Defining How to Hold and Verify General Journal Entries

The Hold Document function allows you to temporarily save the entered data so that you can continue data entry at a later point in time. Documents that the SAP S/4HANA application holds do not have to be complete. The account balances are not updated in the held documents, and the data of the held document is not available for evaluation. Next, I will explain the principle of holding documents.

Next, I will review the principles of holding documents.

The SAP S/4HANA application does not assign any document number to the held documents. The user making the data entries is prompted to manually name the document after selecting the Hold Document function. The user can find the document under this name at a later time. A user can complete, post, or delete the held document at a later point in time. However, there is a risk of forgetting held documents and not posting them completely. The held journal entry number will be automatically replaced by a standard number generated by SAP when the posting is done.

The held journal entries are only visible to the user that created them. They are not intended to trigger an approval workflow. The function to hold journal entries is triggered through a button available in the Post General Journal Entries app.

Jill is now convinced that she can recommend the Hold journal entry functionality to the user group to facilitate their daily work.

To further explain the principles of holding documents, let’s take a look at an exercise.

After a discussion with the internal audit department, Jill finds out that certain internal procedures of Global Inc. require internal verifications through several levels of approvers to ensure that the journal entries are error free and compliant. This might result in a financial document that is not immediately posted to accounting after its creation. This type of document must be submitted for approval and undergo a validation workflow.

Designated users will then be responsible for the validation of the document that will trigger its posting to accounting. Eventually, they will demand modifications to the document before the validation and posting can be made. Jill will discover the possibilities of document validation in SAP S/4HANA to support this business case and how to process and report accounting documents using this functionality.

The SAP S/4HANA functionality to Verify General Ledger Journal Entries enables the flexible setup and operation of a verification process in which each company can configure the conditions that require verification and authorizations for approval of journal entries. After the configuration by the configuration expert, business users in the accounting team, depending on their authorizations, can view the apps and participate in different steps in the verification process. In addition, users can receive notifications generated by the apps when there are any status changes to the submitted journal entries.

The standard workflow for verifying general journal entries is as follows:

1. When a requester creates a journal entry, the journal entry has Initial status.
2. If the requester submits the journal entry for approval, the journal entry has Submitted status.
3. When the processor sees the submitted journal entry in the inbox, the journal entry status can vary depending on the processor's actions:
   • If the processor rejects the journal entry, its status is Rejected, and the requester has to edit and submit it again.
   • If the processor suspends the journal entry, it is given Waiting status until a certain time that is scheduled by the processor, and then the journal entry is given Submitted status again for approval.
   • If the processor verifies and approves the journal entry, it is given Posted status. It could be that the posting action fails when some errors occur. In this case, the journal entry is given Failed status, and the requester has to edit and submit it again.

It is very important to note that when a journal entry is submitted for validation, it is saved, and its final document number is assigned to it. However, this journal entry also has a specific status: Submitted – Parked. While the journal entry is being validated, it keeps this status. Thus, it will not update the account balances and it will be reported separately from the standard journal entries, which can be misleading. This is why one of the period closing tasks consists in checking that all journal entries submitted for validation have been processed before closing the accounting period and no journal entry with this status remains in SAP S/4HANA.

Jill needs to learn how to submit a G/L journal entry for validation in SAP and how it can be processed thereafter. As a requester (for example, most of the accountants), with the Verify General Journal Entries – For Requester app, you can create, display, copy, and edit a journal entry, and then submit it for verification. You can also track the entry status in the worklist and decide whether to edit a rejected journal entry and resubmit it for verification. When a journal entry is approved, rejected, or posted, you’ll receive notifications on the SAP Fiori launchpad.

As a requester (for example, an accountant), with the Verify General Journal Entries – For Requester app, you can:

• Submit one or multiple journal entries for verification.
• View the status of journal entries including submitted, rejected, deleted, no workflow, waiting, and failed.
• Edit a rejected journal entry and resubmit it for verification.
• Copy an existing journal entry and edit it if necessary.
• Withdraw a journal entry for editing before it is approved and resubmit it.
• Receive notifications when the journal entry status is changed.
• View the workflow log, comments, and attachments associated with a journal entry.
• Receive email notification when the journal entry status is changed. (An optional feature.)

As a processor who is authorized to verify general journal entries in the Verify General Journal Entries in General Ledger – For Processor (Inbox) and (Outbox) apps, you can view journal entries that are assigned to you and are waiting for approval. You can choose to approve, reject, or suspend a journal entry, and then the system changes the status accordingly in the requester’s worklist. You can receive notifications on the SAP Fiori launchpad when journal entries are submitted. Let’s take a look at the verification process in more detail.