Online Entry of Reported Financial Data in the SAP System (SAP Library

Online Entry of Reported Financial Data in the SAP System

Purpose

Before you execute any consolidation tasks, you need to collect the financial data reported by your consolidation units in the Consolidation application. Use the process described below if you want to enter data for one or more consolidation units online in the SAP System. You need to do this in the following cases:

The consolidation units do not manage their financial data in a SAP System. You therefore cannot transfer the data automatically in the consolidation processing ledger.
For technical or organizational reasons, the consolidation units can neither transfer their financial data to the Consolidation application using the offline data entry program based on Microsoft Access, nor transfer into the Consolidation application by means of a flexible upload.

Prerequisites

When you set up master data in the Consolidation application, you specify a data transfer method for each consolidation unit. You apply this process to all units which have online data entry in the SAP System specified as the data transfer method.

Note

You can also enter reported financial data online for the consolidation units, which you have assigned to another data transfer method in the master record. Therefore online data entry is possible for all consolidation units.

Process Flow

1. You provide your consolidation units with printouts of the data entry layouts.

2. The consolidation units fill out the data entry layouts with their financial data, and return them to the group headquarters.

3. You access the data monitor from the Consolidation menu and choose the data entry function. You then specify the data entry layout and consolidation unit/group in the initial screen. The systems refers to the global parameters for further selection criteria.

4. The system checks the following:

– Does the data entry layout exist for the selected chart of accounts?

If your layout has any fixed values in its general data selection (for example, period, version, dimension or consolidation units), the system checks to see if these correspond with the selection you use to access data entry.

– Does the data entry layout belong to the data entry group assigned in the unit’s data entry profile?

- Is the language specified for the data entry layout identical to the logon language? If necessary, you can translate the texts of a layout (refer to the section Preparing for Production in the Consolidation Implementation Guide).

The following overview shows how the system determines a consolidation unit’s data entry profile and assigned data entry layouts. On the basis of your selection criteria, the system reads your Customizing settings to find the applicable data entry layouts.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

You then enter the reported financial data using a data entry layout.

Note

If you have activated Microsoft Integrated Excel in Customizing, step Define Data Entry Groups, then the system starts the Excel spreadsheet, and you enter your financial data in it.

Result

After you have entered data, you run validations to check that it is consistent. Then you proceed with your remaining consolidation tasks.