Maintaining General Ledger (G/L) Accounts

The maintenance language is the language in which account descriptions are maintained.

The account number of a G/L account can range from 1 to 10 digits in length.

You can assign a group account number to each G/L account. This account number is used for cross-company code reporting if the company codes use different charts of accounts. To enter a group account in the G/L account, you have to enter a group account number in the corresponding field in the G/L account definition (required entry field). The system then checks whether the group account number exists in the group chart of accounts.

An incomplete chart of accounts can be blocked. In the blocked state, no company code can use the chart of accounts.

Every company code must be assigned a chart of accounts. In accordance with the variant principle, it is possible to assign one chart of accounts to several company codes.

The Controlling (CO) component and the Financial Accounting (FI) component use the same chart of accounts. If company codes use cross-company code controlling, then the company must use the same chart of accounts. In the example shown in the preceding figure, the company codes CC1000 and CC2000 can perform cross-company code controlling, but company codes CC2000 and CC3000 can not.

The information that you enter in the chart of accounts segment for a G/L account applies to all company codes. You need to enter this information only once.

Keywords are used to search for account numbers.

To use an account from the assigned chart of accounts in your company code, you must create a company code segment for the account. This company code segment combined with the chart of accounts segment form an account.

This information in the company code segment controls the entry of accounting documents and the management of accounting data.

The company code in the preceding figure does not use account 000002, however this account is free for use by other company codes. For example, a foreign currency balance sheet account is managed in the currency of a country in which the company code does not have any business partners. However, another company code in the group may have a business partner in that country.

A G/L account can have several company code segments. For example, you can set the Tax Category indicator for a specific company code to include taxes when expense accounts are used. For other company codes, you may choose not to set this indicator.

You can define the following information for a company code:

• Currency
• Taxes
• Reconciliation account
• Sort key
• Field status group
• House bank
• Interest calculation information

As mentioned in the figure for the chart of accounts segment, you can manage text using the text ID and language functions.

Every company code, which needs to use accounts from the assigned chart of accounts, has to have its own company code segment. The numbers and names of accounts are maintained in the chart of accounts segment. Therefore, accounts retain the same names and numbers in all assigned company codes. 

G/L accounts are classified into the following G/L account types:

Balance Sheet*

Account that is posted from business transactions. The balance of a balance sheet account is carried forward at the fiscal year-end.

Cash Account (Bank Reconciliation Account)

A G/L account that can be assigned to more than one house bank account. For each house bank account, a G/L account is required, to which payment transactions are posted. With the cash account the number of such G/L accounts can be significantly reduced.

Non-operating Expense or Income

Income statement account that records expenses or gains from activities that are not part of the main purpose of the company, such as gains realized from financial investments by a manufacturing company.

Primary Costs or Revenue

Income statement account that functions as a cost element for primary costs or revenue. Primary costs reflect operating expenses such as payroll, selling expenses, or administration costs.

Secondary Costs

Income statement account that functions as a cost element for secondary costs. Secondary costs result from value flows within the organization, such as internal activity cost allocations, overhead allocations, and settlement transactions.

The controlling area-specific data is only needed for Secondary Costs and Primary Costs or Revenue accounts. In the controlling area-specific data, you assign a Cost Element category. This category determines which account can be used for which business transaction in CO.

For example: The cost element category 21 (Internal Settlement) is assigned to a secondary cost account master record. This secondary cost account can only be used to settle order costs or project costs to objects in CO.

*Asset and material balance sheet accounts can, optionally, be integrated in Controlling if a) Asset accounts are defined as "reconciliation account" and b) include in the corresponding account determination of asset accounting or materials management in customizing.

In the chart of accounts segment, you specify whether an account is a balance sheet or not (G/L Account Type).

The accounts are treated differently in the closing procedure as follows:

Users can define the retained earnings account in Customizing. You can then assign this account to expense accounts during the creation of the master record of the general ledger account.

Depending on the number of retained earnings accounts, the following cases apply:

You can use the Automatic Account Determination app to configure G/L account assignments, for example Define Retained Earnings Accounts.

The field status enables you to control the display and maintenance of the master data of an account.

You can set any one of the following as the status of a field:

Fields are grouped by SAP S/4HANA. You can set a common field status for all fields of a group. For example, you can set a status for the interest calculation indicator, interest cycle, and last interest calculation key date fields.

The Account currency and Field status group fields are always the required entry fields. The status for these fields cannot be changed.

The field status is generally controlled by the account group. You usually only use transaction-specific controls to specify what can be edited when changing master data.

There may be instances when you do not want specific fields to be modified by anyone after the master record has been created. For example, you set the currency of your cash account to GBP, and you do not want anyone to be able to modify it. In this case, in Customizing for G/L Accounting, under Define Screen Layout for Each Transaction→Change assign the status Display to the relevant field.

For each field, SAP S/4HANA takes the field status definitions from the account group and the transaction into consideration and uses the one with a higher priority.

The following order applies in SAP S/4HANA, with decreasing priority:

• Suppress
• Display
• Required Entry
• Optional Entry

Fields accessed through the transaction Display Master Data can be either displayed or hidden because you cannot make an entry in a Display transaction. If you do not want to use the transaction-specific control, then you can set the field status for all fields to Optional. The Optional field status has the lowest priority, so the account group-specific control is always used to define the field status.

SAP S/4HANA provides collective processing functions for the G/L account master records.

You can make changes to the master data of several G/L accounts simultaneously.

To change G/L account master data in collective processing, you can use the following options:

• Change chart of accounts data
• Change company code data
• Change account descriptions
• Change controlling data (only with the App Manage G/L Account Master Data)

You can make the following changes to the G/L accounts (for example using the App Edit Multiple G/L Accounts —Company Code View):

• Select the fields to be changed.
• Change the values of the fields displayed. Enter the new values in the column New Values to replace the existing values. For all G/L accounts selected, replace the old value with the new value.

You can make the following changes to the G/L accounts (using the App Manage G/L Account Master Data; up to 50 accounts each time):

• Select the accounts to be changed.

• Mark the relevant ones.

• Choose Mass Change and then Other Attributes.

• If you like to change fields, that are not shown, choose Settings.

• Insert values witch you like to change (Replace). Enter the new values in the column By to replace the existing values.

• Choose Apply.

• Choose Save to change the data on the database.

For the international groups shown in the preceding figure, cross-company code cost accounting is possible for European company codes. This is possible because company codes in Spain, Germany, and the UK use the same operational chart of accounts. The European company codes use chart of accounts YCOA as their operational chart of accounts.

Company codes in the US and Canada use chart of accounts CAUS as their operational chart of accounts. Cross-company code controlling is therefore also possible in North America.

To create reports using the country chart of accounts, the board of the international group has decided to define country-specific charts of accounts for the company codes.

The board has also decided that the group does not need controlling for Europe and North America combined, but that they would like consolidation to take place. Therefore, a group chart of accounts (CONS) has been set up for the operating charts of accounts YCOA and CAUS.