– 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 429 430 Chapter 5 Financial Closing 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 431 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Chapter 6 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 Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 434 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 435 436 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 437 438 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 439 440 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 441 442 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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). Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 443 444 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 445 446 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 Figure 6.13 Assign Release Group to Vendor Figure 6.14 Define Release Approval Path Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 447 448 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 449 450 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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 Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 451 452 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 453 454 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Edit Journal Entry Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 455 456 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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 Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 457 458 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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). © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 Figure 6.32 Configure Responsibility Figure 6.33 Assign Users for Verification Rules Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 459 460 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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 © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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. Personal Copy for Jithendra Reddy, jnreddy23@gmail.com 461 462 Chapter 6 SAP Financials Cross Topics 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. © 2019 by Rheinwerk Publishing Inc., Boston (MA) Key Concept Refresher Chapter 6 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 “