Counter 

Definition

Business object in Account Management (FS-AM) that is normally used to enter the number of posting items for each account. Derivation rules determine which posting items are counted for each account. Counters can measure in whole numbers only. The reading increases by 1 for each posted item that is relevant for counters and decreases by 1 for reversed items.

Account Management contains the following different counter categories:

(Internal) Payment transaction counter

External counter

Business transaction counter

You specify the counters in the Customizing for Account Management (FS-AM), under Item Management ® Counters.

Use

Counters are used for the following:

·        Condition determination in the account settlement (for example, number of posted items per calculation period)

·        Collecting information on an account for posting control purposes (for example, the number of days on which an account is overdrawn)

·        Statistical evaluations.

Structure

The structure definition of the Counter object is split into attributes and methods.Attributes represent the basic content characteristics of an object. Methods represent the different ways of processing an object.

Attributes

·        Account

·        Counter

·        Time stamp (date and time)

·        Counter reading

·        Amount

·        Currency

Methods

In Account Management (FS-AM), you can use one of the following three channels to process objects:

Dialog

Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI)

Direct Input (DI)

The following overview shows which methods (and the channel) you can call up for the account balance:

Method	Channel
	Dialog	BAPI	DI
Display counter reading	x
Read meter reading		x
Change counter reading		x
Transfer counter reading			x

Dialog

You can call up the following transactions in dialog mode:

Transaction Code	Short Description
BCA_CN_KFG, counter readings tab page	Display Counters

Business Application Programming Interface

You can call up the following methods using the BAPI Explorer:

Method	Short Description
CounterAM.UpdateMultiple	BAPI: Change counter
CounterAM.ChangeMultiple	BAPI: Change payment transaction counters and transaction counters
CounterAM.GetDetail	BAPI: Read counter reading

Direct Input

Direct input structures are predefined for transferring starting balances:

·        Transfer category 76 (Data transfer counter)

·        Receiver structure: BCA_STR_COUNTER_DI_IN (data transfer counter)

·        Sender structure: BCA_STR_COUNTER_DI_EX (data transfer counter)

Integration

Archiving

You can specify whether counters are archived or deleted physically from the database once a certain period of time has expired. You define this period of time for each bank posting area and prenote type in the Customizing for Account Management (FS-AM) under Item Management ® Counter ® Archiving ® Define Markdown for Counter.

You can display archived counters by choosing Account Management ® Archiving ® Data Display ® Counter (Archiving object COUNTER) from the SAP Easy Access screen.

For more information on archiving, see Data Archiving in Account Management (FS-AM) in the SAP Library.