Version (SAP Library - Consolidation (EC-CS))

Version

Definition

Identifies a separate area in the consolidation database.

Use

Versions make it possible to consolidate financial data according to different criteria. Managers frequently require financial data to be prepared and consolidated according to different criteria or using different valuation approaches.

Example

Versions enable you to:

· Manage and consolidate different categories of data separately, such as actual data, budget data, forecast data, or long-term planning data

· Perform simulations for your consolidated data, such as:

· Simulating the effects of various exchange rates on your consolidated financial statements

· Simulating the effect of the divestiture of a consolidation unit on your consolidated financial statements

· Prepare restatements — that is, apply the current "settings" to data of a previous period

For example, if you changed the consolidation hierarchy, you could report the data of the previous fiscal year in the new hierarchy as a restatement.

In simple cases, you can perform such restatements using the functions of reporting without using a new version: You could effect the restatement using a drilldown report if the report does not include postings that are dependent on the consolidation group.

· Prepare different consolidated financial statements in parallel in accordance with different statutory accounting requirements, such as according to GAAP, IAS, or HGB (German accounting law).

· Adapt the "normal" consolidated financial statement for value-based management to be able to calculate performance key figures

· And so on

Structure

The version concept in the SAP Consolidation component includes a number of "version building blocks" that together eliminate redundancy and facilitate data management.

Consolidation Versions and Special Versions

Consolidation Versions

Consolidation versions are used to record, consolidate, and report the financial data collected from consolidation units. A consolidation version is the version in which a consolidated financial statement is prepared. Alternative consolidated financial statements (see the section Use) can be represented in different consolidation versions.

Along with dimensions, consolidation charts of accounts, subitem categories, and ledgers, consolidation versions are one of the foundations in the architecture of consolidation. That is, consolidation versions are not dependent on any data except the client. Instead, much of the data depends on the consolidation version.

Special Version

The system stores the totals data of consolidation in the consolidation version. Control parameters are required to process this totals data. Each task accesses both Customizing data and master data. A task may also access additional financial data. The system manages much of this data in special versions. The system uses one or more special versions for each process in consolidation.

Example

There are special versions for:

· Tasks such as data entry, currency translation, or reclassification

· Additional financial data for consolidation of investments

· Master data such as hierarchies of consolidation groups and ledger assignments

Relationship Between Consolidation Version and Special Version

Special versions eliminate the need for multiple entry of control parameters that are identical in different consolidation versions. Such data only needs to be entered once in special versions.

You assign the special versions that apply to a particular consolidation version to that consolidation version in Customizing.

The following graphic illustrates this. Consolidation versions 001 and 002 differ only in the exchange rates. Otherwise the same special versions are assigned to these versions.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

When you perform a task in a consolidation version, the system reads the special versions that are relevant for that task and that are assigned to that consolidation version. The system uses the special version to read the relevant Customizing data and the master data or additional financial data stored in special versions.

The following graphic shows how the system does this:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Note

There is also Customizing data that depends directly on the consolidation version and that is not stored in special versions. For example, the assignment of a consolidation frequency to a consolidation group and the assignment of a task group to a dimension depend directly on the consolidation version.

The following overview lists some of the data that depends on special versions:

Data That Depends On Special Versions

Special Version	Dependent Data
Data entry	Assignments to consolidation unit: - Data transfer method, upload method, logical file name, validation, and so on - Data entry profile
Ledger	Assignment of ledger and local currency to consolidation group
Selected FS items	Definition of selected FS items
Structure	Hierarchy of consolidation groups Assignment of consolidation of investments method
Tax rate	Definition of tax rate of consolidation unit
Translation method	Assignment of translation method to consolidation unit
Exchange rates	Assignment of exchange rate type to exchange rate indicator
Reclassifications	Assignment of method and document type to task
Elimination of IU profit and loss	Customizing: - Definition of posted items - Definition of task Additional financial data: - Inventory data and supplier data
Consolidation of investments method	Assignment of consolidation of investments method Assignment of document type to the task or to activities/accounting techniques
Investment	Values of changes in investments Group shares
Equity	Values of the changes in investee equity Values of equity holdings adjustments
Fair value adjustments	Customizing: - Amortization and prioritization of fair value adjustments - Values of the fair value adjustments

Note

For the task Interunit Elimination, there are task versions that are assigned to the interunit eliminations in Customizing for consolidation versions.

See also: Interunit Elimination in the Implementation Guide for Consolidation

Normal Versions and Add-On Versions

Some of the application examples in the section Use involve deviations from normal consolidation. The version concept therefore makes a distinction between normal versions and add-on versions.

Example

For example, suppose you want to prepare consolidated financial statements in conformity with the statutory accounting requirements of HGB and a reconciliation in conformity with GAAP. For the reconciliation, you want to post supplementary entries.

You prepare the consolidated financial statements in conformity with HGB in the normal version, and save the supplementary entries in an add-on version.

An add-on version always references another version (called the base version). In reports for an add-on version, the system also includes the data of the base version. The base version can be a normal version (in the above example, the version for the HGB financial statements) or another base version.

In the definition of a version in Customizing, you can specify a base version in two places:

You can specify a base version for the consolidation version.
You can specify a base version for the structure version (special version; see earlier).

You can also copy the data of one consolidation version into a second consolidation version and perform the supplementary postings in the second version. The drawbacks here are that the copied data is redundant, and changes made in the first version are not automatically reflected in the second version.

The following graphic shows the methods available for including the data of one consolidation version (version 1 in the graphic) in other consolidation versions, and why this may be required:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows an example for an add-on structure version:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text