Balance Carryforward 

Use

This process 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 separate programs for G/L accounts, and for customer and vendor accounts.

You therefore do not even have to perform the balance carryforward manually if you have already posted to the new fiscal year.

G/L accounts: You must perform the manual balance carryforward for the new fiscal year at least once. It is then automatically updated during postings to the old fiscal year.

Customer and vendor accounts: Postings to the current fiscal year do not cause the balance carryforward in the new fiscal year to be updated. For this reason, you should perform the manual balance carryforward for customer and vendor accounts at the start of the new fiscal year. Conversely, postings to a previous year (any year preceding the year of the date of entry) cause the balance carryforward to be updated for subsequent years.

Prerequisites

●      Customer and vendor accounts:

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

●      Balance sheet 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 the setting for this under Accounting → Financial Accounting → General Ledger → Master Data → G/L Accounts → Individual Processing → In Chart of Accounts.

●      Profit and loss accounts

There are no prerequisites for carrying forward profit and loss accounts.

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○       You have specified a P+L statement account type in the master record of each profit and loss account.

○       You have specified your retained earnings accounts in Customizing:

To do this, in the Implementation Guide for Financial Accounting (New), choose General Ledger Accounting (New) → Periodic Processing → Carry Forward → Define Retained Earnings Account.

If you want to use a different key to the standard key X, specify this key and the P&L account here. In the G/L account master record, enter this key in the P+L Statement Account Type field.

You can make the settings for the Special Purpose Ledger in Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) under Special Purpose Ledger → Periodic Processing → Balance Carryforward → Retained Earnings Accounts → Maintain Local/Global Retained Earnings Accounts.

Most companies use only one retained earnings account. If you use the profit and loss account type, you can use more than one retained earnings account. This might be useful for example, for international corporations that have to meet various requirements when producing the profit and loss statement. For more information, see Special Features of Profit and Loss Accounts

○       If you want to perform balance carryforward with account assignments, you have specified the additional account assignments. To do this, in the Implementation Guide for Financial Accounting (New), 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 General Ledger Accounting. You have activated the dimensions for your ledgers by assigning the ledger to a specific scenario or customer field (see also Customer Field and Scenario in General Ledger Accounting).

Features

The balance carryforward is executed as follows:

●      For balance sheet and customer and vendor accounts:

○       The balances on the balance sheet accounts are simply carried forward into the new fiscal year. With the default setting, all account assignments are transferred.

●      For profit and loss accounts:

○       Profit and loss accounts are carried forward to retained earnings accounts.

○       Additional account assignments are not transferred. With the default settings, balances are carried forward in summarized form to the retained earnings account. You can define the level of summarization in Customizing. To do this, in the Implementation Guide for Financial Accounting (New), choose General Ledger Accounting (New) → Periodic Processing → Carry Forward → Enter Detail Specifications for P & L Accounts.

Here, you enter the additional account assignments.

○       Transaction currencies are no longer applicable and the profit and loss accounts are summarized in local currency. You can use an indicator in the master record of the retained earnings account to control balance carryforward in transaction or local currency.

General Functions

●      Automatically Adjusting Balances Carried Forward

When you carry forward the balances for G/L accounts at the end of a fiscal year, the system automatically adjusts the balances when you post values to the previous year. The system uses an indicator to determine whether the balances have been carried forward. Once this has been done, the balance is automatically carried forward whenever a posting is made, even when a posting is made to the previous year. It is therefore not necessary to execute the balance carryforward again.

●      Account Adjustment

If, in the new fiscal year, you find that a G/L account was mistakenly set up as a P&L account in the prior year instead of as a balance sheet account (or vice versa), you first adjust the G/L account master record and then rerun the balance carryforward program.

●      Currencies

When you execute balance carryforward, all currencies of the ledger are automatically carried forward.

Activities

Perform the balance carryforward individually for each ledger.

To perform the balance carryforward, you run the following programs:

●      G/L Accounts

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

●      Customer and Vendor Accounts

From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting → Financial Accounting → Customers or Vendors →Periodic Processing →Closing →Carry Forward →Balance Carryforward.

You can only carry forward balances in Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable for individual accounts. In General Ledger Accounting, however, you have to carry forward balances for all G/L accounts.

●      Special Purpose Ledger

From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting ® Financial Accounting → Special Purpose Ledger → Periodic Processing → Balance Carryforward.