Account Determination 

Use

Using the Asset Accounting (FI-AA) component, you can automatically update all relevant transactions to the general ledger. These include all accounting transactions that are posted to assets, and all changes to asset values that are automatically calculated by the system (particularly depreciation). This update takes place immediately online for the master depreciation area. For all other depreciation areas, this update is either direct or takes place during periodic processing (see Updating Values in the Depreciation Area ).

Features

When you post with account assignment to an asset, the system determines the G/L accounts that are posted based on: the chart of accounts valid in the company code, the depreciation area, and the account determination key.

Account Determination

Chart of Accounts

The chart of accounts contains all accounts in the general ledger. In Financial Accounting, exactly one chart of accounts is assigned to every company code. This assignment is also binding for Asset Accounting

Account Determination Key

You enter the account determination key in the general master data for the asset class. The account determination key defines the accounts in Financial Accounting that should be posted during asset transactions, for each chart of accounts and depreciation area (defined as an automatic posting area) in the chart of depreciation. The chart of depreciation itself is not the key criterion for account determination. This fact is important for company codes that have different charts of depreciation, but use the same chart of accounts. It is not possible to specify reconciliation accounts that are chart-of-depreciation-specific for these company codes.

You have to enter an account determination key in every asset class. Doing so guarantees that the account assignment will be the same for all assets in the given asset class. SAP provides account determination keys for the standard charts of depreciation and standard charts of accounts.

For more information on the accounts in an account determination key, see the F1 help for the accounts in the account determination definition.

Posting Depreciation Areas

When you define depreciation areas, you specify whether the values of the area should be automatically entered in Financial Accounting (see Characteristics of a Depreciation Area). For every depreciation area that is defined for automatic posting, you can specify its own accounts in an account determination key. If changes to APC in a posting depreciation area were not already posted using direct processing, then you can post these APC values using the APC Values Posting report.

You can also specify that one depreciation area uses the accounts of another. We recommend you use this approach for parallel accounting in new General Ledger Accounting. The advantage this offers is that you can use the same accounts for all accounting principles in each ledger. You thereby avoid having to enter all of the accounts in the account determination several times for each depreciation area.

For more information, see Parallel Accounting in Asset Accounting.

It is not possible to make specifications for account assignment for depreciation areas that do not have an automatic posting indicator in their area definition.

Transaction Type

The transaction type identifies the type of business transaction. Using the transaction type, the system posts the transaction to the appropriate accounts of the given account determination (see Transaction Types ).

You can use a customer enhancement to set up your own controls for account determination. For example, you can exchange accounts that are not asset reconciliation accounts (see Customer Enhancements (Customer Exits)).