Data Provisioning for Electronic Financial Statements in Germany

Paragraph 5b of the German Income Tax Act requires all German companies that are obligated to keep books of account to submit their financial statements electronically to the tax authorities.

You use this process to provide financial statement data so that it can be forwarded to your tax authority as an electronic financial statement.

Note Note

At the end of this process, the data is provided. The subsequent processes include creating XBRL files and transferring them using the ELSTER Rich Client (ERiC). SAP provides the following products for these processes:

SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management
For information about use, availability, and the range of functions of Disclosure Management, see http://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/large/enterprise-performance-management/disclosure-management/index.epx.
SAP ERP client for E-Bilanz (electronic financial statements)
For more information, see:
- Administrator handbook for SAP ERP client for E-Bilanz (electronic financial statements)
- User handbook for SAP ERP client for E-Bilanz (electronic financial statements)

End of the note.

Process

Creating financial statement versions in Customizing:
1. Download the taxonomy from http://www.esteuer.de, provided by the German Federal Ministry of Finance.
  The downloaded ZIP file contains a number of files. For current information about these files, see SAP Note 1690315.
2. Generate a financial statement version from the XBRL file:
  - For classic General Ledger Accounting: General Ledger Accounting Business Transactions Closing Document Country Specifics Germany Generate Financial Statement Versions (Electronic Financial Statement)
  - For new General Ledger Accounting: General Ledger Accounting Periodic Processing Document Country Specifics Germany Generate Financial Statement Versions (Electronic Financial Statement)
  The version that is generated by the program uses different tables to the tables used for the versions defined in the Customizing activity Define Financial Statement Versions). Consequently, this version is not available for selection in the reports in General Ledger Accounting under Information System General Ledger Reports <or> General Ledger Reports (New) Financial Statement / Cash Flow . Furthermore, you cannot use this version for planning or for reports in SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse.
3. Assign accounts and functional areas to the items:
  - For classic General Ledger Accounting: General Ledger Accounting Business Transactions Closing Document Define Financial Statement Versions (Electronic Financial Statement)
  - For new General Ledger Accounting: General Ledger Accounting (New) Periodic Processing Periodic Processing Define Financial Statement Versions (Electronic Financial Statement)
  In contrast to your other financial statement versions, you can assign the same account or range of accounts to more than one item in the version for the electronic financial statement: You can assign the account(s) to a mathematically linked item and additionally to a non-mathematically linked item (an of-which item).
  
  Note
  In the case of versions with core or industry taxonomies, note the following:
  
  When the financial statement is created, the system ignores accounts that are not assigned to any item in the financial statement version. The system calculates the retained earnings or losses from the accounts assigned beneath the items Balance Sheet Total, Total Assets (taxonomy tag bs.ass) and Balance Sheet Total, Total Liabilities & Equity (taxonomy tag bs.eqLiab), and it displays the retained earnings or losses beneath the item Annual Net Income/Net Loss (taxonomy tag bs.eqLiab.equity.netIncome). The system determines the result of the income statement from the accounts or functional areas that are assigned beneath the item Income Statement (taxonomy tag is), and it displays the result beneath the item Annual Net Income/Net Loss (taxonomy tag is.netIncome).
  
  End of the note.
Checking the financial statement data:
To ensure that it is possible to provide your financial statement data completely and correctly, you have prepared the financial statement.

Choose Accounting Financial Accounting General Ledger Accounting Information System General Ledger Reports <or> General Ledger Reports (New) Electronic Financial Statement Display Financial Statement in Accordance with XBRL Taxonomy .

This report creates a financial statement based on the financial statement version for the electronic financial statement. This provides you with a clear overview of the data to assist you with checking it.
Providing data in SAP queries:
You can access the financial statement data and process it (for example, using SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management or SAP ERP client for E-Bilanz) in the following SAP Queries of the user group /SAPQUERY/FA:
- EBILANZ_NODES
- EBILANZ_DETAIL
Note
Using queries

In transaction SQ03, assign to user group /SAPQUERY/FA all users who need to call the query in the application for further processing.

End of the note.

The queries do not contain any user-defined subitems. The values of such subitems are contained in the corresponding official taxonomy item. Only those official taxonomy items that show a value are contained. Non-listed items are considered NIL (not in list) in the XBRL sense. Consequently, you do not need to assign the NIL attribute explicitly.

To check the content of the queries, you can use the following reports in the SAP Easy Access menu. These reports display the data exactly as it is when it is transferred to the processing applications (such as SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management or SAP ERP client for E-Bilanz):
- Query EBILANZ_NODES:
  Accounting Financial Accounting General Ledger Information System General Ledger Reports <or> General Ledger Reports (New) Electronic Financial Statement Display Financial Statement Data at Item Level (FSE0_EXPORT_NODES)
  
  This report displays the item values in a flat list with the taxonomy tags. It contains all items to which accounts (with postings) or functional areas are assigned and all totals items above those items.
  
  For further processing, the first two columns (Technical Name of the Item and Amount) are the most relevant.
- Query EBILANZ_DETAIL:
  Accounting Financial Accounting General Ledger Information System General Ledger Reports <or> General Ledger Reports (New) Electronic Financial Statement Display Financial Statement Data at Account Level / Functional Area Level (FSE0_EXPORT_DETAILS)
  
  This report shows the accounts and functional areas used to obtain the values of the items (account details). Consequently, the report displays only those items to which accounts (with postings) or functional areas are assigned. In this context, accounts are deemed to have had postings made to them when there is a totals record in the general ledger totals table. Such a totals record can also occur as a result of balance carryforward from the prior year. Totals items like Balance Sheet Total, Total Assets (taxonomy tag bs.ass) are not shown in this report.
  
  This query does not analyze values for the taxonomy characteristic “Account Details Desired”. Consequently, the report displays all items to which accounts (with postings) or functional areas are assigned. The processing application decides which items are forwarded to the tax authorities.
  
  The following columns are the most relevant for further processing:
  - Technical Name of the Item
  - Amount
  - Account Number
  - Account Name