101. What is a
‘Posting Period Variant’?
A ‘Posting Period Variant’ is
useful in ‘opening/closing’ posting periods across many Company
Codes at one time. You define a posting
period variant and assign it to various Company Codes.
Since the posting period variant is
cross-Company Code, the opening and closing of the posting
period is made simple. Instead of
opening and closing individually for different Company Codes,
you just need to open or close the
posting period variant.
102. Can You
Selectively ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ accounts?
Yes. It is possible to selectively
control the ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ for various types of accounts.
Usually, a ‘+’ is mentioned in the
top-most entry indicating that all the account types are allowed
for posting. Now, for the GL(S)
accounts, you will need to specify the period which needs to be
opened. This ensures that all the
account types are open for the current period, indicated by ‘+,’
and only the GL accounts are open for
the previous period.
Select account types can also be opened
or closed for a specific period; select accounts within an
account type can also be opened or
closed.
103. Why is it not
Possible to Post to a Customer A/C in a
Previously Closed
‘Period’?
When you want to selectively ‘close’ or
‘open’ the posting period of some accounts (account
range), there will be no problem with
that if you are doing it for GL accounts. But, if it is a
subledger account (such as the
customer), it has to be achieved via opening or closing the
account interval of the ‘reconciliation
account’ of that account type.
104. Can You Open a
‘Posting Period’ only for a Particular User?
Yes. SAP allows you to open or close
the posting period only for specific users. This can be
achieved by maintaining an authorization
group at the document header level.
105. What is a
‘Special Period’? When do You Use it?
Besides the normal posting periods, SAP
allows for defining a maximum four more posting
periods, which are known as ‘Special
Periods’ as these are used for year-end closing activities.
This is achieved by dividing the last
posting period into more than one (maximum four) period.
However, all the postings in these
special periods should fall within the last posting period.
The special periods cannot be
determined automatically by the system based on the posting date
of the document. The special period
needs to be manually entered into the ‘posting period’ field in
the document header.
106. What is the
Maximum Number of ‘Posting Periods’ in SAP?
Under GL accounting, you can have a
maximum of 16 posting periods (12 regular plus 4 Special
Periods). However, you can have up to a
maximum of 366 posting periods as is the case in
‘special purpose
ledgers.’
107. What is a
‘Special Purpose Ledger’?
‘Special Purpose
Ledgers’ (FI-SL)
are used in reporting. These are basically user-defined
ledgers, which can be maintained either
as GL or subsidiary ones with various account
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assignment objects (with SAP-dimensions
such as cost center, business area, profit center, etc.,
or customer-defined dimensions such as
region, area, etc.).
Once defined, this functionality helps
you to report at various levels. Ideally you collect the
information, combine it, and create the
totals. This is something such as an additional reporting
feature, and use of this feature will
have no effect on the regular functionalities of SAP.
108. What Variations
are Possible when Defining a ‘Fiscal Year’?
The
Fiscal Year is the same as a Calendar Year
The fiscal year starts on January 1 and
there are 12 posting periods; the posting periods
correspond to the calendar months;
there is no need to define each of the posting periods.
Open
table as spreadsheet Posting
Period Start Date End Date
1 1–Jan 31–Jan
2 1–Feb 28/29 Feb
3 1–Mar 31–Mar
4 1–Apr 30–Apr
5 1–May 31–May
6 1–Jun 30–Jun
7 1–Jul 31–Jul
8 1–Aug 31–Aug
9 1–Sep 30–Sep
10 1–Oct 31–Oct
11 1–Nov 30–Nov
12 1–Dec 31–Dec
The
Fiscal Year is NOT the same as a Calendar Year
In this case, you need to specify how
many posting periods you want and how the system
should derive the posting period. Since
the posting period does not correspond to the
calendar month, the start and end date
of each of the posting periods need to be maintained.
109. What is known as
‘Year Shift/Displacement’ in a Fiscal Year?
When the fiscal year is not the same as
the calendar year, we need to define a ‘displacement
factor’ for each of the
posting periods to correctly identify the number of posting periods.
For example, consider the fiscal year
variant V3 (Figure 25). The fiscal year starts on April 1st and
ends on March 31st of the next calendar
year so the displacement factor or year shift from April to
December is ‘0,’ and for January to
March, it will be ‘1’. By defining it this way, the system is
able to recognize the correct posting
period. A posting made on January 25th, 2006 will then be
interpreted as the 10th posting period in
fiscal year 2005.
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Figure 25: Year
shift/displacement in Fiscal Year Variant
110. Can You have
‘non-Calendar’ Months as ‘Periods’ in a ‘non-
Calendar’ Fiscal
Year?
Yes. The ‘non-calendar fiscal year’ can
either correspond to calendar months or to noncalendar
months.
In the case of non-calendar months as
the posting periods, you need to specify the start and end
date of these posting periods. Consider
a fiscal year starting on April 16th, 2005 and ending on
April 15th, 2006. Here, the posting period-1 starts on
April 16th
and ends
on May 15th
and so
on.
Note that the posting period-9 will
have 2 displacements (0 and 1) as indicated below in the
Table:
Open
table as spreadsheet
Posting Period
Start
Date
End
Date
Year Year
Displacement
1 16–Apr 15–May 2005 0
2 16–May 15–Jun 2005 0
3 16–Jun 15–Jul 2005 0
4 16–Jul 15–Aug 2005 0
5 16–Aug 15–Sep 2005 0
6 16–Sep 15–Oct 2005 0
7 16–Oct 15–Nov 2005 0
8 16–Nov 15–Dec 2005 0
9 16–Dec 31–Dec 2005 0
9 1–Jan 15–Jan 2006 1
10 16–Jan 15–Feb 2006 1
11 16–Feb 15–Mar 2006 1
12 16–Mar 15–Apr 2006 1
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As a result, a posting made on December
27th, 2005, as well as the
posting made on January 14th,
2006 are correctly identified as
postings corresponding to period-9.
111. What is a ‘Year-dependent’
Fiscal Year?
A calendar year fiscal variant, when
defined as ‘year-dependent,’ is relevant and valid only for
that year.
112. What Precautions
should you Take while Defining a
‘Shortened Fiscal
Year’?
Note that the ‘Shortened Fiscal
Year’ is always year-dependent. This has to be followed or
preceded by a full fiscal year (12
months). Both the shortened and the full fiscal year, in this case,
have to be defined using a single
fiscal year variant.
113. Tell me more
about a ‘Shortened Fiscal Year.’
As mentioned already, a ‘Shortened
Fiscal Year’ is one containing less than 12 months. This
kind of fiscal year is required when
you are in the process of setting up a company, or when you
switch over one fiscal year (e.g.,
calendar year) to another type of fiscal year (non-calendar).
114. How do You Open
a new ‘Fiscal Year’ in the System?
You do not need to ‘open’ the new
fiscal year as a separate activity. Once you make a posting
into the new fiscal year, the new
fiscal year is automatically opened. Or, the new fiscal year is
automatically opened when you run the ‘balance
carry-forward’ program.
However, you need to have (1) the
relevant posting period already open in the new fiscal year, (2)
completed the document number range
assignment if you are following a year-dependent number
range assignment, and (3) defined a new
fiscal year variant if you follow the year-dependent
fiscal year variant.
115. How do you
‘Carry-Forward’ Account Balances?
If you have already posted into the new
fiscal year, you do not need to ‘carry-forward’ the
balances manually. But you can use the
various ‘carry-forward’ programs supplied by SAP for this
task.
116. Can You Explain
how ‘Carry-Forward’ Happens in SAP?
Sure. For all the Balance Sheet items,
the balances of these accounts are just carried forward to
the new fiscal year, along with account
assignments if any. This also true for customer and
vendor accounts.
In the case of Profit & Loss
accounts, the system carries forward the profit or loss (in the local
currency) to the Retained Earnings
account, and the balances of these accounts are set to ‘0.’ No
additional account assignments are
transferred.
117. Is there a
Prerequisite for ‘Carry-Forward’ Activity?
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Yes, for Profit & Loss accounts,
you should have defined the Retained Earnings account in the
system. Additionally, you should have
also specified the ‘Profit & Loss Account Type’ in the
master record of each of these for
Profit & Loss accounts.
There are no such requirements for GL
accounts, customer and vendor accounts.
118. How many
‘Retained Earnings’ A/C can be Defined?
You can define as many ‘Retained
Earnings Accounts’ as you need. But normally, companies
use only one retained earnings
account. Remember, to define more than one, you should use the
profit & loss account type.
119. Can You have
Multiple ‘Retained Earnings’ A/C?
Normally it is sufficient if you use
one ‘retained earnings’ account. However, if you are
configuring for a multinational company
where the legal requirements require treating some of the
tax provisions differently from other
countries, then you will need more than one retained earnings
account.
120. How do You
Maintain ‘Currency’ in SAP?
‘Currency’ (the legal means of
payment in a country) in SAP is denoted by a 3-character
Currency Code, maintained per ISO
standards. Example: USD (U.S. Dollars), INR (Indian
Rupee), GBP (Great Britain Pound), etc.
Each currency code in the system will have a validity
defined.
A currency is defined in SAP using the
IMG path: General settings>Currencies >Check exchange
rate types.
121. What is a ‘Local
Currency’?
When you define a Company Code, you
also need to mention in which currency you will be
maintaining the accounts/ledgers in
financial accounting. This currency is called the ‘Local
Currency.’ This is also known as ‘Company
Code Currency.’
122. What is a
‘Parallel Currency’?
When defining the currencies for a
Company Code, it is possible to maintain, for each of these
company Codes, two more currencies in
addition to the ‘Local Currency.’ These two currencies
are called the ‘Parallel
Currencies,’ which can be the:
Group
Currency
Hard
Currency
Global
Company Currency
Index-based
Currency
To translate the values from one
currency to the other, you will need to maintain an exchange
rate for each pair of the
defined currencies in the system. When parallel currencies are defined,
the system maintains the accounting
ledgers in these currencies as well, in addition to the local
currency.
123. What is a ‘Group
Currency’?
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This is the currency defined at the
Client level.
124. What is the
‘Global Company Code Currency’?
The currency defined for the Company
(or the Consolidated Company) is called the ‘Global
Company Code
Currency.’
125. What is an
‘Account Currency’?
When defining the GL accounts in the
system, you are required to define a currency in which an
account will be maintained, and this is
called the ‘Account Currency.’ This is defined in the
‘Company Code’ area of the GL master
record, and is used for postings and account balance
display.
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