Balance Carryforward

Balance carryforward involves carrying forward account balances into the new fiscal year. The balance to be carried forward is shown in the account balance display. To carry forward balances, you can use a program for G/L accounts and another program for customer and vendor accounts.

Caution Caution

You have to perform the balance carryforward program manually. The system does not perform the balance carryforward automatically, even if you have already made postings to the new fiscal year.

End of the caution.

G/L Accounts

You have to perform balance carryforward for the new fiscal year at least once. After that, the system automatically updates the balance carryforward whenever postings are made to the old fiscal year.

Customer and Vendor Accounts

When the system performs balance carryforward for the G/L accounts of the leading ledger, it automatically performs balance carryforward for the vendor and customer accounts as well. However, you can also perform balance carryforward separately for vendor and customer accounts.

Prerequisites

G/L Accounts

To perform balance carryforward for balance sheet accounts, you need to have selected the account as the balance sheet account in the G/L Master Record Data in the Chart of Accounts. Check this setting in Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) under General Ledger Accounting (New) Master Data G/L Accounts G/L Account Creation and Processing Edit G/L Account (Individual Processing) Edit G/L Account Centrally .
For you to be able to perform balance carryforward for P&L accounts, the following prerequisites must be met:
- In the master record, you have defined the account using one of the following account types and you have specified a P&L statement account type:
  - Nonoperating Expense and Income
  - Primary Costs or Revenue
  - Secondary Costs
- You have specified the retained earnings accounts in Customizing.
  To make this setting, go to Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) and choose General Ledger Accounting (New) Periodic Processing Carry Forward Define Retained Earnings Account . If you would like to use a different key instead of the standard key X, you need to specify this key and the P&L statement account here. In the G/L account master record, you enter this key in the P&L Statement Account Type field.
  
  For the Special Purpose Ledger, you go to Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) and choose Special Purpose Ledger Periodic Processing Balance Carryforward Retained Earnings Accounts Maintain Local/Global Retained Earnings Accounts .
  
  Note
  Most companies use only one retained earnings account. However, by using the P&L statement account type, you can use more than one retained earnings account. This could be useful for international corporations, for example, that have to meet various requirements when producing their P&L statement. For more information, see Special Features in P&L Accounts.
  
  End of the note.
- If you want to perform balance carryforward with account assignments, you have specified the additional account assignments. For this, go to Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) and choose General Ledger Accounting (New) Periodic Processing Carry Forward Enter Detail Specifications for P&L Accounts .
  As account assignments, you can use all dimensions used in Universal Journal Entry.

Customer and Vendor Accounts

There are no prerequisites for carrying forward balances for customer and vendor accounts.

Features

The system performs balance carryforward as follows:

Balance Sheet Accounts
The balances on the balance sheet accounts are carried forward to the same accounts. For this, the system applies all configured account assignments.
Profit and Loss Accounts
P&L accounts are carried forward to one or more retained earnings accounts. In this process, the system applies the additional account assignments defined in Customizing. A summarization or detailed update of currencies also form part of the Customizing settings. When balance carryforward is performed, the balance of the profit and loss accounts is set to 0.

With the standard settings, balances are carried forward in summarized form to the relevant retained earnings accounts. You can define the summarization level in Customizing for Financial Accounting (New). For this, choose General Ledger Accounting (New) Periodic Processing Carry Forward Enter Detail Specifications for P&L Accounts .
Customer and Vendor Accounts
The balances on the customer and vendor accounts are carried forward to the same accounts. With the standard settings, the system applies all the account assignments for this.

General Functions

Automatically Adjusting Balances Carried Forward
Once you have performed balance carryforward for G/L accounts, any postings made to the previous fiscal year cause the balance carryforward to be corrected automatically. The system recognizes that the balance carryforward has already been performed and automatically corrects the balance with every posting made to the previous fiscal year. Consequently, it is not necessary to repeat the balance carryforward.
Initializing the Balance Carryforward for G/L Accounts
The balance carryforward program creates line items for each G/L account and account assignment. If you perform the balance carryforward very early on in the closing process and then proceed to make a very large number of postings to the previous fiscal year, the system automatically creates a similarly large number of line items to correct the balance carryforward. To reduce the large number of line items in this case, you can perform a repeat run of the balance carryforward program and by doing so initialize the balance carryforward. If you set the indicator for initialization in the balance carryforward program, the program reverses the balance carryforward before recalculating it and performing it again.
Account Adjustments
If, in the new fiscal year, you find that a G/L account was inadvertantly set up as a P&L statement account in the previous fiscal year instead of as a balance sheet account (or vice versa), adjust the master data of the affected account record and then repeat the balance carryforward.
Currencies
When you execute balance carryforward, all currencies of the ledger are automatically carried forward.
Results Lists for G/L Accounts
After balance carryforward, you can display results lists for the balance sheet accounts and retained earnings accounts for which the balances were carried forward. You can also specify that the program saves the results list under a name that you have entered. At a later point in time, you can use the carryforward program for G/L accounts to display the results lists saved.

Special Features in Special Purpose Ledgers

User-Defined Field Movements
If you carry forward additional account assignments, such as profit centers or functional areas, to the new fiscal year, or you want to summarize account data using additional account assignments, you must assign to your ledger field movements for balance sheet accounts and P&L accounts. To assign the field movements, go to Customizing for Financial Accounting and choose Special Purpose Ledger Periodic Processing Balance Carryforward Assign Field Movements .
Caution
- If you want to use a field movement for balance sheet accounts, your field movement contains the dimension Account.
- However, if you use a field movement for P&L accounts, it must not contain the dimension Account (except when you want to change the account using a user exit).
End of the caution.

Activities

Use the following programs to perform the balance carryforward for each ledger:

G/L Accounts
From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting Financial Accounting General Ledger Periodic Processing Closing Carry Forward Balance Carryforward (New) .

The system performs balance carryforward for all G/L accounts of the specified ledger.
Customer and Vendor Accounts (optional)
From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting Financial Accounting Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable Periodic Processing Closing Carryforward Balance Carryforward .

Note
The program always performs balance carryforward for all vendor and customer accounts simultaneously. However, after balance carryforward, you can display an overview of the balances carried forward for each vendor and customer account and restrict the list to specific accounts.

End of the note.
Special Purpose Ledgers
From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting Financial Accounting Special Purpose Ledger Periodic Processing Closing Carryforward Balance Carryforward .