Blogs on Document Splitting In my series of blogs on newGL and document splitting, I intend to explain and e laborate the concepts

behind newGL/ Document Splitting and highlight using examp les how newGL functionalities including document splitting can be achieved for v arious complex business processes. I use Profit Centre as a scenario to explain th e functionalities; however all processes that apply to Profit Centre also apply to the other scenarios (Segment, Business Area). To identify the series of blog, I have categorised the blogs under SAP > newGL. If you have questions/ comments/ suggestions, please send me your comments in th e form below. Sharing your questions and experience using comment box below will help other readers to gain additional knowledge involved in this functionality. Share this blog with your network using one of the social media icons at the top or bottom of this page.

Table Architecture of Ledger BKPF & BSEG remain the FI document header and FI document line item tables as in Classic GL; and do not contain any additional information from the features of new GL (like document split). FAGLFLEXT and FAGLFLEXA is the ledger specific tot al and line item table respectively. FAGLFLEXT and FAGLFLEXA have split document information. If a document is posted to a ledger other than a leading ledger, t hat document is also updated in table BSEG_ADD. From the technical standpoint, New General Ledger Accounting offers the following advantages over classic General Ledger Accounting: The introduction and portrayal of the business model now occurs in just one appl ication component. This means that there is no further need for the cost of sale s ledger, the special purpose ledgers in FI-SL, the reconciliation ledger, and t he profit center ledger. Users only have to be familiar with the interface and functions of one component . Users already familiar with the R/3 System require very little training, if an y. The data is only stored once in the system (in just one totals table), thereby e liminating data redundancy. No need for additional reconciliation activities during closing. Easier to make adjustments to business-specific requirements (such as the inclus ion of customer fields as part of flexible reporting). (SAP publication The Basic Architecture of New General Ledger Accounting in mySAP ERP )

Ledger in new GL in SAP ECC New GL allows customers to maintain multiple (or parallel) ledgers. Before the S AP ECC version, users had to create multiple Special Purpose Ledgers (FI-SL) to report the same financial information for different business requirements. For e xample, if a SAP customer wanted to report the same information with different f iscal periods (one for tax and one for shareholders) or with different accountin g standards (GAAP and IAS), they could use the main ledger (i.e. Ledger 0L) for one requirement and create a Special Purpose Ledger for the other requirement. With new GL, users can maintain (and without need to create a Special Purpose Le dger) One leading ledger that reflects the same accounting principles as which is used to generate consolidated financial statements; this ledger is integrated with a

ll sub-ledgers Multiple non-leading ledgers could be used to manage business requirements that cannot be managed in the leading ledger. Some examples are requirement to mainta in parallel accounting (accounting for tax, GAAP) or maintaining books in a diff erent fiscal period compared to leading ledger. Below is an example of a leading ledger (Ledger 0L) and multiple parallel ledger s. If ledger is not manually entered on the financial document, then the document w ill post to leading ledger and to all non-leading ledgers. If ledger is manually entered on the financial document, then the document will only post to that led ger. Document splitting is not supported for Ledger-specific postings (i.e. postings where ledger is manually entered) because SAP assumes that such postings become actual documents in the sense of an invoice or payment. Instead, ledger specific postings are G/L account postings or adjustment postings in connection with per iod-end closing when multiple ledgers are used to portray parallel accounting. Ledger Group & Representative Ledger You can group ledgers into a Ledger Group. This will simplify maintenance tasks for each ledger and ensure postings are made to all ledgers of a ledger group si multaneously. A ledger group with the same name is created when a new ledger is defined. If you assign more than one ledger to a ledger group, you need to define one of the ledgers as a representative ledger. If the ledger group has a leading ledger, the leading ledger must be designated as the representative ledger. A representative ledger is used to determine posting period during posting and t o check if the posting period is open. If posting period of representative ledger is closed, then postings to that peri od will not be allowed to any ledger in that ledger group. If posting period of representative ledger is open, then postings to that period will be allowed to a ll ledgers in that ledger group even though the posting periods of the other led gers are closed. Alternatively, you can specify that the system performs the pos tings using the posting periods of the non-representative ledgers. During posting, the system uses the fiscal year variant of the company code to c heck whether the selection of representative ledger was correct: If all ledgers in the ledger group have a different fiscal year variant to that of the company code, you can designate any ledger as the representative ledger. If one of the ledgers in the ledger group has the same fiscal year variant as th at of the company code, you must designate that ledger as the representative led ger. This means you may not be able to use the same ledger group for all company code s. Conclusion With new GL, the need to create Special Purpose Ledgers should be revisited. If you are upgrading to SAP ECC, review the need to migrate Special Purpose Ledgers and whether those requirements can be incorporated in newGL as additional/ para llel ledgers. Requirements for Special Purpose Ledgers can be met with non-leadi ng ledgers; thereby reducing the maintenance of additional ledgers and eliminati ng the period end processes that would delay close of books.