This document aims to give an introduction to maintain fiscal year variants in SAP and also explains various options which are available to cater to business requirements e.g. shortened fiscal year or posting Periods in the Fiscal Year used by the organization do not correspond To Calendar Months.
Introduction
The fiscal year is a time period used to prepare the financial statements in organizations. Based on the business needs some organizations have fiscal years which start from Jan to Dec and some Apr to Mar etc. Fiscal year can be further divided into shorter time frames which can be months which are referred to as periods.
In SAP the fiscal year is assigned as a variant. Posting periods can further be defined in each fiscal year variant. SAP allows a maximum of 16 posting periods in each fiscal year. It consists of 12 regular posting periods and 4 special periods which can be used for audit or tax adjustments to already closed periods. One fiscal year variant can be assigned to multiple company codes.
However when posting periods are defined there can be different scenarios, based on which the periods need to be defined in SAP:
- Posting Periods in the Fiscal Year used by the organization do not correspond To Calendar Months
- Organisation uses shortened fiscal year
The document aims to provide details of the configurations required to define the posting periods for each scenario. This document aims to give an introduction to maintain fiscal year variants in SAP and also explains various options which are available to cater to business requirements.
Solution
The configurations for the fiscal year and corresponding period details can be done in SPRO settings as per details given below:
- Path: Financial Accounting >> Financial Accounting Global settings >> Fiscal Year >> maintain Fiscal year variant (maintain shortened fiscal year)
- Transaction Code: OB29
Scenario 1: Posting Periods in the Fiscal Year used by the organization do not correspond to Calendar Months
To start in the OB29 initial screen as given below we would need to click on New Entries. In the new entries screen the details to be entered are Fiscal year variant, description and the no. of posting periods and special posting periods. Details entered need to be saved.
We would then need to go back to the main screen of OB29, select the new fiscal year defined and double click on Periods and enter the details as given below.
While defining the periods in the example below assumption is organization uses Apr to Mar posting periods. User also needs to take care that the months which fall in the next (Jan to Apr) needs to have a year shift indicator -1 maintained as given below. However since the months in the fiscal year does not follow the calendar days (in the example 15th of the month is used for periods). The day indicator needs to be defined for each month. However for December the definition of days has to be made 31 so as to enable 15 days again from Jan onwards and the posting period 9 hence is divided into 2 periods one is till Dec 31st and another is 1st Jan to 15th Jan. Also the year shift indicator needs to be defined for Apr as well.
Scenario 4: Organisation uses shortened fiscal year
To start in the OB29 initial screen as given below we would need to click on New Entries. In the new entries screen the details to be entered are Fiscal year variant, description and the no. of posting periods and special posting periods. Details entered need to be saved.
We would then need to go back to the main screen of OB29, select the new fiscal year defined and double click on Periods and enter the details as given below.
While defining the periods in the example below assumption is organization uses Jan to Sept Shortened fiscal year. User also needs to take care that the months which fall in the next (Oct to Nov) needs to have a year shift indicator +1 maintained as given below.
The above scenarios provide different options which can be configured in SAP however the configurations can only be done after discussions with business in the organisation.
Related Content
- help.sap.com:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_46c/helpdata/en/96/8b2fc843ce11d189ee0000e81ddfac/content.htm
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_40b/helpdata/es/95/e42c7dd435d1118b3f0060b03ca329/content.htm
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