General Ledger Transfer 

Use

During the general ledger transfer, the items posted on the accounts in Account Management (FS-AM) are transferred to the corresponding accounts in the General Ledger (FI-GL). The following data and details are included:

·        The cumulation of the line items entered in Account Management on the checking accounts and the posting of these totals on the G/L accounts in FI.

·        Calculation of the corresponding reconciliation totals and a follow-up balance check.

·        Distribution of the flow totals of the transferred current accounts to receivable or payable accounts, depending on the account balance +/- sign.

·        Netting of associated current accounts on the balance sheet. For more information, see Procedure for Balance Netting of Accounts.

You can also calculate accruals/deferrals for interest and charges at any time for balance sheet purposes.

Integration

During the general ledger transfer, the posting data is transferred via an ALE connection (Application Link Enabling) to another SAP system with a general ledger function (FI-GL). Provided you make the necessary adjustments, you can also transfer the posting data to another general ledger system (non-SAP).

The individual steps of general ledger transfer usually run automatically as part of End-of-Day Processing.

Archiving

You can specify that the data of the general ledger transfer is archived or physically deleted from the database after a certain period of time has elapsed.

You define this period of time for each bank posting area in the Customizing for Account Management (FS-AM) under Item Management ® General Ledger Transfer ® Archiving.

·        Define Residence Time for Technical Balances of the General Ledger  (Object GL_BALANCE)

·        Define Residence Time for Balance Sheet Preparation Data (Object GL_BALPREP)

·        Define Residence Time for Non-Balance-Changing Postings (Object SNITEM)

·        Define Residence Time for Inventory Data (Object INVENTORY)

You can call up the archived data from the SAP Easy Access screen by choosing Account Management ® Archiving ® Data Deletion ®

·        FI Balances (Deletion Object GL_BALANCE)

·        Balance Sheet Preparation Data (Deletion Object GL_BALPREP)

·        Non-Balance-Changing Postings (Deletion Object SNITEM)

·        Inventory Data (Deletion Object INVENTORY)

For more information on archiving, see Data Archiving in Account Management (FS-AM).

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met before you can use the General Ledger Transfer function:

·        You have activated the General Ledger Transfer component in the Customizing for Account Management under Basic Settings ® Activate Special Components.

·        An ALE connection to an external FI system must be set up (or an interface to another external system).

·        The general ledger accounts to which the item totals are to be transferred must be set up in SAP FI and specified accordingly in the customizing for Account Management. For more information, see the section in the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Account Management under Item Management ®General Ledger Transfer.

¡        In Account Management, you need to specify a document type in the general ledger variant that is used in FI exclusively for postings from Account Management (FS-AM).

¡        The reference document number (BKPF-XBLNR) in the FI documents posted from Account Management is needed for the reconciliation. You need to set up the FI Customizing settings so that the reference document number cannot be changed after posting. For more information, see the Implementation Guide (IMG). Choose Financial Accounting ® Basic Settings Financial Accounting ® Document ® Document Header ® Document Change Rules, Document Header.

Scope of Functions

The general ledger transfer comprises the following functions:

Closing a Posting Day for the General Ledger Transfer

The posting day is closed so that the daily turnovers can be prepared for the general ledger (balance sheet preparation). As of this time, no more postings can be made on or before this posting day.

Posting accrual/deferral for interest and charges

Receivables for debit interest or payables for credit interest and the same for charges must be accrued/deferred on the balance sheet if they are due but have not yet been posted on the current account. You can calculate accruals/deferrals for interest and charges, whereby the system calculates all the interest and charges incurred since the last account settlement and prepares them for transfer to the general ledger. The document posting in FI is part of the general ledger transfer. One posting day later, the accrual/deferral postings are reversed again.

Preparing The Balance Sheet

During the balance sheet preparation, the turnovers of the posting day are grouped together for the general ledger and are written to aggregated documents. It is recommended that you run balance sheet preparation daily.

You can run balance sheet preparation either for the current date or for a past posting date.

Transferring Postings to the General Ledger

This function generates FI documents from the totals records prepared in the previous steps. The following postings are made:

·        Posting of the payment items from payment transactions to a balance sheet account and an offsetting posting to a clearing account for payment transactions (PT clearing account) or the income or expense account; differentiation according to reconciliation key in general ledger process 0001.

·        Posting of the payment items from settlement tasks to a balance sheet account, and an offsetting posting to a clearing account for payment transactions (PT clearing account) or the income or expense account; differentiation according to reconciliation key in general ledger process 0002.

·        The flow total of a current account is transferred to a receivables or payables account, depending on whether the account has a debit or credit balance.

·        The total accruals/deferrals for interest and charges are posted to the respective income and expense accounts in accordance with the Customizing settings, and then reversed again.

For more information on the transfer posting, see the example Postings in the FI General Ledger.

To help you monitor general ledger transfer, the SAP Easy Access Menu provides you with reconciliation reports under Account Management ® Logs ® General Ledger Transfer. For more detailed information, see the documentation for the respective reports. Also see the initial screen of the report under .

Activities

Create an automated process flow from end-of-day processing, which contains the elements of general ledger transfer you use. If possible, use the sequence of each report suggested by SAP in the Sample Process Flow of End-of-Day Processing.