Creating and Editing G/L Account Master Records (SAP Library

Creating and Editing G/L Account Master Records

Purpose

You have various options for creating G/L account master records in the system:

Using a reference

You can copy G/L account master records from an existing company code and then change them.

Use this procedure if you want to use a chart of accounts included in the standard system or if you want to use an existing chart of accounts as a reference. The advantage of using a reference is that the account assignment is also copied. This ensures the integration of General Ledger Accounting with other application components.

Data Transfer Workbench

You can copy G/L account master records from an external system and then change them.

Use this method if you have your G/L accounts in a non-SAP system and want to transfer them to your SAP System.

Copy G/L accounts

You can copy G/L account master records by copying a chart of accounts and then the company code.

You should only use this method if there is a chart of accounts in your system that exactly meets your requirements. If you need to make changes to the chart of accounts, your should complete this using a reference method.

Create manually

You can create G/L accounts master records by manually creating each individual G/L account.

The method is quite time consuming. You should only use it if you are certain that the standard SAP System nor any other system contains a chart of accounts which you could use as a reference.

Prerequisites

Prior to creating your G/L accounts, you need to make various settings in Customizing. You can find these settings in Financial Accounting Customizing under General Ledger Accounting ® G/L Accounts ® Master Data ® Preparations.

Activity	Description
Edit Chart of Accounts List	The chart of accounts you use has to be entered in the chart of accounts list.
Assign a Company Code to a Chart of Accounts	Your chart of accounts must be assigned to your company code
Define Account Group	Your Account Groups have to be defined.
Define Retained Earnings Account	You have to define a retained earnings account.

Process Flow

You have various options for organizing the editing of G/L account master records: For more information, see Functions for Editing G/L Account Master Records.

You can find the function for creating G/L account master records in Financial Accounting Customizing under General Ledger Accounting ® G/L Accounts ® Master Data ® Creating G/L Accounts.

Create your G/L accounts. You have two options:

If you want to use a chart of accounts included in the standard system as a reference, or if a chart of accounts is already in your system, use the create with reference method. To do this, use the Create G/L Accounts with Reference activity.

You can copy the G/L accounts and the related account assignments. Before creating the G/L accounts, you can change the account numbers and names.

If you have G/L accounts in a non-SAP system, you can transfer these G/L accounts to your SAP System. To do so, select the Data Transfer Workbench.

You can modify the G/L account master records that were created or transferred. The following functions are available for doing this:

You can carry out systematic changes to multiple G/L accounts, such as changing the P&L account type of several P&L accounts. To do so, select the desired function under Change G/L Accounts Collectively.
You can change the master record of a single G/L account. To do so, select the desired function under Edit G/L Account.