Managing Posting Periods

Posting periods are defined in the fiscal year variant.

To prevent documents from being posted to an incorrect posting period, you can close certain posting periods.

Usually the current posting period is open and all other periods are closed. At the end of a period, this period is closed and the next period is opened. You open a posting period by entering a range in the posting period variant that encompasses this period. You can have as many posting periods open as desired.

During fiscal year closing, you can open special periods for closing postings.

Several company codes can use the same posting period variant. Thereby, the posting periods are opened and closed simultaneously for all company codes to which the posting period variant is assigned (Variant Principle).

In the document header, the periods assigned to the account type + are checked first.

Therefore, the account type + must be open for all periods that are supposed to be open for any other account type, and the posting period variant must contain at least the account type +. If the posting periods for different account types are all to be handled in the same way, control by means of the + entry is sufficient.

Posting periods can be handled differently for different account types. For a certain posting period, postings to customer accounts may be permitted while postings to vendor accounts may be restricted.

At the line item level, SAP S/4HANA checks the account type of the posting key to ensure that the period is open for the assigned account type.

The account interval always contains general ledger accounts. By entering specific reconciliation accounts for subledger account types, the subledger accounts can be treated differently than accounts that have a different reconciliation account.

During fiscal year closing, two period intervals must be open at the same time. For this reason, you can enter two period intervals in the posting period table (Interval 1 and 2). It is recommended to use period intervals 1 for postings in special periods and interval 2 for posting processes in regular periods.

For period interval 1, you can assign a group of authorized users. This means that, for month-end or year-end closing, for example, you can open posting periods for specific users only. You make the necessary authorization settings in the optional authorization object Accounting Document: Authorizations for posting periods (F_BKPF_BUP). We recommend using period interval 1 for special periods because authorizations can only be managed here.

The user must have the authorization for the authorization object F_BKPF_BUP (accounting document: Authorization for posting periods) with the same value in the field authorization group as in the posting period table.

In SAP S/4HANA, period interval 3 is used for postings from Controlling (CO) to Financial Accounting (FI). If the third interval is not filled, the entries in intervals 1 and 2 are also valid for these postings.

In SAP S/4HANA, postings in FI (CO-relevant) and postings in CO (FI-relevant) need Open periods in FI opening or closing (OB52/app) and the CO Period Lock (OKP1).

Also, you can use the report RFOB5200 for maintaining the posting periods (authorizations to control who is allowed to execute the program: SAP Note 2251160).

Starting with SAP S/4HANA 1809 it is possible to manage the posting periods using an app. This app fills the same table as OB52.

When entering a document, you enter the posting date. SAP S/4HANA determines the posting period and the fiscal year automatically, based on the posting date entered.

SAP S/4HANA determines the posting period and updates the transaction figures for each posting period.

If you display the balance of an account, the transaction figures for the posting periods are displayed.