Archiving and Deleting a G/L Account Master Record (SAP Library

Archiving and Deleting a G/L Account Master Record

You can archive G/L account master records that you no longer need. Archiving data means it is deleted from the SAP database and placed in a file. You can then transfer this file to an archive system.

You cannot physically delete the master record of a G/L account from the system without first carrying out certain preparatory steps. First, the system must check whether the master record can be deleted. Initially, you can only mark a master record for deletion.

You can do this at two levels:

If you want to delete a master record for all company codes, you must mark it for deletion in the chart of accounts. If you specify that the entry be archived, this is also deleted from the chart of accounts. The prerequisite for this is that no master records in the company codes are dependent on this record.
If you want to delete a master record in one or several company code(s) only, you must mark it for deletion in the company code area of the master record.

To physically delete the master record, you must call up a special program. This first checks whether the marked master records can be deleted. The prerequisite is that there are no longer any transaction figures stored for this master record. Even transaction figures from previous fiscal years that have not yet been archived prevent deletion. Records that can be deleted are archived and deleted from the system. The program prints out a list of any master records that it was not able to delete.

You should block an account for posting before you mark it for deletion. The only effect this deletion indicator has is to cause a warning to be displayed every time you subsequently try to post to this account.
Before you use the system productively, you can delete your test data. More information on this can be found in the General Ledger Accounting Implementation Guide.