Financial statement versions can have up to 20 item hierarchy levels. For each
level, the system can calculate a subtotal based on the accounts assigned in the
nodes below it, as shown in Figure 5.3.
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Figure 5.3 Financial Statement Version Item Hierarchy
For each item at all levels, you assign a unique key and the relevant texts. At the
first hierarchy level, a financial statement version has the following items by
default:
쐍 Assets
쐍 Net Result: Profit
쐍 Liabilities and Equity
쐍 Financial Statement Notes
쐍 P&L Result
쐍 Not assigned
쐍 Net Result: Loss
Financial Statement Item Definition
You maintain texts for the start and end of the financial statement version item
(see Figure 5.4). You also select if you want the system to output the group-level
summarized amount. The graduated total is calculated from the total of the profit
and loss account balances up to this item. You can maintain a separate graduated
total text to be issued with the graduated total after the item footer.
You can assign accounts only to the lowest-level items. This means if an item has
lower-level items assigned, you can’t add the account to the item itself; you add
accounts to the items assigned, as shown in Figure 5.5.
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Figure 5.4 Financial Statement Item Definition
Allowed Account Assignment
Illegal Account Assignment
Figure 5.5 Allowed and Illegal Account Assignments
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You can select a financial statement version item or an account range and move it
to a new location with reassignment (Figure 5.6). This carries over all lower-level
items and account assignments as well.
Figure 5.6 Financial Statement Version Node Reassignment
Account Assignment
You assign accounts and account ranges to the hierarchy items. You can select the
criteria that determine which items the accounts are displayed in based on the balance. Accounts can be assigned to different items based on whether they have a
credit or debit balance. For example, in Figure 5.7, the items are assigned to both
debit and credit balances, meaning the account will always be shown in this node
independent of the balance. If you selected the debit (D) checkbox, the system
would display the account under this financial statement item if it had a debit balance. In this case, you would need to enter the account in a different node and
select the credit (C) checkbox.
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Figure 5.7 Account Assignment in Financial Statement Version
Within the financial statement version item definition, you can execute a check
(see Figure 5.8). The system will automatically display the following:
쐍 Accts. Assigned to 1 Side Only
These are all the accounts you’ve entered under nodes and selected either debit
or credit (but not both) but have not entered under any other item in the financial statement version. In this case, if the opposite balance does occur, the system won’t know where to place the account. The system expects you to assign
accounts even for instances in which the opposite balance occurs. In this case,
for the accounts displayed, you can just set both the debit and credit checkboxes (D and C) for the node in which they exist.
쐍 Nonassigned Account
The system will output a list of all accounts not contained in the structure. For
this check, you specify the specific chart of accounts (defaulted if the financial
statement version is assigned to a specific chart) and company code the system
is to check so that you have a valid view for the specific company code without
accounts that just happen to be defined on the chart of accounts level alone. In
some cases, it makes sense to have unassigned accounts, such as when performing parallel accounting using the accounts approach to valuation. In this case,
you would purposefully exclude any accounts not belonging to the accounting
principle for which the financial statement version is designated.
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쐍 Incorrectly Assgnd. Accts.
This check establishes whether the balance sheet (nodes under assets and liabilities) contains only balance sheet accounts and that all others contain only
profit and loss accounts. This doesn’t mean that all accounts found with this
check are wrong; however, you should review the list to make sure both the
account masters and the assignments in the financial statement version are
correct.
Figure 5.8 Financial Statement Version Checks
Global Accounting Hierarchy for Financial Statement Version Maintenance
The Manage Global Accounting Hierarchies app is a new app that aims to offer a
single, consistent environment for users to perform all master record hierarchy
maintenance activities. In the context of financial accounting, the most important
hierarchy maintenance task available via the app is managing the financial statement version. This app is new for SAP S/4HANA 1809 and is strategically aimed to
unify hierarchy maintenance across financial objects and master data because the
current maintenance screens are commonly SAP GUI screens slightly adopted for
SAP Fiori.
With the Manage Global Accounting Hierarchies app (Figure 5.9), you can currently maintain the hierarchies for the following:
쐍 Financial statement version
쐍 Functional area
쐍 Profit center
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
쐍 Cost center
쐍 Consolidation financial statement item (group reporting)
쐍 Consolidation reporting item (group reporting)
쐍 Consolidation segment (group reporting)
Figure 5.9 Manage Global Accounting Hierarchies App
For the financial accounting certification, it’s good to know the features of managing the financial statement version (Figure 5.10) with the new app:
쐍 Its consistent interface is common for many financial objects.
쐍 Manage and keep track of your financial statement version in multiple timeframes.
쐍 Use status management capabilities for indicating active and draft versions of
the financial statement version.
쐍 Enjoy easy import and export of the hierarchies from and to spreadsheets.
쐍 Import existing financial statement versions and continue maintenance in the
new app.
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Figure 5.10 Manage Financial Statement Version
Financial Statement Output with SAP Fiori
You use the SAP Fiori Display Financial Statement app (Figure 5.11) to output a
financial statement.
Figure 5.11 Financial Statement Balance Sheet Output
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
You have the following options:
쐍 You can select to display only opening values, the movements, or all values
combined.
쐍 You can select any currency type from those assigned to the company code and
ledger selected.
쐍 You can share the output directly by email or via connected applications such as
SAP Jam. You can also create a tile for the specific output for quick access from
the SAP Fiori launchpad.
쐍 On the lowest level (individual accounts), you can click on the value to drill
down to a line item or balance sheet report to understand how a value is made
up.
쐍 You can display the full financial statement version or output only for specific
sections using the All Accounts, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, Unassigned
Accounts, and Notes tabs. In Figure 5.12, you can see a sample of the Profit & Loss
statement view.
Figure 5.12 Financial Profit & Loss Output
쐍 You can add other filter and output options to filter, for example, a specific segment or to display the report using the alternative general ledger accounts
assigned (Figure 5.13).
쐍 On the output, you have the option of including the Profit Center and Segment
fields (Figure 5.14).
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Figure 5.13 Financial Statement Filter Options
Figure 5.14 Financial Statement: Additional Columns
Financial Statement Report with ABAP
You also still can use the classic ABAP report (RFBILA00; see Figure 5.15) to output
a financial statement. The main motivations for doing so are the advanced controls offered for the output, such as specifying translation dates and rates, creating
extracts for consolidation, showing zero-balance accounts, and many more.
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Figure 5.15 Financial Statement Classic Report
Through the classic report, you can also select and print the output using a customizable form. A sample is shown in Figure 5.16.
Figure 5.16 Sample Form Preview
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Other reports are also available. One useful one is the ledger comparison financial
statement, in which you can directly compare two different ledger statements for
the same or separate periods (Figure 5.17).
Figure 5.17 Financial Statement Ledger Comparison
Output of Ledger Comparison Report
In the output (Figure 5.18), you get the values for each selection and a column with
the variances between them. You can also analyze for specific segments, profit
centers, and business areas.
Figure 5.18 Output of Ledger Comparison Report
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
In addition to the financial statement reports, you can also use a plethora of other
reporting tools that are available standard and take advantage of the line-itemlevel analysis. As you can see in Figure 5.19, there are 136 characteristics available to
report on, and this is in the default best practices system.
Figure 5.19 Trial Balance Report: Drilldown Options
Note
It’s useful to be able to distinguish between characteristics and key figures. Characteristics are reporting attributes such as company code, segment, profit center, currency,
period, and so on. They also often can be used to filter reports. Key figures are value representations such as total credit balance, total debit balance, amount in EUR, amount in
USD, balance carryforward amount, quantity, and so on.
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General Ledger Closing
The basic general ledger closing operations we’ll go over are managing the posting
periods, executing the balance carryforward at year end, and using the audit journal.
Note
In many cases, the categorization of closing tasks as general ledger-, accounts payable-,
accounts receivable-, and asset accounting-relative only is limiting because in SAP
S/4HANA, multiple areas are affected as well. However, for structure reasons, this categorization is used in the book and in the academy materials.
Posting Periods
Managing the posting periods involves defining the fiscal periods within which
you can specify the posting date for your journal entries. You assign the posting
period variant to your company code per ledger. Customizing the open periods
can still be done with two separate apps with slightly different functionality.
Open and Close Posting Periods is a Customizing app (Figure 5.20) in which maintenance is performed on the level of the posting period variant by updating the
open periods for all company code/ledger combinations assigned. You can define
different settings per account type:
쐍 A: Assets
쐍 C: Customers
쐍 K: Suppliers
쐍 M: Materials
쐍 S: General ledger accounts
쐍 +: All accounts
The specific account type takes precedence over the generic one (e.g., S is stronger
than +). Within each account type, you can also specify account ranges to further
detail the period assignments.
For each entry, you can maintain an authorization group (AuGr column in Figure
5.20). The authorization group is assigned to users, and users with the authorization group maintain the lines set specifically for them. Usually, this is set for those
users who can post to a period until later than the rest of the accounting department.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
Figure 5.20 Open and Close Posting Periods
You maintain up to three separate intervals:
쐍 Interval 1 controls the normal operative periods, which are the posting periods
that are open for daily posting during the year.
쐍 Interval 2 controls the valuating (also known as special) periods, in which you
enter the special periods you can still post to for the previous year. Local regulations and corporate policy dictate until when and what kind of posting to the
previous year is allowed.
쐍 Interval 3 controls the Controlling-related postings, meaning those documents
posted through Controlling applications and updating the general ledger (i.e.,
all Controlling applications in SAP S/4HANA). There is a separate interval for
this because Controlling allocations and reposting usually are allowed for a
while after the financial accounting postings have stopped.
The Manage Posting Periods app (see Figure 5.21) allows an end user to perform
most period maintenance from a single app. Users can filter for maintenance of
specific parameters—namely, the following:
쐍 Posting Period Variant
쐍 Fiscal Year Variant
쐍 Account Type
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Figure 5.21 Manage Posting Periods
In SAP S/4HANA, you can also maintain a very detailed period block for Controlling transactions (Figure 5.22). This is used only for specialized control because the
maintenance through the financial accounting period controls is usually adequate.
Figure 5.22 Posting Periods for Controlling Business Transactions
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Balance Carryforward
The balance carryforward program carries forward the balances of the general ledger, customers, vendors, and asset accounts to the next fiscal year. It’s usually executed at the end of the current fiscal year or right at the beginning of a new one.
Balance carryforward is executed with the Carry Forward Balances app (Figure
5.23). You define the new fiscal year, the company code, and the ledger that you
want to carry forward.
Figure 5.23 Performing Balance Carryforward
Tip
You need to execute the carryforward for all ledgers, including any defined extension ledgers.
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The Carry Forward Balances app performs different tasks for balance sheet and
profit and loss accounts:
쐍 For balance sheets, the Carry Forward Balances app simply carries forward the
balance amounts for each general ledger, customer, supplier, and asset account.
The opening balance of the new year is the same as the closing balance of the
previous year.
Tip
You can also use a separate app to carry forward customer and supplier accounts. This is
only required if you want to do this separately for customers and suppliers before the rest
of the accounts.
쐍 For profit and loss accounts, the Carry Forward Balances app transfers the balances to the retained earnings accounts defined in the master record of each
profit and loss account. That means the profit and loss accounts all have a balance of zero in a new fiscal year.
Note
Because SAP S/4HANA is a line-item-based system, the Carry Forward Balances app creates line item entries in the Universal Journal for each balance item. These entries are
made with a special document number outside the normal ranges.
Auditing
Offering clear auditing reports and helpful tools is a must for any system that handles financial data. Because SAP S/4HANA stores everything on the line item level,
it makes it easy to understand the origin of every value on the corporate books.
Executing auditing reports is essential before performing any archiving activities
in financial accounting because you need to be able to provide lists of documents
and line items for previous years (the number of years is defined by local legislation).
The simplest tools for exporting all line items are the Balance Audit Trail – Open
Item and Balance Audit Trail – Line Items. Figure 5.24 provides a view of the selection options.
The Audit Journal (Figure 5.25) is an SAP Fiori report app that can output an overview of all your documents per company code, ledger, and fiscal year.
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Figure 5.24 Balance Audit Trail: Sample of Available Selections
Figure 5.25 Audit Journal Output
The output is grouped by period in the Compact Journal tab or by day in the Journal
tab. There are additional control functions at the bottom of the screen to pinpoint
potential problems quickly in the documents entered:
쐍 Display Journal Entry Changes
Lists the line items of any changed document and shows the old value and the
new value per changed field.
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쐍 Check Multi-Referenced Invoices
Looks for documents posted with the same reference to help identify if the
same invoice was posted twice and so on.
쐍 Check Gaps in Journal Entry Numbering
Displays per number range interval from which number to which number there
are gaps in the posted documents.
쐍 Display Update Terminations
Displays system terminations that happened for a given date range.
You can define additional filters as well, as shown in Figure 5.26, allowing you to
focus on specific areas. The output columns also can be customized to display
other characteristics and value fields, such as additional currency types, transaction types, and segments.
Figure 5.26 Filters for Selection in Audit Journal
Accruals and Deferrals
Posting accruals and deferrals ensures more balanced expenditure and revenue
reporting over the periods of a fiscal year. With accruals, you post expenses (and
revenues) that will be invoiced and paid in a future month in the period they
occur. For example, if you lease a building and pay a lump sum once a year in June,
you could post monthly accruals equal to a twelfth of the amount. This helps avoid
major expenses (and revenue) skewing the results a company reports for a period.
Deferrals are the opposite in that you report expenditures already made on the
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periods in which they’re used. If, for example, you pay insurance premiums once a
year at the beginning of the year, this can be broken down and reported as
monthly expenditures. Because these postings are only useful for reporting of the
financial statements, you reverse them at the beginning of the following period, so
they don’t affect your daily business operations. Accruals are posted under the
Other Payables account when the amount is known and can be exactly divided, or
“provisioned” if the amount is estimated instead.
Consider the following example to understand how to process accruals and deferrals (using a deferral as an example). Assume you’re invoiced for your annual
insurance premium on the first day of the first period of the fiscal year (let’s
assume the amount is $12,000 USD):
1. The invoice is received in accounts payable in the first period of the fiscal year
and is posted. The document lines are a debit to the insurance expense account
and a credit to the supplier account for the full amount of $12,000 USD.
2. You post the payment for the invoice, clearing the customer account against
your bank account.
3. At the end of the period, you post a deferral entry using the Enter Accrual/
Deferral Document app (Figure 5.27). In the document header, you indicate the
Reversal Reason (in the system used for the figure, there is a specific reversal reason defined for accruals) and the Reversal Date. In the document lines, you
enter a credit of 11,000 on the expense and debit the accruals account with the
same amount. This way, there is 1,000 on the expense account at the end of the
first month (1/12th of the total $12,000 USD amount).
4. At the beginning of the next period, you use the Reverse Accrual/Deferral app to
reverse the accrual posting and revert the expense account to its normal state.
Accrual/Deferral Journal entry
In the app (Figure 5.28), you enter the relevant details, including the Posting period
for the reversal and the Reversal Reason. The system will select only those documents posted with the specified reversal reason, which is one reason (other than
reporting) that it’s useful to create a separate accrual/deferral reversal reason. The
system with the reversal will transfer any amounts posted to the accrual accounts
back into the expense accounts using the posting date indicated (usually the first
day of the new period).
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Figure 5.27 Accrual Journal Entry
Figure 5.28 Automatic Accrual Reversal
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Recurring Journal Entry
Another option for posting accruals is to use a recurring entry document (Figure
5.29). In this process, you must make sure that the document amounts are the
same as the previous period every time because you can’t change the recurring
document. You define the Interval in Months for which the document entry is to be
posted and the Run Date for which the posting is to be made. You then proceed to
perform essentially a document posting, but in the end you create the recurring
entry, which doesn’t create a document and is only used as a reference for posting
recurring entries.
Figure 5.29 Recurring Journal Entry
Accruals Management
Accruals management is a tool that enables you to manage accruals (from performing accrual calculations to posting accruals values automatically). Currently
the tool supports posting manual accruals and purchase order accruals. The tool is
based on a completely rebuilt accrual engine that takes advantage of the SAP
S/4HANA architecture, offering full integration with the Universal Journal. It was
introduced with SAP S/4HANA 1809.
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Manual Accruals Process
To use manual accruals with the accrual engine, you first create something called
an accrual object. This is a master record that stores the information relevant for
posting accruals (Figure 5.30). You can think of this as the accrual contract.
Figure 5.30 Accrual Object Maintenance
When creating the accrual object for manual accruals, you must define the following:
쐍 The accrual object category that groups together accrual objects for similar use
cases (e.g., categories for rent, insurance, etc.)
쐍 The runtime, or the period the accrual object is valid—so the period between
the Start of Life and End of Life
쐍 The account assignments that control the various objects the accrual is posted
to, such as cost center, profit center, segment, and so on
쐍 The accrual items
An accrual object can have multiple accrual items assigned to it. In the accrual item
you define the item type, the relevant ledger group (the system also assigns the
representative ledger from the ledger group), amounts, currencies, quantities, and
units of measure. Finally, you enter the accrual method, which defines the calculation algorithm the accrual engine uses (such as straight-line or declining balance
accruals).
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Tip
You need to create a separate accrual item for each combination of accrual item type and
ledger group you want to post to.
After setting up the accrual object, you use the Start Periodic Run—Accrual Engine
app to post the accrual amounts for the period, entering the app component (currently either manual accruals or purchase order accruals) and the relevant company codes, as well as other optional filtering criteria (Figure 5.31). The system will
then return a results list with an analysis of the postings made (Figure 5.32).
Figure 5.31 Post Accrual Amounts
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Figure 5.32 Accrual Run Results List
Manual Accruals Configuration
You configure the various settings of accrual management in the IMG menu under
General Ledger Accounting • Business Transactions (Figure 5.33).
Figure 5.33 IMG Configuration Menu for Accrual Management
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The initial configuration from scratch is quite complex and not analyzed in detail
in the academy, so we’ll keep it lean here. We also won’t analyze the configuration
specific for purchase order accruals because the functionality can be used as delivered by SAP and changes are only for advanced use cases.
The steps needed to activate the accrual engine for manual accruals are as follows:
1. Set the application component ACAC (Manual Accruals) as the component
you’re customizing. This is a technical step that tells the system that the followon steps you’re taking are for the manual accruals, not for the purchase order
accruals.
2. Under Basic Settings (Figure 5.34), you assign the company codes and fiscal
years that are relevant for posting manual accruals.
Figure 5.34 Basic Settings for Accrual Management
3. You create your accrual item types (rent, insurance, etc.) and optionally define
currencies other than the transaction currency that you need to be available for
display in accrual management. The settings for currencies affect reporting
within accruals management before posting to the general ledger; when posting the journal entries, the settings defined in the currency type customizing
for the ledgers control the currencies.
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The accrual item defines the types of postings performed by an accrual item.
You can select all types or limit to a specific type:
– The opening posting is the posting of the complete amount to be accrued,
usually on an accrual account.
– The periodic posting is the periodic (usually monthly) posting from the
accrual account to the profit and loss account.
– The closing posting is needed only if you need to abruptly deactivate an
accrual object. The system posts the remaining account from the accrual
account to the profit and loss account.
When you create an accrual item type, you define the automatic postings supported. You need to define the related account determination for each type
allowed:
– None (calculation only, no posting)
– Opening posting only
– Periodic posting only
– All (opening, periodic, and closing)
You can indicate that the postings are complete or delta-only. In the first case,
the system reverses the previously accrued amounts and posts the complete
calculated amount (previous amount plus current period). With a delta posting
logic, the system posts only the amount calculated for the current period. The
posting date in either case is always the last day of the period.
4. Define the accrual methods, which are the calculation formulas to be used to
calculate the accrual amount breakdown to periods. An accrual method is
mapped to an ABAP class method. You generally need to work with a developer
to create additional methods beyond the ones delivered (which should be adequate in most cases).
5. Define the posting schema and account determination for manual accruals. In
the posting schema, you define the following:
– The lines that are included in an accrual posting.
– The line item type (list of values shown in Figure 5.35)—for example, periodic
recognition (9003) for the periodic posting on the accrual account or offsetting (9000) for the line posted to the profit and loss account.
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Figure 5.35 Line Item Types in Posting Schema
– In the posting schema, you assign symbolic accounts, which are then
mapped to actual general ledger accounts in the account determination configuration (Figure 5.36). The reason for using symbolic accounts is to make
the posting schema configuration chart of accounts independent.
Figure 5.36 Account Determination: Symbolic Account Mapping
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6. Define accrual object categories (Figure 5.37) for manual accruals. These group
accrual objects that are similar (a category could be rent, insurance, etc.) and
define number ranges for the accrual objects.
Figure 5.37 Configuration Specific to Manual Accruals
Purchase Order Accruals Process
With the purchase order accruals, data is transferred from materials management
to the accrual engine and values are converted from the purchase order items into
accrual items. The system calculates accrual amounts for each purchase order
item. You can simulate these amounts and, periodically, execute an accrual run
that will post all accruals calculated.
Tip
Purchase orders for stock materials and for assets are not relevant and thus not accrued.
Analytically, the process steps are as follows:
1. Create purchase order. The purchase order is evaluated and transferred to the
accrual engine according to configuration. An accrual object is created for each
purchase order.
2. Display accrual object. You can check the amounts calculated by the system for
each purchase order item.
3. Review and approve the accruals. The configuration and use of the review and
approval workflow is optional. After the proposal run, the reviewer selected by
the workflow can check and approve the list of accruals assigned to them. The
reviewers can update the amounts according to their judgment (Figure 5.38).
There is a separate review app for the purchase order owner and the controller.
There is also a separate app for approval for the controller.
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4. The final step is to execute the periodic posting run, for the purchase order
accruals application component (POAC).
Figure 5.38 Purchase Order Review and Approval
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Note
For the posting schema configuration: Only periodic postings are relevant for purchase
order accruals, so a single posting schema is configured. This schema must have a line
item for periodic postings (type 9003). In the account determination for the symbolic
account, you need to maintain the general ledger account that corresponds to the periodic accrual account. You should also maintain an offsetting account as a fallback, even
though the offsetting account is by default the expense account from the purchase
order.
Closing Activities in Receivables and Payables
For the accounts payable/receivable modules, you perform periodic closing activities that ensure you’re in sync with business partners on open amounts and due
dates. You also must execute foreign currency valuation for the open amounts
and post any required value adjustments for overdue receivables. Depending on
local regulations, you also can perform customer and supplier account regrouping.
Balance Confirmation
Once a year, companies usually generate balance confirmations and send them to
customers and suppliers, often together with a reply slip to request the same from
them. This is used to verify if the accounting figures between business partners
match.
You prepare balance confirmations in Customizing by defining the required forms
and assigning them to the print programs. You also make sure the address details
are maintained for your company code. You can assign different addresses for the
same company code by using the address ID to differentiate them.
The Customer Balance Confirmation selection screen contains a lot of options for
selecting which accounts and items to use but also to select what kind of data is
output and which printer is used to print the letters (Figure 5.39).
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Figure 5.39 Selections for Balance Confirmation
In Figure 5.40, you can see a small part of the letter as printed based on the default
form delivered with the SAP S/4HANA system.
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Figure 5.40 Balance Confirmation PDF Form
Foreign Currency Valuation
Foreign currency valuation is the process of identifying and posting the profit or
loss that occurs from the fluctuation in the currency exchange rates when transacting with foreign business partners. Depending on local and global accounting
principle requirements, this might be done monthly or annually. The valuations
are usually reversed at the beginning of the next period; however, some countries
require that this doesn’t happen for a year-end valuation. To perform the valuation, you configure a valuation method, assign it to the valuation areas, and in
turn assign the valuation area to the accounting principle. You also define the
accounts relevant for the automated account determination of profit and loss.
You access the definition of the valuation methods in Customizing (Figure 5.41).
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Figure 5.41 Valuation Method Configuration
The system comes preconfigured with the methods valid for the local legal
requirements of many countries. In most cases, you won’t need to make any modifications to these. You can copy one of these to define your own rules instead. You
don’t need to know the detailed definitions maintained here for the scope of the
academy and exam. On a high level, you define the following here:
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쐍 The valuation procedure that defines when the system proceeds to evaluate differences. For example, if a strict lowest-value approach is chosen, the system
will only post the revaluation if the new valuation leads to a lower amount then
that currently in your books.
쐍 The way the document should be posted, including document type, account
groupings, and if posting by line item.
쐍 The exchange rate determination, which includes the definition of the
exchange rate types to use.
After validating the valuation methods, you define the valuation area by assigning
the proper Valuation Method, the valid currency types (Crcy. type), and a description (Long Txt.), as shown in Figure 5.42. You then assign the valuation area to an
accounting principle. The general ledger is updated through the ledger group
assigned to the accounting principle.
Figure 5.42 Valuation Area Definition
In Customizing, for the valuation areas for which you don’t want to reverse the
valuations automatically, you activate the delta logic (Figure 5.43).
If you activate the delta logic but want the program to still reverse the mid-year
valuations, you select the monthly valuation (Mon.Rev.) checkbox. You can then
select whether the run is for Mid-Year Valuation or Year-End Valuation in the selections for the valuation run (as shown in Figure 5.43 in the box on the right). In this
way, you might not need separate month-end and year-end valuation areas.
To carry out foreign currency valuations, you define per general ledger account
the accounts for valuation loss and valuation gain (the middle column in Figure
5.44). You also define a balance sheet adjustment account, which acts as the clearing account for valuation differences. The balance sheet adjustment account
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is needed for reconciliation account types (customer and supplier accounts)
because the valuation difference isn’t posted to the individual customer/supplier
accounts.
Figure 5.43 Delta Posting Logic for Valuation Area
Figure 5.44 Accounts for Exchange Rate Differences
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Tip
The accounts in the Exchange Rate Difference Realized column (Figure 5.44) define the
profits and losses for realized differences, which occur when an open item is finally
cleared.
In the selection parameters for the valuation (Figure 5.45), you can select whether
to do a Test Run, Simulation Run, or Update Run. You can let the system determine
the posting parameters automatically or set them yourself. If something goes
wrong, you can also reset the valuation completely. This reverses both the valuation documents and the valuation reversal documents.
Figure 5.45 Selection Parameters for Foreign Currency Valuation Run
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Tip
The simulation run posts values to a special simulation ledger, which is a special type of
extension ledger. You can think of it as an advanced test run. The advantage is that you
won’t need to reverse any documents but will be able to analyze the data in standard
reports after exiting the app, unlike the results of a test run. This data is strictly used
internally and shouldn’t be used for the legal valuation. The data is deleted from the simulation ledger automatically after a productive run.
You also must select which items you want to evaluate. You can select multiple
types of items per run—namely, open items for customers, suppliers, general ledger accounts, and general ledger account balances. You can also set selection
parameters for each type of item, such as specific suppliers and customers,
account ranges, and so on. You can see an example of the parameters for the subledger selection parameters in Figure 5.46.
Figure 5.46 Subledger Open Item Selection Parameters
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The following transactions are performed:
쐍 In the period that the valuation is performed (as defined by the key date), a posting is made to adjust the overall balances, accounting for the change in
exchange rates and in accordance to the valuation method.
쐍 The valuation posting is reversed automatically using a date in the beginning of
the following period.
The foreign currency valuation can be executed as often as needed within a period,
and the program will post the delta values that have been calculated each time. In
Figure 5.47, you can see a sample log of a foreign currency valuation run. The system analyzed two items and found differences in the calculations.
Let’s consider an example to illustrate the postings and valuation methods.
Assume we have the account values over the period of a year, as shown in Table 5.1.
Figure 5.47 Result from Foreign Currency Valuation Run
Time of Posting End of Q1 End of Q2 End of Q3 End of Year
Value in local currency
1000
Value in foreign currency 1000
998
999
1001
1002
1000
1000
1000
1000
Table 5.1 Values of Account Balance through Year
Table 5.2 shows the postings that would be performed by the financial statement
version program for different valuation techniques and posting logics.
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End
Q1
Begin End
Q2
Q2
Begin End
Q3
Q3
Begin YearQ4
End
Begin
Q1
Always eval.
–2
+2
–1
+1
–1
–2
Lowest value
–2
+2
–1
+1
Strict lowest value
–2
+2
–2
+2
Delta + always eval.
–2
+1
+2
Delta + lowest value
–2
+1
+1
Delta + strict lowest value
–2
+1
+2
+1
Table 5.2 Amounts Posted per Valuation and Posting Logic
Understanding the results of Table 5.2 means you have a firm grasp of the rules
and methods for foreign currency valuation:
쐍 The always evaluate method will post the difference no matter what the new
valuation is. If the delta logic is active, this valuation won’t be reversed.
쐍 The lowest-value principle will post only if the valuation is calculated as worse
than the valuation during posting of the original document. The values are
either reversed or left untouched, depending on the use of delta logic.
쐍 With the strict-lowest-value principle, the system will only post if the new value
is lower than the current one held.
Value Adjustments
Value adjustments for receivables are performed in one of two ways:
쐍 Individual value adjustment
This is a posting for a specific business partner account for which you have
determined the open amount is unrecoverable. You post with a special general
ledger transaction by debiting the expense from the individual value adjustment account and crediting the customer account through the Special G/L indicator (by default type E) to the individual value adjustment account.
쐍 Flat-rate individual value adjustment
You can use a program to execute mass rule-based adjustment postings for
value adjustments. You customize the process and then execute the valuation
run.
You must configure the value adjustment keys, which determine the percentage
rate used to calculate the value adjustment (Figure 5.48).
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Figure 5.48 Define Value Adjustment Key
The key is assigned to the customers (and only customers) for whom you want to
perform the flat-rate adjustment. You also configure the account determination
for the automatic postings here.
When executing the valuation run, you enter the parameters for selecting the
open items, as shown in Figure 5.49.
Figure 5.49 Value Adjustment Parameters
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You must enter the Val. Method (valuation method) “3” (flat-rate individual value
adjustment) and the Key Date for the run (usually the last day of the month). You
also enter a Valuation Area (the same as defined for foreign currency valuation).
The other definitions are optional, but if you want to generate postings, you must
select that option here. Proposed valuations are created during the proposal run,
and you can change these proposed values manually.
After processing the proposal, you execute the valuation run (Figure 5.50), and this
posts the adjustments in financial accounting. After this, you can use standard
reports to confirm the result of the valuation.
Figure 5.50 Valuation Run
Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable Regrouping
You perform regrouping for customer and supplier accounts in the following cases
(and depending on the local and corporate accounting regulations):
쐍 You must display receivables and payables separately; in this case, you need to
transfer amounts for suppliers with a debit balance to a receivables account for
the balance sheet.
쐍 You group payables and receivables based on the due dates (e.g., short term,
mid-term, long term).
쐍 Regrouping will also correct and align amounts on accounts if you change the
reconciliation account of a customer or supplier in the master record.
You use a specific regrouping app to perform these tasks based on settings you
configure in Customizing.
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When customizing the sort method, you define the rules for receivables and payables separately. You define which account types will be transferred per time unit
(usually number of years). For example, in Figure 5.51, vendor receivables (vendors
with debit balances) must be transferred. You also define the accounts that are
used for the regrouping posting. The account definition is based on the original
reconciliation account. You define the adjustment (contra) account and the target
account.
In Figure 5.52, you can see all the selection parameters available to specify when
performing the receivable/payable regrouping.
Figure 5.51 Define Sort Method: Example Receivables
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Figure 5.52 Parameter Selection for Regrouping
If you have a customer who is also a supplier and is an affiliated company (has the
trading partner maintained in the master record), you select Partner Grouping for
the amounts to be consolidated in one record. Reconciliation accounts for affiliate
companies are usually separate.
If you select the changed reconciliation account (Changed Rec. Acct.) option, the
system will report all the items of the changed account using the new reconciliation account from the key date selected.
In Figure 5.53, you can see an excerpt from the analysis log presented after executing the regrouping run. You’ll be able to see the results clearly on the balance sheet
report for the key date specified.
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Figure 5.53 Regrouping Analysis
Closing Activities in Materials Management
As a financial consultant, you should be familiar with a few activities concerning
the integrated closing process with materials management. These include managing the physical inventory documents, clearing the goods received/invoice
received accounts, and valuating material stocks.
Physical Inventory
Physical inventory is a business process in which the actual physical stock is compared and matched with the stock in your books. It’s generally a legal requirement
to carry out an inventory at least once a year. You perform the inventory for your
own stock and special stock (e.g., items held for third parties).
There are various types of physical inventory, such as the following:
쐍 Periodic physical inventory
In this type of inventory, all stocks of the company are physically counted on
the balance sheet key date, and the entire warehouse is blocked for material
movements while the inventory is ongoing.
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쐍 Continuous physical inventory
In this type of inventory, stocks are counted continuously during the fiscal year.
Here, it’s important for every material to be counted physically at least once
during the year.
쐍 Cycle counting
In this type of inventory, stocks are counted at regular intervals within a fiscal
year. These cycles are configurable through the cycle counting inventory in the
material master records. This method is best for fast-moving items.
You update your books per the quantities counted in the physical inventory. The
delta is posted in materials management. A sample of such a document is provided in Figure 5.54.
Figure 5.54 Physical Inventory Document
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Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt Account Clearing
When there is an inconsistency between the quantities delivered (from goods
receipt) and the quantities invoiced, these are posted to the goods receipt/invoice
receipt clearing account (defined as shown in Figure 5.55).
Figure 5.55 Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt Account Definition
Periodically on a key date for reporting, you clear the goods receipt/invoice receipt
account by transferring the values separately to the invoiced but not received
account and the received but not invoiced account.
In Figure 5.56, you can see the result of the clearing run. In this case, a quantity of
50 has been provided; however, it hasn’t been invoiced.
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Figure 5.56 Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt Clearing Posting
In Figure 5.57, you can see the detailed posting Journal Entry screen for the clearing
run. The value of 2.500,00 comes from the price of the material multiplied by the
quantity (50 quantity times 50 value).
Figure 5.57 Detailed Journal Entry Screen
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In the header of the document, you also can see all the related documents that are
referenced by the goods receipt/invoice receipt clearing, as shown in Figure 5.58.
The document is reversed at the same time with a reversal on the first day of the
next period to not affect the daily business operations.
Figure 5.58 Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt Clearing Document: Related Documents
Stock Valuation
There are three types of stock that you’re required to valuate:
쐍 Raw materials, supplies, and consumables (RSC)
These are materials commonly bought from suppliers and are often managed
by the moving average price (MAP) method.
쐍 Work-in-process (WIP) materials (also known as semifinished goods)
These are usually produced by the company and are often valuated at a standard price. WIP can be broken down and shown analytically on the balance
sheet if this has been customized. Management accounting consultants often
carry out this configuration.
쐍 Finished goods (FG)
These are the products produced in house and are generally valuated at a standard price.
You can update the balance sheet based on the calculated material prices and
quantities using the Balance Sheet Values by Account app (Figure 5.59).
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Figure 5.59 Balance Sheet Values by Account Selection Screen
The app enters the values on the balance sheet in accordance with the inventory in
the books and the prices calculated for the material. In Figure 5.60, you can see the
output from a run without differences.
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Figure 5.60 Balance Sheet Values Output
SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit
The SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit is an add-on that supports planning,
executing, monitoring, and analyzing all the financial closing tasks for the SAP
S/4HANA system (Figure 5.61) and, through integration, other systems as well.
Figure 5.61 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit Apps
The main use cases for the cockpit are as follows:
쐍 Activities that recur periodically
쐍 Multiple responsible people
쐍 Processes with structured sequences and task dependencies
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The following are the main advantages of using the SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit add-on:
쐍 A common, accessible, stable app is provided for all involved.
쐍 Activity execution is tracked closely, making the status transparent.
쐍 Closing tasks are documented for verification and checks.
쐍 You can set manual statuses for tasks executed outside the system or without
automatically trackable outcomes.
쐍 Manual confirmation and documentation are allowed for checks performed.
Task Templates
The first step in using the cockpit is to create a task template by copying an existing standard template. You select the organizational unit level you require for the
closing (e.g., controlling area or company code), and the system proposes templates for month-end and year-end closing.
After selecting the template to copy from, you save it, and the system provides a
pop-up screen (Figure 5.62) in which you enter the name of the template, a description, the entity responsible, and the language (at a minimum).
A template represents the complete closing process (not only from an app perspective) for your enterprise, as shown in Figure 5.63.
Figure 5.62 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit: Save New Task Template
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Figure 5.63 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit: Display Template
After copying the template, you maintain the specific organizational units the
template is valid for (controlling areas, company codes). Tasks are structured and
organized into folders. You can reassign and add as many folders as needed.
The following tasks are supported:
쐍 Programs with program variants can be defined and executed through the SAP
S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit.
쐍 Transactions can be assigned and opened through the SAP S/4HANA Financial
Closing cockpit, so you can use it as a transaction launchpad.
쐍 Notes are information-only items, usually manual tasks performed outside the
system or reminders.
쐍 Flow definitions string together programs to allow automatic execution of the
tasks in a sequence.
쐍 SAP Business Process Automation by Redwood tasks are used to control task
execution in external systems.
쐍 External Job Monitor is used to retrieve information for task execution for jobs
created or scheduled in other system apps or in external systems.
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When you add a new task (Figure 5.64), you provide a description, responsible and
processor entities (such as Users), the task type and definitions for the task types,
and task assignments.
You can assign the task to a task folder, grouping together similar tasks and structuring the closing hierarchy display. This is optional.
Figure 5.64 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit: New Task
Task List
After assigning the tasks to the template, you can create a task list. The system creates a task list of the same name as the template. You enter values for the key date,
fiscal year, and posting period. Depending on the closing type you selected
(month-end or year-end), the system transfers the activities permitted from the
template to the task list. When finalized, you release the task list so that you can
use it to execute and monitor closing.
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Tip
You don’t use the template directly for executing closing; it’s more of a generic superobject that holds all the tasks. You make the tasks specific in the task list, which you customize and release to use.
Dependency Configuration
After releasing the task list, you can define relationships between programs and
transactions. The relationship is checked to ensure that the correct execution
sequence is performed. An activity can have multiple prerequisites. You can assign
task folders as prerequisites when defining dependencies.
You can use the task list schedule monitor (Figure 5.65) to display the execution
status of task lists from a single access point.
Figure 5.65 Task List Schedule Monitor
Methods for Intercompany Reconciliation
In this section, we’ll analyze the intercompany reconciliation financial accounting
component and introduce the real-time consolidation functionality.
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Intercompany Reconciliation
Intercompany reconciliation (ICR) involves the reconciliation of the open items in
the general ledger and the subledgers (accounts receivable and payable) using a
central system. It allows you to analyze data before the formal closing process so
that you can prepare for any differences. You can also post to accounts that aren’t
open-item managed (e.g., profit and loss accounts).
ICR uses the company and partner company entities in SAP S/4HANA (you can see
the Trading partner entry in Figure 5.66). ICR is important both on the individual
and the central company level because it provides tools to check the consistency
of the transaction data in intercompany documents.
Figure 5.66 Trading Partner in Supplier Business Partner Role for ICR
The apps for ICR are SAP GUI transactions that can be launched with SAP Fiori
(Figure 5.67).
Figure 5.67 Intercompany Reconciliation Apps
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In the ICR process, data will first be selected from the senders stored centrally in
the reconciliation system, as shown in Figure 5.68. The data is analyzed automatically first and then manually in a second step. Any issues are communicated to the
involved accounting clerks. After this, corrections (as well as new documents) are
posted. These will then be included in the next data selection.
Figure 5.68 Document Selection
Using the data selection application, the system will gather all data posted to trading partners from the sender systems selected and store it in the reconciliation
system.
With the Automatically Assign Items app, the system will assign all items where
the connection is clear per the rules defined in Customizing (Figure 5.69). You can
check the automated assignments made in the next step. The system outputs a log
with the number of successful and open assignments.
You can check the automated assignments and manually fix the open assignments with the Reconciliation app (Figure 5.70). In SAP S/4HANA, you don’t need
to execute the previous steps to select and assign the customer and vendor open
items because this is executed directly using the Reconciliation app. This is possible if the items belong on the same system (no remote function call [RFC] for the
company) and the transfer type for the entries is set to read from the primary database in Customizing (check SAP Note 1821312 for details).
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
Figure 5.69 Assign Documents
Figure 5.70 Reconcile Documents Manually: Selections
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There are three basic business processes you can select from for ICR:
쐍 001: G/L account open items
This process is used when you have mostly general ledger open items for intercompany transactions.
쐍 002: G/L accounts not open-item managed
This process is usually used to reconcile the profit and loss accounts.
쐍 003: AP/AR open items
This process is used when you mostly post intercompany receivables/payables
with customer and supplier accounts.
You can export and then print a list of the differences (Figure 5.71), but most work
is done on the standard flexible screen, as shown in Figure 5.72.
From here, you assign the items manually. Already assigned items and any items
you assign are transferred to the lower area of the screen. You can select an automated assignment rule to speed up processing, such as to match the items with an
identical reference number.
Figure 5.71 List of Reconciliation Differences
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 5
Figure 5.72 Flexible Screen for Manual Reconciliation
You can manually assign and cancel the assignment at any time. All items will be
assigned the common document group number.
You can send mail directly to the business partner (Figure 5.73). There are templates in various languages from which you must select to send the communication. You select who to send to from a list of contact people defined on the
business partner.
Figure 5.73 ICR: Communication
You can track communication and the general status of the item reconciliation
with the set status functionality. If you sent an email, the status is changed automatically and accordingly. There are two basic statuses to track by default: the
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communication status and the processing status. This setting is customizable as
well, so you can add to the list of status fields.
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 Financial statement version
An object that structures general ledger accounts to produce balance sheet and
profit and loss reports for local legal authorities and internal reporting requirements.
쐍 Reporting characteristics
Criteria per which you select and display data. Organizational units, master
data, and time characteristics (year, period, etc.) are examples.
쐍 Reporting key figures
Define an amount to be reported. Key figures include stored values and quantities and values that are calculated.
쐍 Carryforward
A process executed to bring balances to the new fiscal year. For balance sheet
accounts, the balances are brought forward so that the opening balance of the
new year matches the closing balance of the previous year. For profit and loss
accounts, the opening balance is 0 because the closing balances are transferred
to the retained earnings accounts.
쐍 Accrual
A posting of an expense or revenue before an invoice is entered for said
expense/revenue. It’s used to represent the cost in the period it’s incurred in or
the revenue in the period it’s made in for a more realistic value reporting of
your books. For example, when a customer pays $1,000 USD upfront for four
months of service, you put the amount into a deferred revenue account and
subtract $250 USD from the account each month.
쐍 Deferral
The “spreading out” of incurred expenses or billed revenues over the period in
which they’re made. For example, if you pay $12,000 USD for six months of rent
upfront, you put the $12,000 USD into a deferred expense account and debit the
account $2,000 USD each month for six months.
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Important Terminology Chapter 5
쐍 Recurring entry
A journal entry that can be repeated unchanged at regular intervals (in months),
which you define in the header section.
쐍 Accrual engine
A framework that enables and automates the calculation and posting of manual
and purchase order accruals. This is new to SAP S/4HANA in release 1809 and is
fully integrated with the Universal Journal.
쐍 Accrual object
A contract-like master record that holds all the information needed to calculate,
manage, and post accruals for a business transaction.
쐍 Accrual item
A line item within the accrual object that specifies the accrual calculation and
posting per accrual type and ledger group.
쐍 Balance confirmation
A form of communication with your suppliers and customers to inform them
of transaction balances and request confirmation from their side to check and
send the values as held in their books.
쐍 Foreign currency valuation
The process to valuate open items and account balances per the currency translation rate on the key date.
쐍 Valuation method
The Customizing object that controls the definitions for the valuation procedure (always evaluate; lowest- and strict-lowest-value principles), the document
posting parameters, and the exchange rate type determination.
쐍 Valuation area
The object that bridges the valuation method, connecting it with an accounting
principle. You also define at least one and up to three currency types per valuation area. You enter the valuation area when posting foreign currency and other
valuations.
쐍 Individual value adjustment
You can either post to a special general ledger or enter a flat-rate individual
value adjustment for unsecured or overdue receivables to depict doubtful
receivables in separate sections of the balance sheet.
쐍 Accounts payable/accounts receivable regrouping
You execute payables and receivables regrouping to change the way values
owed or due to be collected are displayed in the balance sheet to comply with
local or corporate accounting standards. The program reads the defined sort
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method and accordingly can move supplier debit balances to receivables and
customer credit balances to payables, post payable receivable amounts to separate accounts per when they are due, and transfer balances for reconciliation
accounts changed mid-year.
쐍 Physical inventory
The process of counting actual physical stock quantities at your warehouses.
쐍 Goods receipt/Invoice receipt account
An account for which the balance is made up of mismatches from goods receipt
amounts versus invoiced amounts. At the end of the period, you clear the
account and reverse the clearing at the beginning of the next period.
쐍 Stock valuation
The process to update the valuation of the materials in your warehouses in
accordance with the latest prices maintained in the material master records.
쐍 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit task template
The task template holds generic closing tasks to be executed for closing on various organizational unit levels.
쐍 SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit task list
The task list defines the specific tasks to be executed during period end. You
execute, monitor, and analyze the task list execution in the SAP S/4HANA
Financial Closing cockpit.
쐍 Intercompany reconciliation (ICR)
The process to ensure items and balances among affiliate companies are the
same for both company codes involved in the business transaction.
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Practice Questions Chapter 5
1.
Why might you define options to have manually allocated item keys for the
financial statement version?
첸
A. To be able to assign the same key to two multiple objects
첸
B. To be able to enter an explanatory text for the item key
첸
C. To be able to define if you want to summarize at the item level
첸
D. To be able to assign functional areas to the items
2.
True or False: You can define the financial statement version without assigning a specific chart of accounts to it.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
3.
Which of the following are default items assigned to every financial statement
version? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Liabilities and equity
첸
B. Profit and loss results
첸
C. Liquid funds
첸
D. Assets
첸
E. Noted items
4.
True or False: You can assign general ledger accounts to any item level in the
financial statement version hierarchy.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
5.
What kind of automated checks are available for the financial statement version? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Check for duplicate item keys
첸
B. Check for accounts assigned to one side only
첸
C. Check the financial statement notes for non-noted item accounts
첸
D. Check for incorrectly assigned accounts
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6.
Which object hierarchies can you maintain with the Manage Global Accounting Hierarchy app? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Cost center
첸
B. Internal order
첸
C. Segment
첸
D. Profit center
첸
E. Functional area
7.
In the trial balance report that is based on line items, how many fields can you
select to report on?
첸
A. More than 100
첸
B. Around 50
첸
C. Fixed for 10
첸
D. More than 500
8.
How many separate period intervals are there to control open posting periods?
첸
A. 1
첸
B. 2
첸
C. 3
첸
D. 4
9.
In SAP S/4HANA, on which levels can you maintain open posting periods?
(There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Controlling area
첸
B. Segment
첸
C. Posting period variant
첸
D. Fiscal year variant
10. A maximum of how many special/valuation periods can be open at the same
time?
첸
A. 1
첸
C. 4
첸
B. 2
첸
D. 16
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Practice Questions Chapter 5
11.
Your company code is assigned to a leading ledger, two additional normal ledgers, and one extension ledger. How many carryforwards must be executed?
첸
A. 1
첸
B. 3
첸
C. 4
첸
D. 8
12. What checks can you perform from the Audit Journal app? (There are three
correct answers.)
첸
A. Check gaps in journal entry numbering
첸
B. Check nonbalancing accounts
첸
C. Display journal entry changes
첸
D. Check multireferenced invoices
첸
E. Display journal entry warnings
13. What is the main differentiating factor of posting a manual accrual document
compared to other manual transactions?
첸
A. Reference field
첸
B. Reversal reason
첸
C. Document type
첸
D. Transaction type
14. True or False: You can adjust a recurring entry before each run to account for
price updates on purchases.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
15.
How can you select to post accrual amounts when customizing the accrual
engine? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Post delta amounts
첸
B. Post foreign currencies
첸
C. Post closed periods
첸
D. Post full amounts
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16. Which process is automated with purchase order accruals, compared to manual accruals with the accrual engine?
첸
A. Start accrual run
첸
B. Create accrual object
첸
C. Create opening posting
첸
D. Breakdown accrual amount
17.
To which object do you assign valuation methods?
첸
A. Valuation procedure
첸
B. Account assignment
첸
C. Accounting principle
첸
D. Valuation area
18. You use the lowest-value valuation method with active delta logic. Your open
item was posted at 200 units of foreign currency, which originally translated
to 100 units of local currency, and in the previous period it was 98 units. In the
preceding foreign currency valuation run, the program posted a value of –1
currency units. What was the value in local currency units at the time of valuation?
첸
A. 99
첸
B. 97
첸
C. 101
첸
D. 98
19. True or False: You can post a simulation run for the leading ledger to analyze
the effects of the currency valuation on your profit and loss standings.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
20. Flat-rate individual value adjustments are valid for which types of accounts?
첸
A. Assets
첸
C. Customer
첸
B. Supplier
첸
D. Materials
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Practice Questions Chapter 5
21. What are the reasons to perform regrouping of receivables and payables?
(There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. To display receivables and payables separately
첸
B. To group payables and receivables based on the due dates
첸
C. To align amounts on accounts with changed reconciliation accounts
첸
D. To simplify and speed up dunning selection processing
첸
E. To prioritize balance confirmation printing by postal code
22. Which type of stock is best suited to a moving average price (MAP) valuation?
첸
A. Raw materials
첸
B. Work in process (WIP)
첸
C. Finished goods
첸
D. Third party
23. For which of the following tasks must you always indicate manual task completion?
첸
A. Programs
첸
B. Transactions
첸
C. Notes
첸
D. Flow definitions
24. True or False: Each task in the SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit can
have exactly one prerequisite task assigned to it.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
25. When items aren’t automatically assigned for intercompany reconciliation
(ICR), how do you perform reconciliation? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Match items manually.
첸
B. Use an automated assignment rule.
첸
C. Export line item reports for each affiliate.
첸
D. Use SAP Leonardo machine-learning algorithms.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answer: B
Manually defining the item keys allows you to enter your own explanatory
texts for these.
2. Correct answer: A
True. You don’t need to assign a specific chart of accounts to a financial statement version; you must assign a chart of accounts for accounts you define on
the item level.
3. Correct answers: A, B, D
The complete list of default items includes the following:
– Assets
– Liabilities and equity
– Profit and loss result
– Net result: loss
– Net result: profit
– Financial statement notes
– Not assigned
4. Correct answer: B
False. You can only assign accounts to the lowest level within a hierarchy node.
5. Correct answers: B, D
The full list of checks is as follows:
– Accounts assigned to one side only
– Nonassigned accounts
– Incorrectly assigned accounts
The system doesn’t need to check for duplicate keys because you can’t create
duplicate keys; you get an error before being able to save. Noted items don’t go
to the financial statement notes, and they don’t show up at all on the financial
statement.
6. Correct answers: A, D, E
In this case, even if you don’t know the answer for the specifics of the app, you
can guess it based on your knowledge of which objects have hierarchies in SAP
S/4HANA. The internal orders and the segments do not have any hierarchy
structure in the system, so they can be excluded as wrong answers.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 5
7. Correct answer: A
Around 130 possible line item fields are available to use for analysis in the standard system.
8. Correct answer: C
There are three intervals: one for normal periods, one for valuations, and one
for Controlling postings.
9. Correct answer: A, C
You define the open periods per controlling area in the advanced period definition of Controlling. In financial accounting, you use the posting period variant
to manage periods for the company codes assigned to it.
10. Correct answer: C
You can have up to four special/valuation periods in the fiscal year variant, and
all can be open at the same time.
11. Correct answer: C
You perform carryforward separately for each ledger. This definition includes
the extension ledgers assigned to a company code.
12. Correct answers: A, C, D
The full list of available checks includes the following:
– Check gaps in journal entry numbering
– Display journal entry changes
– Check multireferenced invoices
– Display update terminations
13. Correct answer: B
The fact that you preemptively assign a reversal reason and the date for reversal in the document header is what makes this posting unique.
14. Correct answer: B
False. Recurring entries are posted in the same way, meaning you can’t use different accounts, amounts, or anything.
15. Correct answers: A, D
You can select between full amounts, for which the system inverts the posted
amount and reposts the complete amount, and delta posting, in which the system only posts the difference calculated for the period. You can never post to a
closed period, and foreign currencies will be updated according to the ledger
configurations, not the accrual management configuration.
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16. Correct answer: B
The creation of the accrual object is automated; specifically, an additional
accrual object is created for each (relevant) purchase order. You must schedule
or start the accrual run for both purchase order and manual accruals. Purchase
order accruals have no opening posting; only periodic postings are required.
The accrual amount is broken down automatically irrespective of the type of
accrual.
17. Correct answer: D
You assign the valuation procedure to the valuation method. After defining the
valuation method, you assign it to the valuation area. You assign the valuation
area to the accounting principle.
18. Correct answer: B
The valuation currently stands at 98, having a –2 amount from the initial valuation. Because the delta logic is enabled, the entry isn’t reversed. When –1 is
posted, this is on top of the –2 already posted; therefore, in total, it’s 100 – 3 = 97.
19. Correct answer: B
False. Simulations runs are executed not for standard ledgers but for extension
ledgers. The extension ledger then must be defined as a simulation extension
ledger.
20. Correct answer: C
Only customers can be included in these valuations.
21. Correct answers: A, B, C
Regrouping has nothing to do with dunning, nor with balance confirmations.
22. Correct answer: A
Raw materials are usually brought in, so the MAP valuation is generally the best
fit for these materials.
23. Correct answer: C
The notes task type is essentially for setting reminders and providing information, so there is no posting triggered automatically by the system for this kind
of task.
24. Correct answer: B
False. You can assign multiple tasks as prerequisites, including an entire task
folder.
25. Correct answers: A, B
After the system matches and assigns as many items as it can, it provides a list
of unmatched items. Here you either match the items completely manually or
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Summary Chapter 5
use one of the automatic assignment rules available (based on document reference, amount, and currency). You don’t have to go through endless lists of line
item reports because the items are displayed directly in the flexible matching
screen. SAP Leonardo and machine learning are ideal for performing matching
tasks like this, but there is no such app developed currently for matching ICR.
Takeaway
You now understand how to create and manage financial statement versions in
the SAP S/4HANA system, and you’ve learned how to utilize the financial statement version to export financial statements and structure other reports. You
know how to define open posting periods and perform balance carryforward activities. You also understand the auditing reports available for financial accounting.
You can post accruals and deferrals manually and with recurring entries. You can
perform the closing activities for accounts payable/receivable, such as sending
account balances, performing foreign currency valuation, making individual
value adjustments, and regrouping payables and receivables from customers and
suppliers.
You understand the closing process in materials management and how it concerns financial accounting. You have a high-level understanding of the features
available and process steps to use the SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit and
can perform period-end intercompany consolidation.
Summary
The financial close process includes a diverse set of tasks that need to be executed
in multiple different modules of financial accounting. There are additional considerations to be made due to the tight integration with Controlling, materials management, and other modules. SAP S/4HANA offers speedy transaction processing,
less need for reconciliation activities, and detailed reporting to cover the requirements for every business.
In the next and final chapter, we’ll go over some other accounting topics, which
we’ll call cross topics for lack of a different label for them in the book’s structure.
You’ll refresh your knowledge on bank account management, document parking,
validations and substitutions, archiving, and data aging.
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SAP Financials Cross Topics
Techniques You’ll Master
쐍 Manage banks and house banks
쐍 Maintain bank accounts
쐍 Use document parking and document parking workflow
쐍 Configure and perform journal entry verification
쐍 Create substitutions and validations
쐍 Configure and perform data archiving
쐍 Activate, configure, and run data aging
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The purpose of this chapter is to analyze concepts that don’t fit in the general ledger, accounts payable/accounts receivable, asset accounting, or financial closing
subjects and don’t affect the flow of understanding required for the concepts analyzed up to now. The topics reviewed include bank account management, document parking, document validations and substitutions, data archiving, and data
aging.
Real-World Scenario
When working on a project for a customer, you’ll find processes and tools
that are used across SAP ERP Financials modules. In larger projects, you
might have a cash management consultant to set up all the bank accounts,
but this won’t always be the case because SAP Cash Management is not a de
facto product that customers purchase and configure. An understanding of
how the basic bank and bank account management works in an SAP
S/4HANA system is required. Cash management is also becoming more commonplace in SAP S/4HANA systems, so getting a start in your understanding
of it, even a very basic one, is useful.
Document parking is a tool that allows users to save a document without
posting. It’s also commonly used by customers as a basis for a simple workflow for document posting to comply with the four-eyes principle that many
require for certain postings.
Being able to create and manage your own validations and substitutions is
also an extremely useful skill. With validations, you can ensure a user is
aware of a wrong entry because the user will be confronted with a warning or
an error message for combinations of data that aren’t allowed. With substitutions, you can make data entry simpler and ensure the correct data are
entered as well because the substitution value is derived by preset rules and
can’t be changed by the user.
Finally, understanding how to configure data archiving and data aging will
also help with your understanding of some of the more administrative tasks
in the system. Many customers who want to move to SAP S/4HANA by
updating their own system start that journey with a large-scale data
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
archiving project. Archiving as much data as possible before the system conversion speeds and simplifies the transition to SAP S/4HANA. The knowledge
you learn here can be reused in SAP ERP systems because the processes are
the same. On the other hand, data aging is useful only for an SAP S/4HANA
system because it decreases the memory footprint of financial accounting
documents. You’ll most likely work with a system administrator for both
processes, but you’ll drive some of the business decisions that must be made.
Objectives of This Portion of the Test
The purpose of this portion of the certification exam is to test your general knowledge of the closing activities for financial accounting. The certification exam
expects you to have a good understanding of the following topics:
쐍 Managing banks, house banks, and bank accounts
쐍 Posting, editing, and completing parked documents
쐍 Configuring the parked document release scenario in SAP Business Workflow
쐍 Configuring and using general journal entry verification
쐍 Managing validations, substitutions, rules, and sets
쐍 Executing data archiving for general ledger accounts
쐍 Performing data aging for journal entries in financial accounting
Note
The SAP Financials cross topics make up 15% of the total exam.
Key Concept Refresher
In this section, we’ll go over some basics for bank account management. You’ve
seen that we assign bank data to business partners and perform payments electronically with banks, and here you’ll see how to configure the banks, house banks,
and bank accounts used.
We’ll also go over the functions of document parking, and especially the integration with SAP Business Workflow. You’ll learn to use validations and substitutions
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to facilitate better control of journal entries in financial accounting. Finally, we’ll
go over two mostly admin tasks that you should be familiar with to support projects that involve them: data archiving and data aging.
Bank Account Management
Bank account management in SAP S/4HANA concerns centralized bank account
management. Bank account management processes control the life cycle processes of banks and bank accounts, such as opening, changing, reviewing, and closing bank accounts. In this section, you’ll learn how to manage the bank directory,
bank accounts, and house banks. Figure 6.1 shows some of the apps provided for
bank account management in SAP Fiori.
Figure 6.1 SAP Fiori Apps for Bank Account Management
Bank Directory
The bank directory is a list with the details of all the banks you and your business
partners do business with. This directory is maintained via the Manage Banks app
(Figure 6.2), which provides an overview of all the banks in the system. You can add
new banks and display and change existing banks (Figure 6.3).
Banks, at least for the country where the company code is located, are commonly
created by uploading a file to SAP S/4HANA with SAP GUI Transaction BAUP
(Country-Specific Transfer of Bank Data) or Transaction BIC2 (Takeover BIC Data).
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Figure 6.2 Manage Banks App
Figure 6.3 New Bank Creation
To create a bank manually, you need the following details:
쐍 Bank Country
This field is required. Note that a bank can have presence and subsidiaries in
many countries.
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쐍 Bank Key
This field is required. The key must be unique per country and is usually provided by the country’s central bank.
쐍 Bank Name
This field is required. This is the name registered at the central bank.
쐍 SWIFT/BIC
Use this field when available.
쐍 Bank Group
This field is used, for example, in automatic payment bank selections.
쐍 BP Grouping and BP Number
Use these fields to create the bank as a business partner. The bank is given the
general role, bank role, and financial services role by default.
쐍 Address
For the address, Region, Street, City, and Bank Branch fields are provided. You
can maintain more detailed data after saving.
쐍 Risk Information
You maintain a credit rating in the Rating field, which is used to assess the bank
risk.
Note
The SWIFT/BIC code is an ISO code identification for banks worldwide. The code is used
for money transfers between banks (and other message exchanges).
House Bank
House banks are the banks your company does business with, meaning the company has its own bank accounts at the bank to make and receive payments. For a
house bank, you maintain the following fields (see Figure 6.4):
쐍 Company Code
This is the company code the house bank belongs to (a bank can be the house
bank for multiple company codes).
쐍 House Bank
The house bank key is a five-digit unique identifier within each company code.
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Figure 6.4 House Bank Definition
You can also maintain details for communications, data medium exchange, bank
charges, and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
Bank Account Creation
You use the Manage Bank Accounts app to create new bank accounts and maintain
existing bank accounts. To create a new bank account, you enter the following
details (see Figure 6.5):
쐍 Opening Date
The date from which you can use the bank account for transactions.
쐍 Company Code
The responsible company code.
쐍 Account Holder
The owner of the bank account (person or other legal entity).
쐍 Bank Country
The country where the bank is located.
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쐍 Bank Key
The identification key of the bank. The SWIFT/BIC key and Bank Number will be
displayed if maintained.
쐍 Currency
The account currency key.
쐍 Account Number
The bank account number as provided by the bank.
쐍 IBAN
The system will propose this from the entered bank key and bank account. You
should validate it with the one the bank provided; use the bank’s version if
there is a mismatch.
쐍 Description
A text field for identifying the bank account. You can maintain this in multiple
languages.
쐍 Account Type
The purpose of the accounts. Account types include current, deposit, loan,
investment, checking, and so on.
Figure 6.5 Bank Account Maintenance
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There are more fields to maintain, such as contact details and data for the bank
statements. You can also directly enter a Profit Center and Segment (in the Additional Data tab).
After saving the bank account as Active, you can enter additional details as well,
such as the payment signatories that are responsible for approving payments,
overdraft limits as agreed upon with the bank, and the connectivity path. On the
Connectivity Path tab, as shown in Figure 6.6, you link the bank account to the corresponding house bank account. On this tab, you must enter an identification
code for the house bank (up to five digits) in the House Bank Acct ID field.
Figure 6.6 Maintain Connectivity Path to House Bank
Each house bank account must have a main bank general ledger account assigned,
and the same general ledger account can be used for multiple house bank
accounts. You create the bank account before updating the connectivity path.
When the assignment of the house bank account and general ledger account is
unique, you can also enter the House Bank and House Bank Account ID in the general ledger account master record, as shown in Figure 6.7.
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Figure 6.7 House Bank and House Bank Account ID in General Ledger Master Record
Document Parking
With document parking, you can post temporary, incomplete documents in SAP
S/4HANA. You can add and change information, perform additional checks, and
post the complete document after verification. In this section, you’ll get an overview of parked documents, learn about the document parking workflow, and
understand how to park and post parked documents. Figure 6.8 shows some of the
applications provided in the system for document parking.
Figure 6.8 Document Parking Apps
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Overview of Document Parking
The SAP S/4HANA system offers two basic options for saving an incomplete document:
쐍 Holding a document
The held documents feature is usually reserved for shorter interruptions when
posting multiline documents. For example, if you get distracted by something
urgent in your mailbox while entering a document or you need to ask someone
something about the posting, you can save the document as a held document.
This ensures that you won’t lose the data entered up to this point from a
browser time-out or unexpected power or network loss. In general, only the
user that created the held document will find and retrieve the document to continue working on it or delete it. No document number is generated when you
hold a document, and no values can be evaluated in reports. No standard workflow takes advantage of the held documents functionality.
쐍 Parking a document
You can use document parking to store (park) an incomplete document in the
system. The SAP S/4HANA system doesn’t perform extensive entry checks, such
as for tolerance limits; however, it does check that entries made in the document, such as the tax code, general ledger account, cost center, and so on, are
created in the system. The system assigns a document number to parked documents, and the document number doesn’t change when you finalize the journal
entry.
You should keep in mind some special considerations for document parking:
– Substitution isn’t performed for parked documents; it will take place when
converting the parked document to a complete journal entry.
– You can park a cross-company code document. In this case, only the posting
in the originating company code receives a document number. When the
parked document is posted as a final journal entry, all relevant documents
are generated for all company codes.
– Parked documents can be used for certain business evaluations in the system. For example, you can evaluate them in the advance return for tax on
sales and purchases reporting. You can also use payment requests that reference parked invoices so you can take advantage of payment discounts.
– If you delete the parked document, the number assignment is lost and can’t
be reused (these show up as deleted parked documents in audit journal
reports so that document number gaps can be explained).
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Document Parking Workflow Customizing
SAP Business Workflow in the SAP S/4HANA system can be configured to help
automate the coordination and communication between components in the SAP
S/4HANA system.
Many standard workflows are delivered with the SAP system. The example we’ll
use is the single-level release for document parking (WS10000052), which is a subworkflow within the workflow framework for document parking (WS10000051).
You can see the design for this workflow in Figure 6.9.
Figure 6.9 Graphical Representation of Single-Level Document Parking Workflow
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Tip
It’s out of scope for this book to have a complete understanding of the SAP Business
Workflow subsystem. On a high level, however, a workflow framework is the object that
defines the generic level of objects and processes involved in a workflow, and the subworkflows are specializations of these for specific scenarios.
Very roughly, a workflow begins with a triggering event, such as creating a master
record, posting a purchasing document, or (and of special interest for you) parking
a journal entry. The workflow manager assigns a work item (an activity) to the
organizational objects. The organizational object essentially defines the users
allowed to perform the workflow action. When a user picks up the task from his
workflow inbox, it’s removed from the inbox of the other users. After accepting or
rejecting the item, the workflow manager defines the next step of the workflow.
The first step in defining the Customizing for the document parking workflow is to
define the workflow variant, as shown in Figure 6.10. Here, you define if Posting
Release is used, the amount from which a release is triggered (Release From), and
the Subworkflow scenario used.
Figure 6.10 Define Workflow Variant
The workflow variant is assigned to one or more company codes, as shown in
Figure 6.11. This assignment also defines the currency of the minimum amount
previously set in the variant.
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Figure 6.11 Assign Workflow Variant
You can define release groups if you want to assign varying release procedures for
your business partners. As shown in Figure 6.12, there are no underlying settings;
you just assign a key and description to define the groups initially.
Figure 6.12 Define Workflow Release Groups
Figure 6.13 shows where you assign the release group in the master record of the
business partner. After selecting the Customer or Vendor role for financial
accounting, you maintain the release group in the company code settings under
the Account Management area.
The release approval path is the object for which you define who processes the
release approval. As shown in Figure 6.14, you create the release approval path
object by defining a key and description.
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Figure 6.13 Assign Release Group to Vendor
Figure 6.14 Define Release Approval Path
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The release approval path is determined by the workflow variant together with the
document type and release group, as shown in the Release Approval Path Allocation Customizing screen (Figure 6.15).
Figure 6.15 Assign Release Approval Path
As shown in Figure 6.16, you can assign different subworkflows in accordance with
the release approval path and the amount. This allows you to define, for example,
more release levels or different approvers for larger posting amounts.
Figure 6.16 Define Subworkflow Allocation
In the final Customizing step, you define who is responsible to perform the release
approval per workflow variant, release approval path, release level, and amount
(Figure 6.17). For each combination, you assign the relevant organizational object.
Figure 6.18 shows that the Manager job is assigned. The system identifies the users
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responsible for releasing the parked document based on the assignments of organization objects.
Figure 6.17 Define People with Release Authorization
Figure 6.18 Assign Organization Object to Workflow Specifications
Document Parking with Workflow
Figure 6.19 shows a document posting of a parked document. With the Park General Journal Entries app, the user default action (at the bottom-right of the screen)
is to save the parked document. In other apps, such as the Post Incoming Invoices
app, the option to park documents is in the top bar, and the default option is to
post the document.
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Figure 6.19 Save Parked Document
After you’ve saved the parked document, you can retrieve it for editing. However,
not all fields can be changed after parking; remember, a document number is
assigned, so it makes sense that some fields are protected (Figure 6.20). You can’t
change the following fields:
쐍 Company code
쐍 Currency
쐍 Ledger Grp.
쐍 Document Type
쐍 Document Number
There aren’t any limitations for changing the line items of the document, so you
can remove lines completely and add new ones as needed. The system keeps a log
of changes made to parked documents.
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Figure 6.20 Editable and Noneditable Fields in Parked Document
After verifying the document, you can post it. The system will create a journal
entry with the same number. The document is subject to the normal posting
checks, and substitution will take place. The change history is retained and is
logged in the journal entry. The user posting the document is assigned as the user
who entered the document, irrespective of the user who parked the document
originally.
If a workflow variant is assigned, and the parked document is relevant for workflow, you can see the relevant approval path and release level in the Workflow tab
of the parked document. In the Workflow Control section of the screen, you can
determine whether the document release is required (Release Req.), marked as
complete (Doc Complete), or completed successfully (Released; Figure 6.21).
Figure 6.21 Workflow Details of Parked Document
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In the top bar of the screen, you can see the options a processor has—namely, to
release or reject the document. If a document is released, the document can be
posted. If it’s rejected, it can be changed and sent back. The processor can write a
note to explain a rejection decision.
The workflow items that require processing are delivered to the inbox of the relevant users as determined by the system. A user can select to forward the work item
to be processed by another user, as shown in Figure 6.22.
Figure 6.22 Forwarded Work Item
After releasing an item, it gets put in the processed workflows folder in the inbox,
and you can retrieve it (Figure 6.23).
Figure 6.23 Released Work Item
You can check the log for the workflow item at any time during processing. The
system keeps a very detailed log of all steps and processors, as you can see on the
Workflow Log screen (Figure 6.24). Here, you can see the steps performed and the
details for each one. There are also different views for the information, such as the
Workflow Agents view, which concentrates all action per workflow agent (processor), and the Workflow Objects view.
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Figure 6.24 Workflow Log
Journal Entry Verification
An additional, simpler verification process for setting up and executing a workflow for reviewing and approving general journal entries is also available in SAP
S/4HANA. The general journal entry verification process is offered as of SAP
S/4HANA 1709 and is available only through SAP Fiori. You use three apps (Figure
6.25), one for the requester to submit entries for verification and two for the
reviewer to manage pending and submitted entries. Based on this new functionality, SAP delivers a predefined, single-step approval workflow for verifying general
ledger journal entries, but you can adjust it to your specific requirements.
A simplified process diagram of the journal entry verification process is shown in
Figure 6.26. On a high level, you submit a general journal entry for review. The
system reads the document details such as company code, amount, account
assignments and, if the workflow prerequisites are met, assigns a processor. The
processor then reviews the submitted journal entry and either accepts it, in which
case the journal entry is posted, or rejects it, in which case you must correct the
document and resubmit it. The detail process is analyzed below.
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Figure 6.25 Verification Processing Apps
Submit
Journal Entry
Workflow
Preconditions
Met?
No
Yes
Assign
Processor
Verify
Entry?
No
Yes
Post Journal
Entry
Figure 6.26 Verification Process
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Edit Journal
Entry
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Verification Process
A requester will create and submit a journal entry with the Verify General Journal
Entries—For Requester app (Figure 6.27). This app is like the Post General Journal
Entries app: you can create manual journal entries or upload them from an Excel
sheet.
Figure 6.27 Verify General Journal Entries for Requester App
The system will check the journal entry against a set of preconfigured criteria (e.g.,
the amount) and determine the proper workflow processors (if any) to assign to
the journal entry. The requester has access to view the status of the submitted
journal entry as it’s being processed.
The request processor uses the Verify Journal Entries for Processor app (Figure
6.28) to review the requests and select an action for each:
쐍 0: The journal entry will be posted (if the entry is complete and correct).
쐍 Reject: The requester must edit and resubmit the entry.
쐍 Suspend: The document is put on hold for later processing at a time indicated
by the processor.
The processor has two separate verification apps: an inbox and an outbox (Figure
6.28). You use these to process journal entries depending on their status.
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Figure 6.28 Verify Journal Entry for Processor
Workflow Configuration
There are two configuration apps (Figure 6.29) for setting up the workflow for general journal entry verification:
쐍 Manage Workflows for General Journal Entry Verification is a configuration app
to set up the workflows that are active and the prerequisites that trigger the
workflows.
쐍 Define Responsibilities is used to assign users or groups of users to the defined
workflows.
Figure 6.29 Verification Workflow Configuration Apps
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With the Manage Workflows for General Journal Entry Verification app, you define
header information (Figure 6.30), the description, validity period, and preconditions for the application of the workflow.
Figure 6.30 Verify Workflow Step Header Configuration
The workflow is only activated when the preconditions are met. The preconditions
you can define are based on a combination of values for the following elements:
쐍 Account group
쐍 Threshold amount (in company code currency)
쐍 Cost center
쐍 Source company code
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Then, you define the step sequence settings for the Verify (Figure 6.31) and Post
steps of the process. Here, you assign the rules for the approvers and preconditions and control the exception handling. There is no reason to go into detail here;
it’s sufficient to know that you can define multilevel workflows and different processors per various preconditions.
Figure 6.31 Workflow Verify Step Configuration
With the Define Responsibilities app, you define the responsibility specifications
(Figure 6.32) by setting a priority (1 to 99) and assigning the amount ranges and
company codes the responsibility is valid for. Then, in the same app, you assign
the users or groups of users that are recipients and processors for the verification
workflow (Figure 6.33).
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Figure 6.32 Configure Responsibility
Figure 6.33 Assign Users for Verification Rules
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Tip
The SAP Education course materials for SAP S/4HANA 1809 don’t cover journal entry verification, but it’s an important topic to be aware of and it’s very possibly going to be
included in future course and certification releases. To find out more, visit the help portal
for a complete guide to how to configure and use the general journal entry verification
process and workflow: http://s-prs.co/485603.
Validations and Substitutions
In the SAP S/4HANA system, you use validations to perform checks on the data
entered by a user in order to protect and prevent erroneous postings for those
cases in which you can create a standard check for data entered. Substitutions are
meant to either fill fields that are left blank or change the entries in fields filled
with values different from those defined in the substitution rules. In this chapter,
we’ll analyze how to define validation and substitution rules, as well as how to
maintain sets and rules to use in the definition of validations and substitutions.
Overview of Validations and Substitutions
Validations and substitutions can be defined for multiple application areas, as
shown in Figure 6.34. The most relevant areas for a financial accounting consultant are the following:
쐍 Financial Accounting
쐍 Asset Accounting
쐍 Cost Accounting
In this chapter and in the certification, the focus is on financial accounting.
Validations and substitution are valid for specific call-up points (shown in Figure
6.34 and Figure 6.35). The important ones to remember are the following:
쐍 Document Header
At this level, the fields checked or substituted all belong to the document
header. In addition, the check and substitution logic is also based on fields
known just from a completed header section. This includes header table fields
(table BKPF) and system fields (SYST), such as the system date.
쐍 Line Item
The line item fields are validated or substituted at this call-up point. You can
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evaluate fields and entries from the header, system fields, and other line item
fields (table BSEG).
쐍 Complete Document
With this call-up point, you can check and substitute fields either in the header
or the line item. It’s usually reserved for cases in which you need to have the line
items entered to check/change header details or in which you want to check/
change fields for automatically generated line items (e.g., tax items) or for multiple line items together (e.g., total posted amount).
Figure 6.34 Application Areas for Validations and Substitutions
To use a validation or substitution that you defined, you assign it to the company
code in Customizing (see Figure 6.35). You can assign a single validation/substitution per company code and call-up point. For each validation/substitution
defined, you also define the activation level:
쐍 0: Inactive
The system won’t perform any validation/substitution. This is equal to not having the line in the maintenance table.
쐍 1: Active
The system will always perform the validation/substitution for each journal
entry.
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쐍 2: Active, No Batch Input
The system will perform the validation/substitution for each journal entry
entered manually, but not for batch processes—for example, when uploading
entries for data migration.
Figure 6.35 Activation of Validations and Substitution for Company Codes
When defining the validation and substitutions, you can define multiple steps.
The system runs through each step at the call-up point sequentially and raises the
first message for validations. For substitutions, the system will perform all
changes and updates to fields (per call-up point) without the user taking any
action.
Note
If the first message raised from a step in a validation is a warning, and the user ignores it,
the system will continue running through the steps and raise the next message, if any.
The system won’t display all potential validation problems in a single output; you have to
take care of each one as you go.
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For the easiest way to understand what a validation step looks like and which components it’s made from, see Figure 6.36. Here you can see that the step refers to a
specific validation rule (OC-BUK) and is made up of the following:
쐍 Prerequisite
This is what the system checks to define whether it needs to check the validation. In this case, the system performs the validation if the user making the
journal entry is SCHMIDTK or MUELLERP.
쐍 Check
The system makes this check. For the step to “activate,” the check must not be
fulfilled. In this case, the system checks that the document type is different that
SA. If the document type is indeed different than SA, the validation doesn’t generate any messages.
쐍 Message
If the check isn’t fulfilled, the system generates the error message (errors are
indicated by the red exclamation mark) Z1 021, meaning the text for the error
explanation is taken from message 021 in message class Z1. In the example, the
message reads, “Do not use document type SA.”
Therefore, what the creator of the validation step wants to check is that the two
users specified can’t post with document type SA.
Figure 6.36 Example Validation
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Substitution Definition
Let’s take a closer look at defining substitutions first because they’re generally
more straightforward than validations. Some of the concepts discussed here apply
for validations as well, which we’ll analyze later.
A substitution uses a rule to change the value of a field, whether already filled or
empty. The substitution is stronger even than a manual entry or default value; the
substitution will always be performed if the prerequisite is met. A substitution will
work for fields even if they’re hidden in the screen definitions; the value will be
written in the Document Header or Line Item field defined when the prerequisite is
met.
Warning
A substitution can contradict a validation or some other normal journal entry check. This
leads to an error because the substitution value must be entered and the value is causing
a problem. The only solutions are to change the posting in a way that is allowed, change
the validation or (if possible) system check message, or change the substitution step.
Figure 6.37 shows an example of a substitution step that defines the following:
when the document type is SA, the document reference field will be filled with the
system date.
Figure 6.37 Example Substitution
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To define such a step, you create a new step within the substitution assigned to the
relevant company code at the Document Header call-up point. When creating a
new step, the first thing you maintain is the field that you want to substitute. The
system provides a pop-up screen (Figure 6.38) in which you mark the field or fields
you want to substitute. The list for selection depends on the call-up point; for
example, you would have a different selection of fields to choose from for the Line
Item call-up point.
Figure 6.38 Fields for Substitution
You then select the method with which the field value will be filled by the substitution. You can select from the following options (Figure 6.39):
쐍 Constant Value
This is the simplest method. You enter a single constant value for the field
value.
쐍 Exit
With a user exit, you write ABAP code to define flexibly whatever rule you want.
쐍 Field—Field Assignment
You select a field to use as reference for the value of the field you’re substituting.
You can’t combine field values with this rule.
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Figure 6.39 Substitution Methods
Figure 6.40 shows the options you have for building the prerequisites with the formula builder. The formula builder allows you to “write” code in a guided and protected manner. The formula builder only allows you to select the functions that
make your prerequisite syntactically correct, so from a code level, at least, the syntax will be correct. In the top section of the screen, you enter the prerequisite code.
You use the field selection at the bottom left of the screen, which proposes fields
that are valid for the call-up point, to select fields. You can add the operator from
the list of operators at the right of the screen (equal to, larger than, different than,
etc.).
Figure 6.40 Prerequisite for Substitution
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You can define values by selecting the operands at the bottom right of the screen:
쐍 Constant
Enter a fixed value.
쐍 Fld. Comparison
Specify a range of characters for a table field. For instance, specifying from character 1 to character 3 of the general ledger account would allow you to compare
via the value of the first three characters of a general ledger account to say, for
example, “if the general ledger accounts start with 123, then fill the cost center
with XYZ.”
쐍 Comments
Add comments for information and maintenance purposes.
쐍 Set Directory
Select a set, which is like a group of values for a field. For example, you could create a set of all general ledger accounts that start with 123, named G/L_123, and
say, “If the general ledger account is in set G/L_123, then fill the cost center with
XYZ.” The result would be the same as in the previous example.
When entering a constant value, if there is a list of values for selection for the field,
the system will make you select from the list of valid values (Figure 6.41).
Figure 6.41 Constant Value
The final step is to assign the substitution value per the selected method. Figure
6.42 shows the field selection for a field-to-field substitution method. Figure 6.43
shows the complete definition: if the prerequisite is met, the system will fill the
field reference in the document header from the current date field (SYST-DATUM).
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Figure 6.42 Field Transfer Substitution
Figure 6.43 Field Transfer Substitution Result
Validation Definition
As we showed in the validation example earlier in Figure 6.36, validation steps
have an extra check stage compared to substitutions, and they output a message
instead of changing a value for a field.
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In Figure 6.44, you can see the sections maintained for the validation. In this
example, if the general ledger account and the cost centers are in specific sets, the
system checks that the internal order is filled in.
Figure 6.44 Overall Validation
If not, the system issues an error stating the internal order must be filled. The prerequisite is built in the same way as that for a substitution in the formula editor.
The same tool is used for building the Check section of the validation.
You select the message class the messages are taken from in the validation definition. In each step, you can assign the valid message or create a new message within
the message class that fits the step validation (an example of message creation is
shown later in this section). A message can be one of the following types:
쐍 Cancel
This forces an exit from the journal entry screen.
쐍 Error
This forces the user to change field values to comply.
쐍 Warning
This is a message that a user can skip, although it might be better not to ignore
it.
쐍 Information
This is a message that simply informs a user of a detail.
You can also assign up to four field variables to your message text. This helps better explain why the validation was raised. In the example shown in Figure 6.45, if
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you wanted to make use of variables, you would formulate the message as such:
With the combination G/L Account & and Cost Center &, you must enter an internal
order. The message variables would be set to the following:
쐍 BSEG-SAKNR (general ledger account)
쐍 BSEG-KOSTL (cost center)
The system would then output the values entered by the user for the general ledger account and cost center in the message.
The final option on the message assignment screen is to select the Trigger Workflow indicator. This way, you can design workflow scenarios based on validations;
for example, that a user is notified if an amount is exceeded for an invoice or that
the user responsible for a cost center is notified when certain expenses are posted
to their cost center.
Figure 6.45 Message for Validation
When creating a text for the message class, you select the message number and
write the short text. You can select the Self-Explanatory checkbox (see Figure 6.46);
this indicates the message has no long text assigned because the short text is an
adequate explanation. Alternatively, if a message needs extra explanation, you
can maintain a long text to flesh it out.
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Figure 6.46 Message Definition
Sets Definition
Sets are used to group together values for specific dimensions. To define a set, you
enter a name (Set Name) and reference a specific system table (in this example,
table ACDOCA), as shown in Figure 6.47. Then you select a Set Type. You can also reference an existing set to speed up the set definition.
Figure 6.47 Set Creation
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In the Basic Set, you define value ranges for a specific field, as in Figure 6.48. This
makes it easier to include ranges of data in validations and substitutions.
Figure 6.48 Basic Set Creation
You can also combine sets of different characteristics in multisets for cross-characteristic validations (Figure 6.49).
Figure 6.49 Multiset Creation
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Rules Definition
You can think of a rule as a validation/substitution function module. It’s a piece of
code logic that you can embed into validation/substitution prerequisites and validation checks. Instead of writing the logic in the validation, you create a rule with
the same exact logic.
The advantage of doing this is that you can assign the same rule to multiple steps
instead of rewriting it every time. Another reason to use rules is that you might
have a complex piece of logic code with many lines, and using a rule can keep the
code of the prerequisite/check cleaner.
You can see an example rule definition in Figure 6.50. On its own, the rule doesn’t
do anything; it must be embedded in a prerequisite or check to be useful.
Figure 6.50 Rule Definition
Data Archiving
With data archiving in an SAP S/4HANA system, you can remove application data
from the database that no longer needs to be actively accessed in day-to-day activities. The data isn’t deleted with data archiving, and read access to the data is provided. The data is transferred from the database to external storage media so that
it can be accessed for analysis.
Cleaning up old data is a good practice. You might consider archiving for the following reasons:
쐍 Saves memory space and reduces related performance problems
쐍 Keeps the database more manageable
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쐍 Ensures cost efficiency
쐍 Enables faster downtime cycles for the system
쐍 Allows access and reuse of data later
As is the case in the example in Figure 6.51, you assign a life to the archiving object
to ensure that you’re less likely to archive data still in use. Your role as a financial
accounting consultant is to advise and work with a system administrator to configure the need for archiving in financial accounting and the life of the financial
accounting–relevant archive objects.
Figure 6.51 Archiving Example: Journal Entry Life per Document Type
When archiving an object, the system writes the relevant data to the archive file
and stores the file as configured. In the final step, the data archived is deleted from
the active database.
General Customizing for Data Archiving
Data archiving is configured and executed by a system administrator, so it isn’t
important to know details for each configuration step. Configuration involves the
following:
쐍 Storage locations
Configure the storage locations for the archived files (Figure 6.52).
쐍 Cross-object customizing
Mostly admin configurations need to be made to ensure the archiving process
runs smoothly on the given system. The Data Archiving Monitor helps track all
archiving jobs and is usually Active, as shown in Figure 6.53.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Figure 6.52 Defining Archiving Storage
Figure 6.53 Cross-Object Customizing for Archiving
Object-Specific Customizing for Data Archiving
We’ll use the general ledger account as an example for performing the archivingobject-specific customizing. You can see some of the additional archiving objects
for financial accounting in Figure 6.54.
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Figure 6.54 Sample List of Archiving Objects
The settings you define for an accounting object are shown in Figure 6.55:
쐍 Logical File Name
Maintain a logical file name.
Figure 6.55 Object-Specific Customizing: General Ledger Account
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
쐍 Maximum Size in MB
Define the maximum size of an archive file.
쐍 Test Mode Variant/Live Mode Variant
Create variants for the test run and the production run.
쐍 Start Automatically
Set whether the deletion program is to be executed automatically after an
archive file is generated.
Performing Data Archiving: General Ledger Account Example
To archive a general ledger account (which is the example used in the training
materials and relevant for the certification exam), you enter the Life (number of
days) to keep a general ledger account per company code, account type, and
account range (Figure 6.56).
Figure 6.56 Define Account Type Life
Before executing data archiving, you must set the Marked for Deletion checkbox in
both the chart of accounts and the company code (Figure 6.57). You don’t need to
block an account, but it’s a good idea to do so.
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Chart of Accounts Level
Company Code Level
Figure 6.57 Mark General Ledger Account for Deletion on Company Code and Chart of Account Levels
You use the archive administration tool to process data archiving and create the
archive file (Figure 6.58). The steps are as follows:
1. Create an archiving variant (Figure 6.59). The archiving variant is where you
define the data to be archived for the archiving object. In the case of the general
ledger account, you define whether you’re deleting company code data or chart
of accounts data (you first need to run archiving for company codes). You also
set the chart of account, company codes (when deleting for company codes),
and the range of accounts to evaluate. Variants can be either for test runs or for
productive runs per the selection you make. Finally, you define the data logging
for the run.
2. Specify the execution user, which requires the right authorizations.
3. Specify the start date and time.
4. Define the spool parameters for the log print-out.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Figure 6.58 Archive Administration
Figure 6.59 Archive Variant for General Ledger Account
The system outputs the requested logs defined in the archive variant (Figure 6.60).
You can select a log to view the details.
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Figure 6.60 Archive Job Logs
Figure 6.61 shows the detailed archiving log in which the general ledger account is
confirmed to be archived for the company code.
Figure 6.61 Archiving Job Output
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
After archiving, the general ledger account isn’t defined for the company code, as
shown in Figure 6.62. The deletion from the chart of accounts requires a separate
run.
Figure 6.62 Result of Data Archiving
Data Aging
The data aging process transfers data from the in-memory section of the database
to a traditional disk drive. In this section, you’ll gain an overview of data aging and
learn how to configure and perform data aging for financial accounting documents.
Although SAP HANA is an in-memory database, this doesn’t mean all data stored
and used by systems running on SAP HANA have all data in memory. That’s just
not cost-effective and, because the total amount of memory supported by current
servers and operating systems is finite, might not even be viable. The same applies
with SAP S/4HANA, which is no doubt a large application with many customers
posting thousands of financial accounting documents daily. With the data aging
functionality, the system can move data that are deemed not required for daily
real-time processing operations to more traditional disk drives (e.g., magnetic
disks, tapes, or solid-state drives [SSDs]).
Data aging is primarily a database function; however, you activate it on the system
level and configure it for the specific data of the different applications. You can use
data aging for financial accounting documents. You define a minimum life per
account type and document type for which the system is to keep the documents
on the current (or hot) data layer. When you run data aging for the financial
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accounting document object, the system checks against the rules configured and
decides which documents are moved to the historic (or cold) partition. This is illustrated in Figure 6.63.
Current (Hot) Partition
In-Memory
FI Documents Aging Run
Historical (Cold) Partition
On Disk Drive
Perform Aging?
Document A
2 years old
Document Type SA
NO
Account Type S
Document B
1 year old
Document Type KR
NO
Account Type K
Document C
1 year old
YES
Document Type AA
Account Type A
Figure 6.63 Data Aging for Financial Accounting Documents
All the documents and line items moved to the historical partition of the database
are available for reporting. When you define report selection options that include
data that has been aged, the system will retrieve the data from the disk drive it’s
stored in, incurring the analogous speed penalty.
Data Aging Customizing
To use data aging, you must activate it in the SAP HANA database and in the SAP
S/4HANA system. You then perform the required configuration steps.
To activate data aging, you enter the business function switch framework in Customizing and activate the DAAG_DATA_AGING business function. You mark the
Planned Status checkbox and select Activate Changes (as shown in Figure 6.64). The
business function is reversible, meaning you can choose to turn off data aging
without impacting the system’s usability.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Figure 6.64 Activate Data Aging
You also need to have a user with the appropriate authorizations assigned (authorization objects S_DAAG and S_DAGPTM are required). There are two standard roles
provided:
쐍 SAP_DAAG_ADMIN is assigned to system administrators.
쐍 SAP_DAAG_EXPERT is assigned to users responsible for scheduling the aging runs.
The SAP S/4HANA system comes with predefined data aging objects. For financial
accounting, you activate the FI_DOCUMENT object, as shown in Figure 6.65.
Figure 6.65 Activate Data Aging Object
You customize the document life per Company Code and Account type (as shown
in Figure 6.66). You can enter an asterisk (*) to indicate settings valid for all company codes. The Account Life you enter here is in days, and you can enter up to four
digits.
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Figure 6.66 Data Aging Account Type Lives
You also configure the document life by company code and document type. For
areas in which you need access to historic data more often, you would set a longer
life. Here you can set life in days and years (Figure 6.67).
Figure 6.67 Data Aging Document Type Lives
To use data aging, you must activate table partitioning and set up at least two partitions because the current and historic data must be on separate partitions. Figure
6.68 shows the transaction in which this is done. This is an admin task.
Finally, you define a data aging group. Here, you can add multiple objects that you
want to run in a single data aging run. You enter a sequence number and the
object. Figure 6.69 shows a group with just the FI_DOCUMENT object assigned.
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Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6
Figure 6.68 Table Partitioning for Data Aging
Figure 6.69 Data Aging Group Definition
Data Aging Run
When everything is configured, you can perform the first data aging run. In the
application to manage aging runs, you select the option to schedule a new run.
Figure 6.70 shows where you define the User Name and the Group. You schedule
the date for the run (Start Date) and the printing details (Spool Parameters). You
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can monitor the success of the run from the application by refreshing the view and
reviewing the log.
Figure 6.70 Schedule Aging Run
Special SAP Fiori dashboards are available for monitoring data aging groups and
objects. However, without requiring SAP Information Lifecycle Management
(ILM), you can also use the data browser to look at the entries in the Universal Journal table (table ACDOCA). Here, the Data Filter Value for Data Aging field uses the
posting date as a time stamp for data aging. The lines with this field filled are aged
and have moved to the historic partition. You can see the table viewer and field in
Figure 6.71.
Figure 6.71 Data Aging Result
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Important Terminology Chapter 6
Important Terminology
In this chapter, the following terminology was used:
쐍 Bank directory
A list of all banks created in the SAP S/4HANA client you’re working in. Banks
must be in the bank directory to be assigned to business partners.
쐍 House bank
A bank with which you do business. It’s defined also as a business partner, and
you connect your bank accounts to it.
쐍 Bank group
A grouping of banks that is used in the payment process that helps to determine
the house bank to be used for sending or receiving payments.
쐍 Held document
A incomplete journal entry document that a user has saved for processing later.
It’s saved by the user with an ID, but the system doesn’t assign a document
number to it.
쐍 Parked document
An incomplete document for which the system assigns a document number
and that can partially be in reports and a few business processes such as tax
reporting and payment requests.
쐍 SAP Business Workflow
Enables the design and execution of workflow processes within the SAP
S/4HANA system.
쐍 Workflow
A tool that facilitates the automation of business processes that consist of multiple steps and processors. In addition, in the system, this object defines the
framework for the workflow process.
쐍 Workflow variant
The object assigned to a company code that defines the activation of the workflow for document parking.
쐍 Release group
A grouping that categorizes business partners to assign different release
approval paths to them.
쐍 Release approval path
The object that defines, per company code, document type, amount, and release
group, which HR organizational unit will process the workflow items.
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쐍 Subworkflow
The object that defines the specific detail such as the number of release levels
for a workflow. A workflow can have many subworkflows.
쐍 Organizational object
Objects used to create the organizational plan in organizational management.
For the workflow process, it defines who can process workflow work items. The
following object types are available:
– Organizational unit
– Position
– Job
– Work center
– Task
쐍 Validations
With validations, you can create and perform custom checks for values and
combinations of values entered as the business transaction is being processed.
쐍 Substitutions
With substitutions, you can create rules to change values for fields that were
entered or left blank during a business transaction.
쐍 Application area
Validations and substitutions are created per application area, and this maps to
a component in SAP S/4HANA, such as financial accounting, Controlling, asset
accounting, project system, joint venture accounting, funds management, and
so on.
쐍 Rules
You create rules to define common logic strings for prerequisites and checks in
the validation and substitution step definitions.
쐍 Call-up point
Defines the point in time when and the area in which a specific validation/substitution is evaluated. It can be the Document Header, Line Item, or Complete
Document.
쐍 Formula editor
The tool you use to create the Boolean logic strings for prerequisites, checks,
and rules used in validations and substitutions.
쐍 Sets
Flexible groupings for values of various characteristics and key figures. Sets can
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Practice Questions Chapter 6
be assigned to validation and substitution steps to simplify the code written
with the formula editor.
쐍 Data archiving
The process of removing old, mostly irrelevant data from the active database
and transferring it to external media for retrieval when required.
쐍 Archiving object
Specifies which data is to be archived and how. The scope of the objects is usually preconfigured in the system because the process of removing data can have
adverse effects if all parameters for all application areas aren’t considered.
쐍 Archive variant
The variant defines the parameters for the execution of the archiving run. On a
generic level, this includes whether the run is a test or productive one and the
types of logs that will be output.
쐍 Data aging
The process of transferring data from the in-memory partition of a table to a
slower, disk-based storage medium to free up resources to take advantage of the
memory storage area for the active business data.
쐍 Current partition
The in-memory partition of the SAP HANA tables (also referred to as the hot
data storage area).
쐍 Historical partition
The slower, disk-based partition of the SAP HANA tables (also referred to as the
cold data storage area).
Practice Questions
These practice questions will help you evaluate your understanding of the topics
covered in this chapter. The questions shown are similar in nature to those found
on the certification examination. Although none of these questions will be found
on the exam itself, they will allow you to review your knowledge of the subject.
Select the correct answers, and then check the completeness of your answers in
the next section. Remember that on the exam, you must select all correct answers
and only correct answers to receive credit for the question.
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1.
When adding a bank to the bank directory, which field is required?
첸
A. Company code
첸
B. Opening date
첸
C. Currency
첸
D. Country
2.
On which level do you maintain the bank directory?
첸
A. Bank area
첸
B. Company code
첸
C. Client
첸
D. Profit center
3.
What is defined in the bank account connectivity path settings?
첸
A. Payment approvers for workflows
첸
B. Business partner assigned to the bank
첸
C. House bank account ID details
첸
D. Relevant profit center and segment
4.
When creating a bank as a business partner, what roles are assigned to the
business partner by default? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Customer
첸
B. Supplier
첸
C. General
첸
D. Financial Services
첸
E. Bank
5.
What are the differences between holding and parking documents? (There are
two correct answers.)
첸
A. The held document doesn’t have a document number assigned.
첸
B. The held document can be incomplete.
첸
C. The parked document can trigger workflow processes.
첸
D. The parked document is considered for financial statements.
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Practice Questions Chapter 6
6.
On which level is the document parking workflow variant assigned?
첸
A. Company
첸
B. Company code
첸
C. Business partner
첸
D. Profit center
7.
How can you differentiate the document parking workflow process on the
business partner level?
첸
A. Assign different workflow release group
첸
B. Assign different payment method
첸
C. Assign different business partner groupings
첸
D. Assign different responsible organization unit
8.
True or False: Subworkflows define the number of release levels in the document parking workflow process.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
9.
What options does a processor for a general journal entry submitted for verification have? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Park
첸
B. Approve
첸
C. Delete
첸
D. Reject
첸
E. Submit
10. Which values can you define as prerequisites for triggering the general journal
entry verification workflow? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Account group
첸
B. Target company code
첸
C. Cost center
첸
D. Source company code
첸
E. Profit center
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11.
Why would you choose to implement the document parking workflow for
journal entry verification, compared to the general journal entry verification
process?
첸
A. You do not use SAP Fiori.
첸
B. You need to define two-level verification.
첸
C. You are running SAP S/4HANA 1610.
첸
D. You do not know how to configure the new functionality.
12. What are the basic definitions you make for validations? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Prerequisite
첸
B. Check
첸
C. Rule
첸
D. Set
첸
E. Message
13. At which levels can validations and substitutions for financial accounting be
defined? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Line item
첸
B. System data
첸
C. Universal Journal
첸
D. Complete document
첸
E. Header
14. True or False: A single substitution step can be defined to substitute multiple
fields in a document.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
15.
True or False: Multisets can be created if they combine data from basic sets
that all group the same characteristic.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
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Practice Questions Chapter 6
16. What is the main motivation for creating rules for substitutions and validations?
첸
A. Simpler definition tools
첸
B. Reuse in multiple steps
첸
C. Not bound by Boolean logic
첸
D. Additional fields available
17.
What are the steps in the Customizing of data archiving? (There are three correct answers.)
첸
A. Define archiving storage locations.
첸
B. Perform cross-object Customizing.
첸
C. Define table partitions.
첸
D. Activate data aging objects.
첸
E. Perform object-specific Customizing.
18. What is a reason for performing data archiving?
첸
A. To have fewer downtime cycles
첸
B. To control hardware requirements
첸
C. To protect data from being lost
첸
D. To back up data on a separate drive
19. True or False: If you can delete a general ledger account for a company code,
you can also remove it from the chart of accounts.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
20. True or False: You execute data aging separately for each data aging object.
첸
A. True
첸
B. False
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21. Which of the following is a difference between data aging and data archiving?
첸
A. Data aging allows you to retrieve the aged data for analysis.
첸
B. Data aging frees up memory space.
첸
C. Data archiving removes data from the database.
첸
D. Data archiving has advanced logging capabilities.
22. On which levels can you maintain useful life for documents of a company
code in the context of data aging? (There are two correct answers.)
첸
A. Document type
첸
B. Account type
첸
C. Number range interval
첸
D. Profit center
Practice Question Answers and Explanations
1. Correct answer: D
You must define the country, bank code, and bank name when defining a new
bank. The details for company code are maintained on the house bank and
bank account level. The opening date and currency are maintained per bank
account.
2. Correct answer: C
Banks are defined on the client level and are assigned to a country. Since you
maybe have many company codes, customers, and suppliers using the same
banks, it makes sense that these are defined at the highest level. If you pay
attention, part this question can be answered (at least partially) by the previous
question. When writing items for the certification, we try to not have cases like
these, where an answer for one question is implied by a different question.
3. Correct answer: C
The connectivity path is where you define the connection between a bank
account and the house bank. The business partner is defined in the bank details,
the payment approvers are defined in the bank account signatory details, and
the profit center and segment can be assigned in the account additional details.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 6
4. Correct answers: C, D, E
The correct answers are the bank role, the financial services role, and the general role. The general role is always assigned, you can’t create a business partner
without it. For the others, remember that we can’t create “fake” answer options,
so the obvious ones are the actual correct ones here. When creating a bank, you
don’t assign a customer or supplier reconciliation account at any point, so the
system wouldn’t be able to create the customer or supplier role in the business
partner master record.
5. Correct answers: A, C
Held documents don’t receive a document number (though the user assigns an
identifier to be able to retrieve them). Only document parking is integrated
with SAP Business Workflow. On the other hand, both parked and held documents can be saved incomplete, and neither held nor parked documents are
included in financial statements.
6. Correct answer: B
You assign the workflow variant to each company code. You can view the
assignment also in the global settings for the company code (Transaction OBY6
in SAP Easy Access).
7. Correct answer: A
You assign the workflow release group in the company code details screens of
the business partner roles for financial accounting customers and suppliers.
This way you can control the release strategy separately for different customers
and suppliers in your system.
8. Correct answer: A
True. The subworkflow is where you define the special characteristics of the
workflow, including the number of release levels. You can use the subworkflow,
for example, to differentiate the approvers based on different amounts.
9. Correct answers: B, D, E
As a processor, you can approve or reject the document entry, so this is a oneout-of-three question in essence. The correct option out of the others is suspend; this is the term selected by SAP to put a journal entry “in waiting.” Delete
is a very rare function in SAP S/4HANA when it comes to documents, by design.
On the other hand, park means basically the same as suspend, but it’s not the
correct term here.
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10. Correct answers: A, C, D
The correct answers are account group, source company code, and cost center.
In addition, you can also use the threshold value. In many cases in which there
are more than three correct options, the easiest ones are not chosen to be
included in the certification (here, value is a very obvious prerequisite). The
profit center option is a good distractor because it “mirrors” the cost center,
which is a correct answer. The target company code just plays with the source/
target option; it isn’t as strong a distractor, though.
11. Correct answer: A
The general journal entry verification functionality requires SAP Fiori.
Although you should really never have to work on an SAP S/4HANA system
without SAP Fiori, there are a number of customers who have chosen this path.
The delivered workflow process is a single step, but you can create your own
processes with two verification levels. The new functionality was introduced
with SAP S/4HANA 1709, so if you’re working in a 1610 system, it won’t be available. Finally, you should never use lack of knowledge as an excuse for not doing
something: you’re responsible for figuring it out!
12. Correct answers: A, B, E
The prerequisite must be fulfilled for the system to perform the checks if the
validation is true. The message defined is raised if the check isn’t confirmed.
Rules and sets can be used to define the prerequisite and check details.
13. Correct answers: A, D, E
Each validation and substitution is defined for a specific call-up point. The same
validation/substitution can’t be used in two different call-up points. For financial accounting, you define them at the level of the Document Header, Line Item,
or Complete Document.
14. Correct answer: A
True. Although most times a step fulfills a single substitution prerequisite, you
can change multiple fields with a single step. This way, you can trigger changes
even if there aren’t direct field dependencies defined through assignments in
the master records.
15. Correct answer: B
False. Multisets combine any kind of basic sets independent of the underlying
characteristics. The statement here fits the description of a single-set, which
indeed combines basic sets defined for the same attribute.
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Practice Question Answers and Explanations Chapter 6
16. Correct answer: B
You can use rules in multiple steps of a validation or substitution, so you can
speed up the time required to create them by reusing them. The tools, fields,
and logic used are the same as those available when maintaining prerequisite
and check data.
17. Correct answers: A, B, E
The sequence of Customizing steps is to define the archiving storage locations,
perform cross-object Customizing, and finally customize the object-specific
settings. The table partitioning and aging object activation steps are part of the
activation process for data aging.
18. Correct answer: B
By performing data archiving, you can maintain stable hardware requirements
because the database is kept at a constant size. With data archiving, you can
have shorter downtime cycles, but not fewer ones. Data is never lost, data
archiving has no effect on this, and data archiving is not a data backup process.
19. Correct answer: B
False. You need to delete a general ledger account from all company codes to be
able to delete it from the chart of accounts as well. In general, deleting anything
in the SAP S/4HANA system, which acts as a system of record, is only performed
after many dependency and consistency checks.
20. Correct answer: B.
False. You create object groups that can have multiple aging objects combined
for sequential processing. This makes it easier and more efficient to administrate the aging run and you can be sure you are not forgetting aging objects.
21. Correct answer: C
The archiving process physically removes data from the database, whereas data
aging moves it to a historical partition. In both cases, the data is retrievable
(albeit not as easily or swiftly for the archived data), both have a positive effect
on the used memory, and both offer powerful log tools to check the results of
the runs.
22. Correct answer: A, B
The aging Customizing allows you to control the useful life per company code
and account type, so you can define a different retention period for general ledger accounting documents compared to, for example, asset accounting documents. You can also configure the useful life per company code and document
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497
498
Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics
type, so again, document type SA for general ledger postings can have a different retention period for real-time analysis than the AA document type for
assets.
Takeaway
You now understand how to create and manage banks, house banks, and bank
accounts in the SAP S/4HANA system. You can use document parking and configure and use the workflow delivered with SAP S/4HANA for parked document
approval and finalization. You can configure and use the general journal entry verification applications and workflow. You can control document posting with validations and substitutions, utilizing sets and rules as well in the control definitions.
You can work with an administrator to configure archiving and take part in a data
archiving project. You also can configure data aging for the documents posted to
the Universal Journal, freeing up valuable memory space for the business-critical
real-time analysis of the data that matters.
Summary
In this chapter, we covered various cross topics in financial accounting. Apart from
bank account management, which can be considered its own submodule, in the
context of SAP Cash Management the topics of document parking, general journal
entry verification, validation and substitution, archiving and data aging are useful
knowledge for you as a financial accounting consultant, independent of the specific focus area you might take over in a project.
This is the end of the final chapter of the book and the final piece in the complex
and diverse knowledge puzzle you must master to pass the certification exam for
financial accounting in SAP S/4HANA. If you feel comfortable with the material
presented and can answer the practice questions with confidence and a true
understanding of the solutions, you’ll have success with the certification exam.
We hope this book continues to be useful for you even beyond attaining the certification, as an easy-to-understand reference book.
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
499
The Author
Stefanos Pougkas is the certification exam owner for the
SAP S/4HANA 1709 and 1809 financial accounting associate
exams. At SAP Knowledge and Education, he is a learning
architect in the digital core team, and is responsible for the
financials curriculum. He is a subject matter expert for
financials courses and lead trainer in the global SAP Financials learning room.
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501
Index
A
ABAP ........................................................... 57, 81, 167
ABAP report ........................................................... 368
Account assignment .......................................... 362
Account clearing .................................................. 406
Account determination .......................... 296, 341
Account group ................................... 100, 157, 196
correspondence ............................................... 196
customer .................................................. 184, 268
details ........................................................ 185, 186
house bank ........................................................ 196
individual payment ....................................... 196
maintenance .................................................... 194
normal ................................................................ 188
one-time ............................................................. 188
payment methods .......................................... 196
payment terms ................................................ 194
posting block .................................................... 196
reconciliation account ................................. 194
sort key ............................................................... 194
supplier ..................................................... 184, 268
tolerance group ............................................... 196
Accounting principle
assignment ........................................................ 120
definition ........................................................... 120
Accounting principles ....................................... 119
Accounts approach ............................................. 119
Accounts payable ................................................ 175
Accounts payable/accounts receivable
regrouping .............................................. 401, 421
Accrual ..................................................................... 420
Accrual item .......................................................... 382
Accrual object ....................................................... 382
Active document split ....................................... 142
Additional learning resources .......................... 36
Aggressive compression ..................................... 49
Alternative payer/payee ................................... 191
Analytical app .......................................................... 59
Application area ................................................... 488
Archive
variant ................................................................ 489
Archiving ................................................................ 489
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Asset accounting ................................................. 285
assets under construction ........................... 323
low-value assets .............................................. 322
plant maintenance integration ................ 302
transactions ...................................................... 304
year-end process ............................................. 330
Asset acquisitions ............................................... 305
automatic offsetting ..................................... 306
integration with accounts payable ......... 308
simulation ......................................................... 311
transaction data ............................................. 307
Asset class ...................................................... 293, 341
configuration ................................................... 295
Asset depreciation .............................................. 325
calculation ........................................................ 325
depreciation key ............................................. 326
posting run ........................................................ 328
time-dependent ............................................... 326
Asset legacy data transfer ................................ 336
data migration ................................................ 339
migration preparation ................................. 336
Asset master data ................................................ 301
creation .............................................................. 301
subnumber ........................................................ 302
Asset reporting ..................................................... 332
balance report ................................................. 334
history sheet ..................................................... 335
value report ...................................................... 333
Asset retirement
create ................................................................... 315
worklist ............................................................... 317
Asset retirements ................................................ 314
asset sale invoice ............................................ 314
Asset sale, line items .......................................... 316
Asset transaction type ...................................... 341
Asset transfer ........................................................ 318
intercompany .................................................. 320
intracompany .................................................. 319
methods .............................................................. 321
Asset under construction ................................ 342
Asset value date ................................................... 341
Asset Values app .................................................. 333
Audit journal ................................................ 372, 376
502
Index
Auditing .................................................................. 376
Automatic payment
company codes ............................................... 219
country level ..................................................... 222
customization ................................................. 221
parameters ........................................................ 231
review .................................................................. 233
run ........................................................................ 231
Automatic Payment Program ... 217, 218, 227,
269, 283
customizing ...................................................... 218
Automatic payments ......................................... 217
Automatically Assign Items app ................... 416
B
Balance carryforward ........................................ 375
Balance confirmation ............................... 390, 421
Balance Sheet Values by Account app ........ 408
Bank account management ............................ 436
create .......................................................... 437, 439
house bank ........................................................ 438
Bank directory ............................................. 436, 487
Bank group ............................................................ 487
Book structure ......................................................... 11
Business area ........................................................... 93
definition .............................................................. 94
Business partner ............ 176, 177, 196, 249, 267
address ................................................................ 193
categories ................................................. 178, 268
communication .............................................. 193
customers .......................................................... 192
field attributes ................................................. 183
general data ..................................................... 190
grouping ............................................................ 268
groups ................................................................. 178
organizations .................................................. 178
persons ............................................................... 178
role .............................................................. 179, 268
role definition .................................................. 179
role grouping ................................................... 180
suppliers .................................................... 192, 199
types ........................................................... 182, 268
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
C
C_ACT_2016 ............................................................. 20
C_S4IMP_16 ............................................................. 20
C_TS410_16 .............................................................. 19
C_TS4CO_16 ............................................................. 20
C_TS4FI_1610 ................................................... 20, 22
Call-up point ......................................................... 488
Carry Forward Balances app ........................... 376
Carryforward ......................................................... 420
Cash management ............................................. 434
CCS3 ............................................................................. 56
Central Finance ....................................................... 55
Changing documents ........................................ 148
Chart of accounts ................................ 97, 157, 169
alternative ............................................................ 98
blocked .................................................................. 99
country .................................................................. 98
create ...................................................................... 99
description ........................................................... 99
group ...................................................................... 98
maintenance language ................................... 99
operational .......................................................... 98
settings .................................................................. 99
Chart of depreciation ............................... 289, 341
Client ................................................................. 80, 156
000 ......................................................................... 80
001 ........................................................................... 80
066 .......................................................................... 80
100 ........................................................................... 80
200 .......................................................................... 80
Client-dependent ................................................... 81
Client-independent ............................................... 81
Company ................................................................... 89
Company code .............................................. 83, 156
address .................................................................. 86
chart of accounts .............................................. 87
company ............................................................... 88
copy ........................................................................ 83
country chart/accounts .................................. 87
create ...................................................................... 83
credit control area ............................................ 88
currency ................................................................ 85
definition .............................................................. 85
field status variant ........................................... 88
fiscal year variant ............................................. 88
global parameter .............................................. 87
Index
Company code (Cont.)
posting period variant ..................................... 88
Controlling ................................................................ 95
CO-PA, account-based .......................................... 96
Correspondence ................................................... 251
payment differences ...................................... 253
printing ............................................................... 254
types ........................................................... 252, 269
Cross-company code postings ....................... 152
Cumulative Totals app ......................................... 62
Currency ................................................................. 124
types ..................................................................... 127
Currency exchange rate ................................... 125
direct quotation .............................................. 126
indirect quotation .......................................... 126
maintenance .................................................... 125
Current partition ................................................. 489
Customer/supplier tolerance ......................... 205
D
Data aging .................................................... 481, 489
activation .......................................................... 483
customizing ...................................................... 482
run ........................................................................ 485
table partitioning ........................................... 485
Data archiving ............................................ 473, 489
administration ................................................ 479
archiving objects ............................................. 476
cross-object ....................................................... 474
customizing ...................................................... 474
define ................................................................... 477
general ledger example ................................ 477
job logs ................................................................ 480
object-specific .................................................. 475
Data medium exchange engine (DMEE) .... 226
Deferral .................................................................... 420
Depreciation area ...................................... 290, 341
configuration ................................................... 291
definition ........................................................... 291
derived ................................................................ 293
Depreciation key ................................................. 342
Digital platform ...................................................... 48
Digital transformation .................................. 47, 69
Display Financial Statement app .................. 366
Document header ............................................... 144
Document line item ........................................... 148
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Document parking .................................... 442, 453
holding ................................................................ 443
release approval path ................................... 448
release groups .................................................. 446
workflow ................................................... 445, 449
workflow builder ............................................. 444
Document splitting ................................... 136, 158
activation .......................................................... 139
characteristics ................................................. 140
deactivate .......................................................... 139
inheritance ........................................................ 138
method ............................................................... 138
steps ..................................................................... 141
Document type .................................................... 158
authorization group ..................................... 128
definition ........................................................... 128
maintenance .................................................... 127
number range .................................................. 127
reverse ................................................................. 128
Document types .................................................. 127
Down payments .................................................. 260
Dunning .................................................................. 238
areas .................................................................... 269
block reason ..................................................... 240
block reasons .................................................... 269
company code .................................................. 247
configuration ................................................... 238
grouping ............................................................. 248
letter ..................................................................... 245
procedure ........................................................... 269
procedures ......................................................... 240
program ............................................................. 269
run ........................................................................ 250
text maintenance ........................................... 244
Dunning areas ...................................................... 238
Dunning charges ................................................. 245
Dunning details ................................................... 249
Dunning keys ........................................................ 239
Dunning level ....................................................... 243
maintenance .................................................... 243
E
eAcademy .................................................................. 28
Exam format ............................................................ 23
Exam scope ............................................................... 25
Extension ledger .................................................. 157
503
504
Index
F
Factsheet apps ......................................................... 59
Field definition ..................................................... 101
Field groups ........................................................... 101
Field status
error example .................................................. 131
Financial accounting .................................. 77, 112
Financial accounting integration .................... 94
Controlling ........................................................... 95
logistics ................................................................. 96
SAP ERP HCM ...................................................... 97
Financial closing .................................................. 355
real-world scenario ........................................ 356
Financial document clearing ......................... 154
Financial statement ........................................... 357
ABAP .................................................................... 368
definitions ......................................................... 358
hierarchy ............................................................ 359
item definition ................................................. 360
node ..................................................................... 362
output with SAP Fiori ................................... 366
output with SAP Jam ..................................... 367
Financial statement version ........................... 420
Fiscal year variant ...................................... 121, 157
definition ........................................................... 122
list ......................................................................... 122
period .................................................................. 122
Fixed-asset accounting ..................................... 287
Foreign currency ................................................. 217
Foreign currency valuation ............................ 421
Formula editor ..................................................... 488
Functional area ....................................................... 92
definition .............................................................. 93
G
General ledger ......................................................... 78
integration with Controlling ..................... 123
invoice document ........................................... 137
special indicators ........................................... 246
General ledger accounting ................................. 77
business transaction ..................................... 143
posting ................................................................ 143
General ledger accounts ...................................... 97
account currency ............................................ 104
allocation .......................................................... 106
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
General ledger accounts (Cont.)
balance sheet account ................................. 102
copy ........................................................................ 84
field status group ........................................... 106
general data ..................................................... 103
maintain ............................................................ 102
master record ................................................... 107
nonoperating expense or income ........... 102
open item management .............................. 106
primary costs ................................................... 102
primary revenue ............................................. 102
reconciliation account ................................. 106
retained earnings ........................................... 104
secondary costs ............................................... 102
tax category ..................................................... 105
Universal Journal .............................................. 78
General ledger closing ...................................... 372
posting period ................................................. 372
GR/IR account ...................................................... 422
H
Head office ............................................................. 196
Held document .................................................... 487
Historical partition ............................................. 489
House bank ............................................................ 487
HTML5 ................................................................. 56, 75
I
Individual value adjustment .......................... 421
Intelligent enterprise ........................................... 47
Intelligent suite ...................................................... 48
Intelligent technologies ...................................... 48
Intercompany reconciliation ...... 414, 415, 422
International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) ................................................. 92
Internet of Things .................................................. 47
Invoice payment
details .................................................................. 208
screen variants ................................................ 208
Invoicing ................................................................. 206
J
JavaScript ................................................................... 56
jQuery ......................................................................... 56
Index
L
Ledger ....................................................................... 113
commitments ................................................... 118
configuration ................................................... 114
currency type .................................................... 114
deactivating ...................................................... 115
extension ledger .................................... 117, 118
fiscal year variant .......................................... 114
posting period variant .................................. 114
predictions ......................................................... 118
Ledger comparison report ............................... 370
Ledger group
assignment .............................................. 117, 120
create ................................................................... 116
definition ........................................................... 116
leading ledger .................................................. 116
list ......................................................................... 116
representative ledger .................................... 116
Logistics ...................................................................... 95
Low-value asset .................................................... 342
M
Manage Banks app .............................................. 436
Manage Global Accounting
Hierarchies app ........................................ 90, 364
Manage Journal Entries app ............................ 150
Manage Workflows for General Journal
Entry Verification app .................................. 457
Manual payments ............................................... 214
Master data, supplier ......................................... 191
Master records ............................................... 97, 167
Materials management ....................................... 96
closing activities ............................................. 404
Multiple-choice example .................................... 33
O
OLAP ..................................................................... 70, 74
OLTP ...................................................................... 70, 74
Open and Close Posting Periods app .......... 372
Open posting periods ........................................ 373
openSAP ..................................................................... 43
OpenUI5 ..................................................................... 56
Organizational object ........................................ 488
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Organizational units ............................ 77, 79, 167
client level ............................................................. 95
Outgoing payment ............................................. 215
Overdue Payables app .......................................... 59
P
P_S4FIN_1610 .......................................................... 20
Parallel accounting .................................... 112, 157
accounts approach ........................................ 113
example .............................................................. 112
ledger approach .............................................. 113
Parallel valuation ................................................ 119
Parked document ................................................ 487
save ...................................................................... 450
Passive document split ..................................... 141
Payment
block reasons .................................................... 268
methods .............................................................. 268
Payment block
reasons ................................................................ 204
Payment media creation .................................. 237
Payment medium workbench .... 224, 226, 269
Payment term .............................................. 199, 202
account type ..................................................... 201
baseline date .................................................... 201
day limit ............................................................. 201
definition ........................................................... 200
payment block ................................................. 201
Payment terms ..................................................... 268
Physical inventory ..................................... 404, 422
continuous ........................................................ 405
cycle counting .................................................. 405
periodic ............................................................... 404
Plant maintenance ................................................ 96
Post General Journal Entries app ........ 130, 144,
146, 455
Post Incoming Invoices app ........................... 449
Posting accrual ..................................................... 378
automatic reversal ......................................... 380
journal ................................................................ 380
Posting deferrals .................................................. 378
Posting key .......................................... 129, 158, 171
account type ..................................................... 132
definition ........................................................... 130
range .................................................................... 132
Posting period variant ...................................... 158
505
506
Index
Practice questions ............................................... 158
Primary cost and revenue account .............. 107
Primary cost elements ......................................... 96
Profit center
hierarchy ..................................................... 90, 110
maintenance ........................................... 110, 111
Profit centers ........................................ 90, 108, 109
Profitability analysis (CO-PA) ............................ 96
R
Real-time consolidation ...................................
Reconciliation account .....................................
alternative .........................................................
Recurring entry ....................................................
Release approval path .......................................
Release group .......................................................
Reporting ................................................................
balances .............................................................
line item .............................................................
Reporting characteristic ...................................
Reporting key figured .......................................
Reversing documents .......................................
Revise Payment Proposal app .......................
Rules .........................................................................
414
261
262
421
487
487
263
266
267
420
420
150
235
488
S
Sales and distribution .......................................... 96
SAP Ariba ................................................................... 52
SAP Best Practices ........................................ 38, 357
SAP Business Workflow ................. 435, 487, 495
SAP Cloud Platform ........................................ 48, 67
SAP Community ..................................................... 43
SAP Concur ............................................................... 52
SAP Customer Experience .................................. 52
SAP Education courses ......................................... 26
SAP ERP .......................................................... 108, 173
SAP ERP Financials .................................... 176, 434
SAP ERP HCM ........................................................... 95
SAP Fieldglass .......................................................... 52
SAP Financial Closing cockpit ........................ 356
SAP Fiori ........... 46, 56, 68, 71, 75, 144, 210, 264,
364, 366
app customization ............................................ 62
browser .................................................................. 62
for SAP S/4HANA ........................................ 57, 68
© 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA)
SAP Fiori (Cont.)
themes ................................................................... 63
tiles .......................................................................... 61
user experience .................................................. 56
user interface ............................................... 46, 56
SAP Fiori apps reference library ....................... 42
SAP Fiori launchpad .................. 46, 57, 61, 68, 75
designer .......................................................... 66, 68
SAP Fiori launchpad designer ........................... 64
SAP Gateway ..................................................... 55, 68
server ...................................................................... 65
SAP GUI ...................................................................... 55
SAP HANA ................................................... 46, 49, 72
architecture ......................................................... 49
columnar store ..................................... 50, 67, 71
compression ........................................................ 49
database ............................................................... 69
in-memory database ................................ 49, 67
SAP Help Portal ....................................................... 39
SAP Information Lifecycle Management ... 486
SAP Learning Hub .................................................. 29
SAP Learning Room .............................................. 30
SAP Leonardo ............................................ 48, 67, 73
SAP Live Access ................................................ 28, 31
SAP Logon ................................................................. 56
SAP S/4HANA ............ 46, 51, 67, 70, 74, 80, 112,
177, 288
backend server ................................................... 55
deployment .......................................................... 53
system landscape .............................................. 55
SAP S/4HANA adoption ...................................... 54
landscape transformation ............................ 55
new implementation ....................................... 54
system conversion ............................................ 55
SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing cockpit ... 410
task list ............................................................... 422
task template ................................................... 422
SAP SuccessFactors ............................................... 52
SAP User Assistance .............................................. 40
SAPUI5 ........................................................................ 56
Screen layouts ...................................................... 298
definition ........................................................... 298
tab layout .......................................................... 299
Secondary cost account .................................... 107
Segment ..................................................................... 92
definition .............................................................. 92
profit center ......................................................... 92
Index
Segment (Cont.)
reporting ............................................................ 157
Sets .................................................................. 471, 488
basic ..................................................................... 472
create ................................................................... 471
multiset ............................................................... 472
Special general ledger accounting ................ 255
configuration ................................................... 257
indicators ................................................. 255, 270
Standard ledger .................................................... 157
Stock valuation .......................................... 408, 422
Substitution
fields ..................................................................... 465
methods .............................................................. 466
rule definition .................................................. 473
Substitutions ...................................... 460, 464, 488
define ................................................................... 467
Supplier Invoice Search app ............................... 59
T
Target audience ....................................................... 11
Tax code ........................................................ 135, 158
categories .......................................................... 136
management .................................................... 135
Tax handling ......................................................... 133
sales tax .............................................................. 133
value-added tax .............................................. 133
withholding tax ............................................... 133
Tax procedure ....................................................... 134
Technical clearing account .............................. 341
Tips ........................................................................ 31, 35
Tolerance group ......................................... 132, 158
maintainence ................................................... 133
Trading partner ....................................................... 90
Transaction
ABLDT .................................................................. 339
AS100 ................................................................... 340
AS91 ...................................................................... 339
BAUP .................................................................... 436
BIC2 ...................................................................... 436
F110 ....................................................................... 235
FB50 ..................................................................... 146
FBZP ..................................................................... 218
FTXP ..................................................................... 171
OBY6 ....................................................................... 87
Transaction (Cont.)
SCC4 ........................................................................ 82
SU01 ............................................................ 209, 280
SU10 ..................................................................... 280
Transactional app ................................................... 59
Transactional data .............................................. 167
U
UI theme designer ................................................. 63
Universal Journal ................................................... 78
US Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles (GAAP) .............................................. 92
User-defined fields ............................................. 300
V
Validations .................................................... 460, 488
definition ........................................................... 468
rule definition .................................................. 473
Valuation
area definition ................................................. 394
configure ............................................................ 393
delta posting logic ......................................... 395
foreign currency .............................................. 392
results .................................................................. 398
run ........................................................................ 401
Valuation area ...................................................... 421
Valuation method ...................................... 399, 421
Value adjustment
flat-rate ............................................................... 399
individual ........................................................... 399
Verify General Journal Entries for
Requester app .................................................. 455
Verify Journal Entries for Processor app ... 455
Virtual Live Classroom ......................................... 28
W
Warehouse management ................................... 96
Workflow ................................................................ 487
subworkflow ..................................................... 488
variant ................................................................ 487
Z
Zero-balance clearing line formation ......... 142
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