Introduction
Greg has heard about the posting period app that finance uses to open and close the posting periods. However, he needs more insight into how and when the posting periods are opened and closed at period end.
Posting Periods
Within the Fiscal Year:
Within the fiscal year, the current posting period is usually open for postings from all areas. With the month-end closing the posting period is closed for the subledgers, and for the monthly closing operations the posting period is still open for (specific) accounts in General Ledger Accounting.
The business will continue with posting transactions in the new posting period for all areas. After finalizing the closing-end activities, the previous period is closed for all postings and thus ensures that the internal and external reporting is accurate and complete.
Fiscal Year End:
During the year the normal posting periods (1-12) are used for posting in finance. In addition, it is possible to use up to a maximum of 4 special periods for your fiscal year. The special periods are optional and can be used at the fiscal year end to record adjustment type postings. For example, an audit adjustment could be posted to one of the special periods (e.g., 13) and is thus kept separate from the normal posting periods.
Posting Period Variants
The SAP system uses posting period variants to manage the opening and closing of posting periods.
Posting Period Variant - Account Intervals and Account Types
The posting period variant enables you to control the open/closed posting periods differently for each account interval in relation with the following account types:
- + (Valid for all account types)
- A (Assets)
- D (Customer)
- K (Suppliers)
- M (Materials)
- V (Contract accounts)
- S (G/L accounts)
For a better classification of the available account types, we will first explain how the posting period check is performed when a journal entry is entered in the SAP system.
1. Posting Period Check – Document Header:
The system uses the posting date that you specify during document entry in the document header to determine to which posting period the document is posted. If the posting period is not assigned to the generic account type "+" (Valid for all account types), no posting is possible in this period.
Therefore, the account type + must be open for all periods that are supposed to be open for any other account type, and the posting period variant must contain at least the account type +.
2. Posting Period Check – Line-Item Level:
At the line-item level, the SAP system checks the account types A (Assets), D (Customer), K (Suppliers), M (Materials), V (Contract accounts) and S (G/L accounts) to ensure that the period is open for the assigned account type.
For account types A, D, K, M and S you must specify at least one of the following G/L account interval/s, if you want to restrict postings to a particular posting period:
- 0 – 9999999999 or
- 0 – ZZZZZZZZZZ (in case you use alphanumeric G/L account numbers)
These account intervals always contain general ledger accounts.
Note:
Subledger account types will be managed by the corresponding reconciliation G/L accounts.