Analysis of the Initial Situation 
Use
To be able to produce a plan and overview of a migration project, you first have to gain a clear overview of the initial situation serving as the starting point for the migration as well as of the goals that you want to achieve by performing the changeover to New General Ledger Accounting.
Features
You should consider the following aspects when analyzing the initial situation:
● Initial scenarios that influence the migration procedure
Gain an overview of the accounting scenarios in operation in your system and of how they are used. It is particularly important to recognize cases in the initial situation when data relevant to accounting is imported from sources other than classic General Ledger Accounting:
○ Previous Use of Profit Center Accounting (EC-PCA)
○ Previous Use of Cost of Sales Accounting (COS)
After the migration, you can keep the data from the COS ledger in a ledger in New General Ledger Accounting. The ledger that you choose to use may also be the leading ledger. Document splitting is not necessary for this.
○ Previous Use of Special Purpose Ledger (FI-SL)
Special purpose ledgers can serve a variety of purposes. Establish the following:
■ Which specific ledgers do you use?
■ Are these ledgers used in your production system or do they only exist in your consolidation environment?
■ Are they updated in real time or are built by rollups?
■ Is document splitting already used?
■ Depending on the concept for how the special purpose ledgers are used, a different migration scenario may be necessary or advisable. For this, check all the variants specified under Migration Scenarios.
● Use of Interfaces to External Systems
If you have used interfaces for online or offline connections to external systems that post to General Ledger Accounting, you may need to make adjustments to these interfaces in order to continue to use them with New General Ledger Accounting.
○ The process logic of the interface can contribute considerably to the volume of data to be migrated. This applies to all the items open on the migration date as well as to the document volume within phase 1. You could also use the interface in a way that reduces the quantity structure.
○ If the external application or the interface uses time restrictions for posting scenarios, you can use it to synchronize the posting scenarios. This applies to the posting logic (which may in some circumstances be converted during the migration) as well as to possible error messages that the interface needs to possess because step-by-step validation forms part of the migration. See also Validation of Document Splitting.
● Managing G/L Accounts on an Open Item Basis
This aspect only comes into play if you want to accompany the migration with the introduction of document splitting. The effort required for the migration is to a great extent relative to the number of documents to be processed in the migration. This number includes all open items (OIs) present on the migration date as well all documents posted in phase 1 (see Phase Model for the Migration). The term open is used here to denote the absence of a clearing document number.
While you have to manage subledger accounts (that is, customer and vendor accounts) on an OI basis in every case in order to be able to build business processes such as payment, you need to check early on whether it is necessary for G/L accounts to be managed on an OI basis. By reducing the amount of such accounts, you can reduce the amount of open documents, thereby reducing the amount of documents to be migrated that need to be processed for document splitting. Besides reducing the effort involved, you should also check whether or not clearing actually needs to be performed, since information is passed from one document to the follow-on documents during document splitting. It is possible that the existing link does not meet the requirements as a result of clearing, that is to say, the documents should not be split on the basis of this clearing.
You can use a Service Session as part of SAP Safeguarding for Upgrade to receive information about the number of G/L accounts managed on an OI basis and the number of OIs on these accounts. For more detailed information, see the SAP Service Marketplace.
In the following cases, it may be possible to dispense with management on an open item basis:
○ When there is a very small amount of open and cleared items.
○ When a clearing combines all documents for a period. This can imply that there is no direct connection between the individual documents. This does not apply to bank clearing accounts.
We recommend that you keep the number of G/L accounts that are managed on an OI basis to a minimum. If during this analysis you find G/L accounts for which you want to deactivate management on an OI basis, there are a number of aspects that dictate whether this is possible. To find out information about the recommended procedure, consult the current SAP Notes relating to the topic FI-GL-GL and containing the keyword open items. You should perform this activity before starting the migration.
● Number of Documents in the Migration Period
This aspect is relevant for all functions in New General Ledger Accounting. You need to include in the migration all documents in phase 1 (see Phase Model for the Migration), that is, all documents posted between the migration date and the activation date as well as all items from phase 0 that are open on the migration date.
If you want to introduce document splitting, supplying the open items with the relevant account assignment information (see Migration with Document Splitting) is decisive for the effort required.
We recommend that you try to establish as precisely as possible how many documents are involved and what form of processing is applied for the migration in order to estimate the time required to perform the migration.
● Open items posted before Release R/3 4.5
This aspect is only relevant if you want to introduce document splitting. Problems arise in document splitting if there are documents that were posted before Release 4.5 and cleared in phase 1. The reason for this is that specific additional information that is required for document splitting is only stored in the system from Release 4.5. In this way, the clearing information is missing, and the clearing lines cannot be assigned in document splitting. To establish the precise procedure here, contact SAP.
● Number of Company Codes and Clearings Between Them
Generally, each company code can be migrated separately from the other company codes, provided there are no cross-company-code documents.
In the case of company codes sharing the same fiscal year variant, we recommend migrating all of such company codes together. If there are cross-company-code documents that are relevant for the migration, and you want to introduce document splitting, you should migrate such documents together. The Service Session mentioned in the section Managing G/L Accounts on an Open Item Basis provides an overview of the relevant documents. If there are also cross-company-code documents relating to company codes with different fiscal year variants, you have to process such documents in separate migration plans.
● Use of Different Fiscal Year Variants
If you use different fiscal year variants in different company codes, note that a minimum requirement is that it must be possible to derive the same fiscal year from the migration date for all company codes within a migration plan. You may be required to create multiple migration plans to meet this requirement.
● Use of Additional Currencies in Special Purpose Ledgers
If you use special purpose ledgers that you want to replace by migrating to New General Ledger Accounting (and that you no longer want to use in FI-SL), you have to check the currencies used in these ledgers. If you use a currency that is not contained in the original posting document, you cannot migrate this data to New General Ledger Accounting because the data in New General Ledger Accounting only builds on the data in the accounting document. In this case, you have to keep the respective special purpose ledger.
● Parallel Valuation
There are special migration scenarios for the ledger approach as well as for the account approach using parallel valuation. For more detailed information, see Migration with Parallel Accounting.