A Financial Accounting (FI) document always has two views in G/L Accounting.
Displaying a document in the entry view and the general ledger view is defined in General Ledger Accounting and cannot be switched on or off using Customizing.
Document Splitting
You can display the profit and loss statement using the following objects:
- Profit center
- Business area
- Segment
Line items are not displayed as split in the entry view. The line items are displayed as split in the general ledger view when using document splitting.
Note
Document splitting is only for customers who have to or want to enter a further reporting characteristic. For example, a customer may want to enter a segment on the balance sheet in addition to the company code.
Document Splitting – Active Split
When you do not enter them explicitly, the splitting characteristics are transferred to the posting line items, based on rules you define in Customizing. In the preceding figure, the balance of the profit center and segment characteristics is zero.
The figure also shows the vendor and tax lines in the general ledger view. The vendor and tax lines (items 1 and 4) are split in accordance with the expense lines (items 2 and 3, and expense accounts 65003000).
Document splitting, also known as an "online split", enables companies to create complete balance sheets for objects.
If you do not activate document splitting, then there is no difference between the entry view and the general ledger view.
Document Splitting in Customizing
You activate document splitting in Customizing.
SAP S/4HANA provides splitting method 0000000012 as the default procedure to make modifications. You copy the default procedure to a custom entry, such as Z000000012.
Note
You activate document splitting for each client and deactivate it for each company code. However, the decision to split documents is made at company code level. All company codes of a client can only use the same document splitting procedure.
Inheritance and Default Account Assignment Concepts
Document Splitting Settings
You can enable the following settings when you activate document splitting:
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Inheritance | If an account assignment object is unique, the object is inherited online in all missing positions. The indicator for inheritance should always be set when activating document settings. |
| Default Account Assignment (Standard A/C Assignment) | If no value is entered or derived for a splitting characteristic during document posting, then a default value, such as a profit center or segment, can be set automatically. To use default account assignment, you must first define a constant value in Customizing. |
Note that using a default value can reduce data quality. When you use a default value, the constant replaces every missing object and the incorrect document splitting rules are hard to identify and correct. To use default account assignment, perform a test without default values. This helps you to locate any possible errors.
Steps in Document Splitting
You can divide the document splitting process into three simplified steps.
Steps in Document Splitting Process
The following steps occur in the document splitting process:
| Split Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Passive | During clearing, the entities, such as segments of the document being cleared, are copied to the clearing document without any change. | During a payment, an incoming invoice is assigned to multiple accounts. The incoming invoice is divided over two segments, A and B, in the proportion 60:40. During clearing, the payment is split 60:40 over the segments. This is seen only in the General Ledger View. |
| Active | For documents that do not show clearing, you can create individual distribution rules in Customizing. You can create rules to specify the portions of a document that are divided according to certain basic positions. The document type is the basis for the rule. | An incoming invoice assigned to multiple accounts. |
| Creating clearing lines or zero balance formation | This function is used if, in addition to the total document, the objects to be balanced within the document (for example, profit center or segment) have to be balanced to zero. | Without this function, a transfer posting from segment A to segment B on the same account creates two line items. Zero balance formation creates two further clearing lines. |
Document — Split Logic, Active Split
A splitting procedure, defined in brief, is the total of all splitting rules of all business transactions. As such, the splitting procedure defines how and under which circumstances document splits will be performed. In detail, this means each splitting procedure defines how each item category will be handled in the individual business transactions – for example, whether the account assignment of a customer item will be copied from the revenue item to a customer invoice or not. (=> See rule-based split)
A business transaction is a general breakdown of the actual business processes that SAP provides and is assigned a wide variety of item categories.
A business transaction variant is a specific version of the predefined business transaction provided by SAP and the (technical) modeling of a real business process for document splitting.
An item category is a (technical) map of the posted line items. It describes the items that appear within a document (business transaction). They are derived from, among other things, the general ledger account categories. In other words: The item category is the semantic description for the document split.
An individual splitting rule defines which item categories can/should be split (→ item categories to be processed) and at the same time defines which foundation (→ base) can be used (→ base item categories).