8.2.

4 Document Splitting
Refer to Chapter 2, Section 2.2.2 for more details on document splitting. There, we introduced you to the
enhanced functionality of splitting up the line items in a document for a given dimension (like profit
center or segment and business area) with the automatic generation of additional clearing line items.
Document splitting helps you to draw dimension-specific balance sheets.
The entire process of document splitting is made up of the following elements:
1. Passive split (passive document split)
A non-customer specific generic step in which during clearing (for example, during a payment) the
account assignments are transferred to the clearing items. This ensures not only the account itself is
balanced, but also balances the addi¬tional dimensions such as business area and segment.
2. Active split (rule-based split)
The system processes a document split based on the splitting rules (standard or customer defined) that are
configured.
3. Creating clearing lines/zero balance for each financial statement characteristic (and document)
Controlled through the ZERO BALANCE indicator, the system creates new clearing lines to achieve the
document split.
The system always proceeds with the document splitting process starting from steps 1 to 3, as explained
above. Between steps 2 and 3, document splitting is supported by inheritance and default account
assignment. Before getting into the details, let us complete the prerequisites for document splitting.
You can use the wizard as shown in Figure 8.25 (Transaction FAGL_WZ_SPLIT_CONF) to define or
change customizing settings for document splitting. The wizard con¬tains nine steps, with the ninth step
being checking the customization done in the previous eight steps. Alternatively, you may use the
individual steps listed.
0/

8) Continue X Cancel |

Figure 8.25 Document Splitting Configuration Wizard

Case Study: Mercury
BS's CFO has indicated to the project team that BS wants standard document splitting functionality
activated for all the company codes with the default characteristics so as not to increase the system load.
However, he has indicated that BS would need to have the flexibility to draw financial statements using
the segment and profit center characteristics.
Classify G/L Accounts for Document Splitting
The system analyzes a business transaction during transaction entry to determine whether the line items
contained in that transaction are to be split or not, based upon a classification in the system. Such a
classification is done by assigning the line items to an item category, which is determined by the account
number.
SAP comes delivered with seven item categories (customer, vendor, asset, cash discount offsetting,
material, expense, and revenue), which are simply the semantic descriptions for the document split. While
assigning the accounts/or account intervals to an item category, assign only the accounts relating to
revenue, expense,
bank or cash, and balance sheet; the classification of all other accounts is already known to the system.
Tips & Tricks
Derived for G/L account categories and used to technically map the posted line items, an item category
describes the items that appear within a document. You can use only the pre-defined item categories in
the system, and cannot define your own categories.
Let us configure the G/L accounts for document splitting in the following steps:
1. Use menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL
ACCOUNT¬ING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS
TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > CLASSIFY G/L ACCOUNTS FOR DOCUMENT
SPLITTING, or use Transaction S_ALR_87008943.
2. Maintain the chart of accounts on the resulting pop-up screen, and maintain the details as NEW
ENTRIES on the subsequent overview screen (see Figure 8.26).
New Entries: Overview of Added Entries
Chart of Accts CAUS
Description
11000 11000 □ 07000 Asset
12000 12000 □ 07000 Asset
39000 45502 □ 01000 Balance Sheet Account
176300 176300 □ 2O0OO Expense
176000 176000 □ 20009 Expense
251000 252009 □ 30000 Revenue
300000 300300 □ 06000 Material

Figure 8.26 Case Study—Mercury: Classification of G/L Accounts for Document Splitting
3. Select the OVERRD. Check box if you need a more detailed categorized document splitting (like
special purpose ledger accounts within customer or vendor). There can be more than one possible item
category (CAT.) for a given G/L account range.

The next step is to configure the document types by associating them with the business transaction and a
variant.
Classify Document Types for Document Splitting
For the system to use a document splitting rule appropriate^, the document type relevant to a specific
business transaction has to meet certain requirements, which are in turn related to the item categories.
These details are defined in a business transaction variant that will control the document splitting.
Technically, when modeling a real business process for document splitting, such a variant helps further
limit the item categories that were earlier identified with a business transaction. You will see that several
such variants already are defined in the standard SAP system.
Tips & Tricks
You will not be able to define a new business transaction, but you can define a new business transaction
variant. You can have more than one variant defined for a single business transaction.
Check whether the classification or assignment to a business transaction variant produces the desired
result in document splitting. The business transaction 0000 (Unspecified Posting) with variant 0001, for
example, has already been assigned to the standard document type SA. If you need any account
assignment on the document type SA, remember to explicitly define those assignments, since busi¬ness
transaction 0000 is not associated with any splitting rules (except company code clearing) in the system.
1. Use menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL
ACCOUNT¬ING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS
TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > CLASSIFY DOCUMENT TYPES FOR
DOCUMENT SPLITTING, or use Transaction S_ALR_87008944.
2. On the resulting screen (see Figure 8.27), maintain the appropriate transaction (say, 0000 -
unspecified posting, 0100 - transfer posting from P&L to balance sheet account, 0200 - customer invoice,
0400 - vendor invoice, 1000 - pay¬ments) and variant for each of the document types. The TRANSACTN
column refers to events that lead to value changes and thereby to data being updated in accounting. For
each of the business transactions, you can determine which item categories can appear in the transaction.
The next step is to define the zero-balance clearing account.
Change View "Classify FI Document Type for Document $
Type [Description |Transactn. |variant (Description [Name
RV Billing doc.transfer 0200 0001 Customer invoice Standard
SA G/L account document 0000 0001 Unspecified posting Standard
SB G/L account posting 0000 0001 Unspecified posting Standard
SK Receiptf. cash pmnt 0000 0001 Unspecified posting Standard
SU Subseqnt debit doc. 0000 0001 Unspecified posting Standard
Figure 8.27 Document Types for Document Splitting Define Zero-Balance Clearing Account

For all account assignment objects for which you want to have a zero balance setting, the system checks
whether the balance of an account assignment object is zero after document splitting. If not, the system
generates additional clearing items, which need to be posted to a G/L account that can be defined using
this customizing activity for the relevant chart of accounts:
1. Use menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL
ACCOUNT¬ING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS
TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > DEFINE ZERO-BALANCE BLEARING
ACCOUNT, or Transaction GSPJKD.
Tips & Tricks
Ifyou go through the menu path, you will be taken directly to the Change View "Post¬ing Key":
Overview screen, with the item category "0001" (zero balance postings - free balancing units). But ifyou
use Transaction GSP_KD, note to maintain the item category as 0001 on the Determine Work Area: Entry
pop-up screen before proceeding further.
2. Select the row containing 000 as the account key on the resulting overview screen (see Figure
8.28), and double-click on ACCOUNTS on the left pane.
Change View "Accounts": Overview
New Entries G) S EH!!
Dialog Structure
^ D Posting Key
<=3 Accounts
Item categoiy
Chart of Accts
Account Key
01001
CAUS
000
Zero Balance Posting (Free Balancing Units) Chart of accounts - United States Standard account for zero
balance

G/L Account IShortText

Clearing with Busine
Figure 8.28 Case Study—Mercury: Zero-Balance Clearing Account
3. Set the relevant chart of accounts (for BS, this will be CAUS) and maintain the appropriate G/L
ACCOUNT (194500, for BS).
We are now ready to customize the crucial task for document splitting: Defining document-splitting
characteristics.
Define Document Splitting Characteristics for General Ledger Accounting
Though you can useyour own characteristics (also known as customer-defined char-acteristics), you will
normally use the typical splitting characteristics like business area, profit center, and segment. This is the
place where you make the specifications whether you want any of the following options:
► A zero balance setting for a characteristic
► The ability to use a partner field to document a sender or receiver relationship in the clearing lines
generated additionally in the document
► A characteristic to be a mandatoiy field (so that the system does not accept the postings when this
field is not filled with a value from the document splitting)
Tips & Tricks
When you manage additional splitting characteristics other than the system-provided ones, note to
maintain the system proposed- characteristics in at least one of the ledgers.
1. Use menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL
ACCOUNT¬ING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS
TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > DEFINE DOCUMENT SPLITTING
CHARACTERISTICS FOR GEN¬ERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING.
2. On the resulting overview screen (see Figure 8.29), you will see system proposed the logical
splitting characteristics based on the assigned scenarios (refer to Chapter 5, Section 5.6.5 for details on
defining and assigning scenarios for G/L accounting).
Change View "Document Splitting Characteristic f
New Entries G B ® Q
Document Splitting Characteristic for General Ledgers _ Field |zero balance [partner field [Mandatory
Field
_Business Area a □ PARGB 3|_ □
"Profit Center Q* 0 =-PRCTR 3 0
Segment 3 B PSE6HENT 3j [g
Figure 8.29 Case Study—Mercury: Document Splitting Characteristics
Case Study: Mercury
BS wants to generate additional financial statements using segment and profit center characteristics.
Accordingly, it requires that the zero-balance check is to be set for them and ensuring that these are
mandatorily filled with a valid value after document splitting. BS wants the project team to configure the
system to issue an error message if no value is set for the specified field after document splitting.
3. For each of the system-proposed characteristics, maintain the required settings to fulfil Mercury's
requirements:
► Select the ZERO BALANCE checkbox ifyou want to activate zero-balancing for that
characteristic. When the checkbox is selected, the system checks whether the balance for the
characteristic is equal to zero during posting. Otherwise, the system generates additional clearing lines on
clearing accounts to achieve the zero balance. Set this for PROFIT CENTER and SEGMENT for BS,
since they require financial statements on these two characteristics.
► Specify a PARTNER FIELD for the characteristic, if one exists. When specified, a sender or
receiver relationship is then documented in the new clearing lines.
► MANDATORY FIELD: This checkbox has two purposes. First, it is an extension of the field
status in which the characteristics can't be entered during docu¬ment entry, or for accounts that can't be
controlled through field status (for example, to impose a condition that vendor liens should always have a
profit center or segment). Second, it is used to check whether a business-process equivalent business
transaction variant was selected to determine if a splitting rule can be found and applied. Select this
checkbox only for fields for which you require a complete balance statement and for which you cannot
accept any inaccuracies through unassigned postings. When this indicator is set, all postings where no
values are set for the specified fields after document split¬ting are rejected with error messages. For BS,
we will select this checkbox for both profit center and segment.
4. Use the NEW ENTRIES button ifyou want to include your own characteristics for document
splitting.
Besides allowing you to define the characteristics for document splitting for G/L accounting, SAP also
allows you to define some additional characteristics that are not relevant for G/L accounting but are
relevant for other application components, such as CO, that use the documents transferred from G/L
accounting. The standard SAP system comes configured with such characteristics. You may use the next
cus¬tomizing activity to view them or add your own, if required.
Define Document Splitting Characteristics for Controlling
Using the additional characteristics (such as order, cost center, cost object, network, and profitability
segment number), the system can further sub-divide the line items during some of the G/L accounting
processes. The system can subdivide the line items during clearing of customer or vendor line items into
cash discounts paid or cash discount received, for example.
Tips & Tricks
The selected characteristics are only transferred to the specified line items when the post¬ing account has
also been set up as a cost element. If so, the characteristic values will still be transferred even if the field
status of a particular G/L account has been set as hidden.
To view the default definition of the additional characteristics in a standard SAP system, use menu path
SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING (NEW) >
GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS TRANSAC¬TIONS > DOCUMENT
SPLITTING > DEFINE DOCUMENT SPLITTING CHARACTERISTICS CONTROLLING. Use the
NEW ENTRIES button to add your own characteristics.
You also need to make sure how the cash discounts in the payment of asset-relevant invoices are handled
during document splitting (capitalized or posted to the dis¬count account).
Case Study: Mercury
BS has requested the project team to configure document splitting so as to capitalize the cash discount on
asset-related payment invoices, instead of posting the discount to a cash discount account.
Define Post-Capitalization of Cash Discount to Assets
The standard system is already configured so that cash discounts relating to pay¬ment of asset-related
invoices are capitalized to the respective assets. This has been done by adding ASSET as an entry in the
FIELD column of the screen titled Change View Subsequent Activation of Cash Discount on Assets:
Overview. Ifyou do not want the cash discounts to be capitalized, but want them posted to a cash discount
account, then you need to delete the asset entry on this screen using menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING
IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER
ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > DEFINE
POST-CAPITALIZATION OF CASH DISCOUNTS TO ASSETS.
With this, we are ready to activate document splitting.
Activate Document Splitting Method
When activated, document splitting is valid for the entire client, and you can explicitly exclude individual
company codes from document splitting. While acti¬vating, you will normally use the standard splitting
method (0000000012) that is delivered by SAP, since it contains the splitting rules for meeting most of
the business transactions:
1. Follow the menu path SAP CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL
ACCOUNTING (NEW) > GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS
TRANSAC¬TIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING > ACTIVATE DOCUMENT SPLITTING.
2. On the resulting screen (see Figure 8.30), you will notice that METHOD 0000000012 has been
defaulted under the ACTIVATE DOCUMENT SPLITTING block.
Change View "Activate Document Splitting”: Details
H3QI11 a Q
Dialog Structure
a Actuate Document Splitting CD Deactivation per Company Code Activate Document Splitting /
0 Document Splitting
Method 0000000012 splitting: Same as 0000000002 (Follow-Up Costs Online)

Level of Detail 0 Inheritance

□ Standard A/C Assgnmt Constant

Figure 8.30 Activating Document Splitting

Now complete the following:

► Select the DOCUMENT SPLITTING checkbox to activate document splitting.
► Select the INHERITANCE checkbox under the LEVEL OF DETAIL block. Ifyou do not select
this, then you need to define the rules for the business processes
to ensure that the account assignments are projected; for example, to achieve zero balancing. This is the
first practical step to post documents with active splitting, but without any elaborate customizing.
► You can also set a standard account assignment as the default one for all the non-assigned line
items by selecting the STANDARD A/C ASSGNMT checkbox and selecting an appropriate
CONSTANT, which should have been defined earlier using the customizing step Edit Constants for Non-
Assigned Processes.
Tips & Tricks
You should not select the STANDARD A/C ASSGNMT checkbox ifyou have already selected the
MANDATORY FIELD checkbox while defining the document splitting characteristics (as we have for
Mercury).
3. Double-click on DEACTIVATION PER COMPANY CODE on the left-hand dialog struc¬ture,
and select the INACTIVE checkbox against the company code(s) for which you don't want to activate
document splitting.
Tips & Tricks
If the standard splitting method does not meet your company requirements, you need to first define and
then select your own splitting method before trying to activate them. Use menu path SAP
CUSTOMIZING IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE > FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING (NEW) > GENERAL
LEDGER ACCOUNTING (NEW) > BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS > DOCUMENT SPLITTING >
EXTENDED DOCUMENT SPLITTING.
This completes our discussion on customizing the system for document splitting. Let us move on to
maintain the settings for manual accrual.