Group Close (SAP Library - Business Functions (SAP Enhancement Package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0))

Group Close

Technical Data

Technical name of business function	FIN_ACC_GROUP_CLOSE
Type of business function	Enterprise Business Function
Available as of	SAP ERP 6.0, enhancement package 2
ECC software component	SEM-BW 6.02 FINBASIS 6.02
ECC application component	Business Consolidation (FIN-SEM-BCS)
Business Intelligence Content	As of SAP NW 2004s BI Content Add-On 3 SP06
SAP Enterprise Services	Not relevant
JAVA software component	Not relevant
Portal Content	Not relevant
Enhancing elements in other SAP applications	Not relevant
Additional business function you need to activate	Not relevant

Use

You use the Group Close business function to make important new functions available for the Business Consolidation (SEM-BCS) component. These include the following:

● Multiperiod Consolidation

● Workflow for Approving Status Changes in Tasks

● Enhancements in automatic data collection

● Held Documents and Sample Documents

● Workflow for Approving Manually-Entered Documents

● In elimination of interunit profit/loss in inventory: Reading of inventory data from the totals database

● Restatements

● Status Reporting

● Web Dynpro-based Consolidation Monitor for Local Accountants

● Web Dynpro-based Consolidation Monitor for Corporate Accountants

Prerequisites

You have configured the Business Consolidation (FIN-SEM-BCS) application component.

You have activated the Group Close business function.

When you activate this business function, the functions listed in the "Features" section are generally available. You can then activate or deactivate functions for each individual consolidation area.

For more information about activating the individual functions in Customizing, and about the related BI Business Content, see the Release Note.

Features

Multiperiod Consolidation

Multiperiod consolidation supports your planning and forecasting processes. You can use multiperiod consolidation to execute tasks and task groups for timeframes that span multiple periods without needing to change the parameters.

The following features are available in the consolidation monitor:

● You can execute task groups in the remaining periods of a consolidation cycle.

● You can block, unblock, and reset task groups and individual tasks in the remaining periods.

● In the consolidation monitor, you can use buttons for easy navigation from one period to another within a consolidation cycle.

Furthermore, the system now supports multiple balance carryforward tasks, which work at specific posting levels and are even able to copy data from a source version. And you can now execute task groups using a selection screen in individual periods or in the remaining periods of a consolidation cycle; or you can schedule those task groups for execution in background mode.

For more information, see Multiperiod Consolidation in the SAP Library.

Workflow for Approving Status Changes in Tasks

SAP Business Workflow is now integrated in the consolidation monitor. If you set up a workflow for a task, you are able to block (or block by user intervention) only if the status change has been approved in the workflow approval process. In Customizing for tasks, you can determine that a workflow is to be started when a user chooses Block or Block by User Intervention for that task in the consolidation monitor. You can define the approval agent for the workflow either statically yourself or have the system determine the approval agent dynamically.

When you choose Block for a task in the consolidation monitor, the task receives the status Blocked, Pending Approval. (And if you choose Block by User Intervention, the status is changed to Blocked by User Intervention, Pending Approval.) The system notifies the approval agents in the Business Workplace inbox. Then the approval agents can either approve or reject the status change. Once all approval agents approve the status change, the system changes the task status to Blocked (or Blocked by User Intervention). If one of the approval agents rejects the status change, the task status is set to Unblocked. To customize the standard system behavior described here, you can use the Business Add-in (BAdI) UC_WFV_STAT.

Automatic Data Collection

Now you also can have the consolidation system collect documents with the posting levels 02, 12, 20, 22, and 30. This enables you to execute the data collection and copy tasks for consolidation groups, in addition to consolidation units.

You can use the copy method to copy data from other consolidation areas. This is possible even if the source and target consolidation areas use different data models.

Automatic data collection of additional financial data now also collects the following additional financial data: automatically-generated goodwill entries; noncurrent assets - consolidated; sequences of activities; and activity sorting. This means that you can collect complete sets of additional financial data.

For more information, see the respective sections under Automatic Data Collection in the SAP Library.

Manual Posting

Held Documents and Sample Documents

In manual posting, you can use held documents and sample documents.

● Held documents: If you enter an incomplete document, you can temporarily save the data you entered so far as a draft, and assign a document name. Documents saved as drafts are called "held documents." Later on you can load the held document, continue entering the data, and finally post the document. Only after you complete and truly post the document, does the system write the journal entries and totals records to the database. Once the document is posted, the system deletes the held document.

● Sample documents: You can use sample documents as templates when manually entering documents. The use of sample documents is beneficial if you need to enter many documents that are similar to each other. All-user sample documents can be transported. When you post a document that is based on a sample document, the sample document remains unchanged in the InfoProvider.

You can make held documents and sample documents either user-specific (that is, visible and available only to the users who created them) or accessible to all users.

For more information, see Sample Documents and Held Documents in the SAP Library.

Workflow for Approving Manually-Entered Documents

If you activate the function Workflow for Approving Documents in the consolidation area, you can use the document type to determine whether workflows are started for all documents that use that document type.

The definition of the approval process allows you flexibility: As a condition for starting the workflow, you can specify a validation method in Customizing.

You can implement BAdI UC_WFV_DOC to meet any special requirements you may have.

When the creator of a document selects a document type that is defined for workflows, and posts the document, that person essentially submits the document for approval. This automatically triggers the workflow.

Each approval agent is notified in the inbox of SAP Business Workplace and can approve or reject the document, and can add a comment to the document. Once all approval agents have approved the document, the system posts the document. However, if the document is rejected, the system notifies the document creator in SAP Business Workplace about the rejection. The document creator can then either discard the document (which deletes the document), or can revise the document and resubmit it for approval.

For more information, see Workflow for Approving Manually-Entered Documents.

Deferred Taxes

Posting of deferred taxes in the balance sheet has been extended: The system can post deferred taxes in the balance sheet on financial statement items and subassignments that are specifically intended for the balance sheet line items shown in the original document.

Also, posting of deferred taxes in the balance sheet need not be triggered by a balance sheet imbalance; the existence of balance sheet triggering items in the original document can also trigger the postings.

These new Customizing settings are time- and version-dependent as well as global, and apply to all document types. If you make these Customizing settings, whenever the system generates automatic clearing line items, the system automatically makes the debit-or-credit decisions for each individual line item.

Furthermore, manual posting has been extended as follows:

● You can suppress posting of deferred taxes, even if the document type is configured to do this.

● You can reverse the debit-or-credit decisions the system has made.

For more information, see Deferred Taxes in the SAP Library.

Elimination of Interunit Profit/Loss in Transferred Inventory

The system can read inventory data not only from the additional financial data, but also from the totals database. You decide which data source is to be read. This decision is version dependent. When the system reads the totals data, the validation of inventory data from additional financial data is no longer applicable.

For more information, see Location of Inventory Data in the SAP Library.

Restatements

The system now supports two kinds of restatement processes: (a) one for retroactive adjustments arising from a (voluntary) change in financial reporting, and (b) one for corrections of errors in financial reports already published. You can define separate restatements for each restatement event. From a technical viewpoint, these are independent of the actual data set and reflect a delta between the actual data and the restatement data. You can record data for all posting levels in these separate restatements using automatic and manual data collection tasks. You can post-process the recorded data using validation, currency translation, balance carryforward, and custom tasks.

You can define a separate task hierarchy that is dedicated for restatement purposes. The consolidation monitor has a separate task status for each restatement event. You also can use multiperiod consolidation for restatement purposes.

You can use the new reporting mode Restatement to create reports with the restatement data.

For more information, see Restatements in the SAP Library.

Status Reporting

You can create reports in a BI query on the progress of tasks in the consolidation monitor. This lets you do statistical evaluations on the progress of the consolidation process. For example, a query can reveal percentages of consolidation units according to their progress in the Data Collection task (or task group), broken down as follows: completed; in progress; not yet begun.

You assign weighting factors to consolidation units and consolidation groups. These factors determine how much weight (if any) each consolidation unit contributes to the statistics. Further, you can summarize the detailed status information of the consolidation monitor into categories, and use this information in reports.

For more information, see Status Reporting in the SAP Library.

Web Dynpro-Based Consolidation Monitors

Web Dynpro-based Consolidation Monitor for Local Accountants

The Web Dynpro consolidation monitor is designed specifically for the tasks and needs of local accountants, who transfer individual financial statement data to corporate headquarters.

A SAP GUI installation is not required because the Web Dynpro consolidation monitor runs within a Web browser. The user interface contains only those functions that are relevant for local accountants (data collection, validation, and selected reporting functions). The Web Dynpro consolidation monitor contains the following additional functions, as compared to the SAP GUI consolidation monitor:

● Validation during data entry

● Significantly simplified and easier navigation

● Printing of selection conditions in lists

● User-specific parameter sets for easy switching back and forth between different combinations of parameters you use often

For more information, see Web Dynpro-Based Consolidation Monitor for Local Accountants in the SAP Library.

Web Dynpro-based Consolidation Monitor for Corporate Accountants

The Web Dynpro consolidation monitor for corporate accountants is mostly the same as the SAP GUI consolidation monitor with regards to the user interface and functionality. However, the following features have been added:

● Execution of automatic tasks in a new window

● Display of any number of different monitor layouts per user

● Improved search function

● Personalization of the monitor in a single dialog box

● Improved display of fixed characteristics in a user's own screen area of the monitor

● Favorites

For more information, see Web Dynpro-Based Consolidation Monitor for Corporate Accountants in the SAP Library.