The system automatically determines the financial accounts that are automatically posted with the goods movement.
When a goods movement is recorded, the system posts to the stock account of the material and to one or more offsetting accounts depending on the goods movement. This automatic account determination depends on various factors, such as the chart of accounts, the plant (or valuation area), but also on the material.
The following table roughly represents the account determination logic for goods movements with the determining factors.
It shows an example for a simple goods issue to a cost center.
Chart of account | Transaction key (derived from type of goods movement) | General modification (more detailed identification of the transaction key, if available.) | Valuation modification (grouping code for valuation areas) | Valuation class (assigned to a product at plant level) | Account debit | Account credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YCOA | BSX | 0001 | 3000 | 13100000 | 13100000 | |
| YCOA | GBB | VBR | 0001 | 3000 | 51100000 | 51100000 |
| YCOA | ... |
Let's look at the influencing factors one by one.
The type of goods movement
Depending on whether you are posting a goods issue to a cost center or a goods receipt with reference to a purchase order, for example, different posting schemas result:
- A goods receipt with reference to a purchase order results in at least a debit posting to an inventory account, possibly another debit posting to a price difference account if the material is valuated at standard price, and a credit posting to a GR/IR clearing account that is cleared when the invoice is posted.
- A goods issue to a cost center results in at least one credit posting to an inventory account and one debit posting to a cost account.
The posting schema, that is the possible posting line types to be generated, is assigned to the movement type. You can view it in the movement type configuration.
Start the following interactive demo to learn more about the posting schema depending on the type of goods movement.
In the previous demo, we learned that when a goods issue is posted to a cost center, in addition to the stock account (transaction key BSX), an offsetting account is also updated, which is further specified by transaction key GBB plus account modification VBR. This explains columns 2 and 3 in the table above.
The valuation area
The valuation area is a logical organizational unit that structures a company for the purpose of uniform and complete valuation of material stocks. In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, each plant represents a valuation area.
This means that you can basically control automatic account determination per plant. You assign a valuation grouping code to each plant to group plants that should be treated the same for account determination. The valuation grouping code is an account determination key (see column 4 of the table above).
The following image shows the Group Together Valuation Areas configuration activity where you assign a valuation grouping code to plants. Here, you can see that valuation grouping code 0001 is assigned to all plants.
The product
The following video explains how account determination is affected by the valuation class in the material master record.
To learn how to create and assign valuation classes start the following interactive demo.
To learn how to create an account category reference and assign it to a material type, start the following interactive demo.
We have reviewed each of the following factors that influence account determination:
- The movement type
- The valuation area
- The material