Alongside the posting of depreciation (using the depreciation posting run), the most important periodic processing you perform is the posting of changes to asset balance sheet values (APC values). These changes consist of all postings that affect the APC of the asset, including acquisitions, retirements, and so on.

You need to post changes to APC values from more than one depreciation area to the general ledger, if one of the following applies:

• You need to create different balance sheet versions, for example, for internal and external purposes. You can define any number of balance sheet versions per chart of accounts in FI (General Ledger) for this purpose.

• You have a group depreciation area in a foreign currency, and you need to post changes to asset balance sheet values from this area to the ledger of the corporate group (see below).

• You calculate special reserves for special depreciation in a derived depreciation area. (This is common in Germany in depreciation area 03 of the standard chart of depreciation.)
• To meet the needs of parallel financial reporting, you have to create an additional balance sheet, for example according to IAS, in addition to your balance sheet according to your local accounting principles.

At the present time, online automatic posting to Financial Accounting is only possible for one depreciation area. It is therefore necessary that changes to asset balance sheet values (transactions) from other depreciation areas be posted to the respective G/L accounts on a periodic basis. These G/L accounts that you post to periodically are not permitted to be reconciliation accounts (per the indicator in the master record for the account).

Starting in the R/3 Enterprise Extension, you can also have to system directly update the values of periodically posting depreciation areas during the dialog posting transaction (for more information, refer to Automatic Posting from Depreciation Area to General Ledger). In order to use this function, you have to make a setting for the depreciation area in Customizing for Asset Accounting. Choose Integration with the General Ledger ® Post APC Values Periodically to the General Ledger ® Maintain Posting Rules for Parallel Accounting Principles. Set the PostDirect indicator.

The report generates one document for each month. This document has a line item for each account or business area. These line items are created in the same way as those for the online posting transaction.

The field status of the G/L account is the determining factor for whether the cost center, profit center, order, or consolidation transaction type are taken into account.

When starting the report, you can enter only the company codes, not the periods to be posted. The report always posts all transactions that took place up to the start date of the report, and which were not yet posted to the general ledger.

• The new posting run for APC values supports all additional account assignments.
• The asset balance sheet values are posted directly to the general ledger. The system no longer creates a BDC session. In order for the documents to be posted directly, you have to have entered a document type with external number assignment for the company code .
• The checks in the test run have been expanded so that they are identical to those in the update run.
• The log display has been completely reworked and converted to ALV Grid control.
• The report allows you to restart in case of an update termination. The assigned document numbers are also included in the log.
• Integration with the Schedule Manager was improved. It is possible to go directly to the monitor.
• You can post real APC differences for derived depreciation areas.
• The system also copies the partner information of the asset line item of the original document to the document that is created periodically. The report generates a separate accounting document per month, per company code and per partner.

Using the new posting run for APC values is mandatory, if you want to post asset balance sheet values to a special ledger or to a different company code. The same applies if depreciation areas that normally post periodically are designated as posting in realtime (direct posting). For more information, refer to Automatic Posting from Depreciation Area to General Ledger.

When starting the report, you can enter only the company code, not the periods to be posted. The report always posts all transactions that took place up to the start date of the report, and which were not yet posted to the general ledger. In addition, any documents that were not completed in the last run, for depreciation areas that post automatically to the general ledger in realtime, are re-posted.

The system always uses the consolidation transaction type from the originally used transaction type when both of the following apply: the system is posting a transaction affecting APC values and this transaction is from a depreciation area for parallel valuation that is posted periodically to the general ledger.

There are also derived depreciation areas that do not manage acquisition and production costs, but that are used for creating special reserves (for example, area 03 special tax depreciation for Germany). These depreciation areas also have to be posted periodically as parallel valuation. For these derived areas, the program posts the proportional value adjustments resulting from retirements, transfers, post-capitalization, and so on.

In Asset Accounting, the different financial reporting needs are met using multiple depreciation areas. If you need parallel financial reporting in your SAP System, that is you need valuation and balance sheets based on different accounting principles, you have to create a separate depreciation area for each accounting principle. Different accounting principles differ in asset accounting above all in the following points:

• Determination of depreciation
• Capitalization of fixed assets produced in-house

You enter the different depreciation rules, useful lives, and so on, of the individual accounting principles in separate depreciation areas. The system then determines depreciation for each depreciation area in parallel, using the depreciation rules that were entered. This depreciation is posted separately for each depreciation area.