Working with Ad-Hoc Items

Robert, our new consolidation consultant, wants to:

• Understand how Ad Hoc Items offer flexibility in form-specific master data creation.
• Get into the Set Up Logic for Ad Hoc Items.
• Understand how to use Ad Hoc Items to collect and categorize financial and non-financial data as additional dimensions for financial statements.
• Understand when to apply Ad Hoc Items to enrich subsidiary financial information and its role in keeping track of corporate sustainability goals.

Ad Hoc Items are new dimensions in table ACDOCU, created and maintained by the business users who are responsible for report creation and the respective data collection. They will enhance the data model for supplemental data by a low-threshold mean following the concept of Ad Hoc Items.

So this master data maintenance is done by the process designer, not by the SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting FS item governor.

By using Ad Hoc Items, you can therefore create form-specific master data as additional dimensions for financial statement items during the design of a form and:

• split existing numbers into additional categories,
• collect new numbers that exceed the scope of the regular consolidation data model,
• create forms where non-financial and qualitative data need to be collected.

Ad Hoc Items can be combined with any other SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting dimension, including financial statement items and custom dimensions.

They behave like any other dimension, for example, they can be used in currency translation, intercompany eliminations, breakdown with other dimensions, validation rules, and consolidation rules, and are visible in group data analysis.

Examples:

• Notes to the Annual Statement
• Sustainability Report/Integrated Report following for example the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals monitoring
• Tax Reports
• Margin checks
• Maturity Split by „Short Term" and „Long Term".

The figure above gives a typical example of the use of Ad Hoc Items:

In a balance sheet form the receivables and payables for consolidation unit CH30 were either entered manually in the form, uploaded, or released.

The Totals (LC) column shows this data.

Since we don‘t get any information about the due date of these receivables and payables, this information has to be enriched by subsidiaries like CH30. This is done with the help of Ad Hoc Items as shown above.

In the following, we will explain how to set up the form shown in this figure.

You can create your Ad Hoc Items in the Define Ad Hoc Items app of SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting Data Collection.

In our maturity split scenario three Ad Hoc Items are created:

• Year_2
• Year_3_to_5
• Year_5_onwards.

Once Ad Hoc Items are created, you can use them in a form definition in the "Manage Forms" app. Ad Hoc Items work like any other dimension.

When creating the form, the Ad Hoc Item appears in the list of available dimensions, just drag and drop the Ad Hoc Item in the Dimension Selection tab.

As you want to split the Receivables and Payables you had entered in the Form_Balance_## form according to their maturity. To do so, a new form is created. The split is based on Ad Hoc Items.

It‘s important to make sure, that the dimensions in the source form (Form_Balance_##) and the Ad Hoc Item form (Maturity_Check_Rec_Pay_QA_##) do match!

When the Maturity_Check_Rec_Pay_## form created and then opened, you will find the Receivables and Payables data for subitem 900 (Opening Balance) and 915 (Variation) in the Total, Unsplit and Unsplit (Saved) column of the form.

The figure above therefore shows the settings and explanations for columns D, E, and F.

This figure shows the situation when the maturity split data for Receivables FS Item 121000/Subitem 900 – Opening Balance is entered in column I to K.

When the split data is saved, table ACDOCU contains these data sets with the Ad Hoc Item field filled with Year_2, Year_3_to_5, and Year_5_onwards as shown above.

Column G was created in order to show the user if the source data was completely split or not.

This figure explains the logic which was set up for column E.

The main focus of this figure is to explain the use of column F in the Maturity Split scenario.

It also explains how the sum of the split values is calculated on the fly.

The figure above shows the development of data sets starting from the data sets in table ACDOCU before splitting and the data sets saved when splitting is done.

The Totals & Subtotals View helps to see the „Unsplit amount" of 100 EUR.

In the above figure, a further example of the use of Ad Hoc Items is shown.

Ad Hoc Items are used in this form to collect data related to budget portions spent with local suppliers, as per Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards.

The form above is designed as follows:

• Columns A and C – the Financial Statement item "Trade Payables" is broken down by Functional Areas.
• Columns E and G – two Ad Hoc Items are used to provide details by local supplier, in amount and in percentage (calculated with a formula).
• Columns I and J – check whether the % of local suppliers are compliant from a sustainability perspective (in this example, 90% or more spent on local suppliers is compliant with the corporate sustainability goals).