How SAP S/4 HANA calculates GL Balances with the New Simplified Data Model ?

SAP has been around for a lot of years now and it has seen its core ERP product evolve over the last 40+ years. With it, its Data Model has been evolving too. SAP, like any other ERP and traditional Finance system, has used Total Tables to be able to calculate and provide GL Balances in the FI - Finance Module since the beginning as there was no other way to achieve this without damaging performance with the Databases that we had. Other systems have been using that approach and are still using it nowadays. Up until S/4 and the utilization of the HANA Database, the only way to obtain GL Balances was by reading Total Tables that had summarized information.

These Total Tables would be updated every time a new GL Posting happens updating not only Line Items Tables (like BSEG or FAGLFLEXA) but also Total Tables (like GLT0 or FAGLFLEXT and others too) and recalculating the corresponding total for the specific GL and Object / Dimension (like Internal Order, Profit Center, Functional Area, Cost Center, etc. ).

Then once we would run a report that would require a GL Balance (Total), the system would go directly to those Total Tables and read them from there as they were already calculated.

For Classic GL these were the Total Tables:

• GLT0 - General Ledger: Totals
• GLPCT - EC-PCA: Totals Table

For New GL this was the Total Table: 

• FAGLFLEXT - New General Ledger: Totals

On top of those Tables you would also have CO Total Tables like 

• COSS - Cost Totals for Internal Postings
• COSP - Cost Totals for External Postings

Now with the changes brought by S/4 HANA all those Tables have been eliminated.

A typical Business requirement that I have seen over and over in many projects, is to build and Interface or Custom Extraction program to Extract GL Balances at the end of the month and feed an external reporting and/or Consolidation System (Ex. Longview, Oracle Hyperion, Cognos and many more). In that case, we would build a custom program to go and extract GL Balances from the Classic or New GL Total Tables.

So, if the new Data Model introduced by S/4 HANA in Finance has eliminated these Total Tables, how is SAP providing GL Balances now ?

The 1st answer that somebody would say 

"... with the New and super performant HANA Database, it will read all the line items and calculate the Totals "on the fly ..."

Well that is not 100% accurate. It is true that SAP would read all the line items that now are part of the Universal Journal Table ACDOCA but it cannot read "all of them" ...

Imagine a system that has 5, 10 or more years worth of data. Each year could have millions of line items records. It would not be really efficient to read all those millions of line items since the beginning of time just to calculate a Total. This is something that could present as a challenge in the case of a Balance Sheet account, as their Balances are always an accumulated balance since the beginning of time. In the case of a P&L account, it is easy as their Balance are always made up of the current Fiscal Year postings only.

It is fair to say that in the case of a Balance Sheet account there is a Technical challenge in front of us as we should not be reading all line items since the beginning of time, but we still need to be able to obtain a balance without, reading all records, impacting the performance and doing it in an efficient way.

For this, SAP at year end writes initial Balance postings in the Universal Journal Table ACDOCA but with "Period 0 - zero (ACDOCA-POPER = 0)". Yes, it is a period that does not exists from an Accounting point of view, but S/4 HANA Finance uses this Period Zero as the starting point to have a "marker" to know where those balances start and not having to go back to the beginning of time to rebuild that balance every time. Period zero postings are done by the Balance Carry forward process (Tcode FAGLGVTR) when closing the Fiscal Year.

So with this Period zero being used as a starting point, then S/4 HANA Finance, reads all the current Fiscal Year line items and provides a GL Balance for those Balance Sheet accounts in an efficient way without the need to read all Balance Sheet postings since the beginning of time.

As mentioned already, any P&L balance is easy to obtain by just reading all lines items for the current Fiscal Year.

ACDOCA-POPER (Period) = 0 and

ACDOCA-BTTYPE (Business Transaction Type) = RFBC - Balance Carry Forward

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com

Payments Advice in S/4 HANA (On-premise)

In a recent post, I was talking about how to do physical checks payments the right way in S/4. Now in this one, I will show you how to generate Payment Advices in S/4 HANA. If you read my previous post, if not you should, you will know that the Tab "printout / data medium" has been removed and it just does not exists in the Fiori App "Manage Automatic Payments" which replaces Tcode F110. So another drawback of this, is the lack of possibility to select your Program Variant to issue your Payment Advice.

But ... there is no PMW (Payment Medium Workbench) solution for this as we have for Checks. In this case SAP has "hardcoded" it (literally) in the Fiori App "Manage Automatic Payments" to look for a specific Variant Name under program RFFOAVIS_FPAYM. If you do not have this Variant in your system, no matter what you do and try, your Payment Advices will not be generated.

Up until version 1809 FPS01, you needed to create this Program Variant manually. Now they woke up and they included it out-of-the-box. So if you are working on 1610, 1709 or initial 1809 chances are that you were (or are) missing this Variant. If you have it, it might mean that someone created it already.

Variant name required and "hardcoded" is: PAYM_LC

There is even an OSS Note (2690678 - Manage Automatic Payments: Cannot Print or Send Payment Advices) that SAP released that explains the issue and what you have to do.

Reference OSS Note:

2690678 - Manage Automatic Payments: Cannot Print or Send Payment Advices

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2690678

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com

How to do (print) physical Checks with SAP S/4 HANA the new / right way !

For many of us that have been around for a while in the SAP Finance world, designing Checks is a constant on every project. I lost count how many Checks I have designed and implemented over the last 11 years, but I can tell you, I know quite a bit about it and have done it many times. I have designed Checks for Small, Medium and Large companies in Canada and in the US too. (For you guys in Europe, Checks are something of the past since 2014 and the introduction of SEPA, lucky you !).

I am also writing this as I have been asked several times by different colleagues on how this should be done in S/4 HANA as not a lot of Consultants know this already and have upgraded their skills to S/4.

So ... As many of you know by now (if not you should not be doing SAP anymore), things have changed in S/4 HANA (for the better) compared to the tools and ways of implementing Checks in ECC6.0 and before.

Developers have new tools to design FORMs like Adobe Forms with Adobe Lifecycle Designer that you should use instead of the old SAPScript. It is lot easier, faster, more user friendly and gives you a lot of flexibility to implement custom code.

So ... now, How should you be doing checks in S/4 HANA the new and right way ?

There are a couple of things that you should consider now in S/4 HANA. By now, you should not be deploying anymore the old SAP GUI logon Pad. There are certain exceptions, but you should deliver the new UI which is SAP Fiori. With that it comes a lot of new Apps that have been built for Finance. Among those you will find "Manage Automatic Payments" that replaces to old Automatic Payment Program Tcode F110. 

The new "Manage Automatic Payments" App is more user friendly, more intuitive and have lost several of the technical non-sense things that an end-user needed to select in order to issue Payments in SAP. I never understood why they made it so complicated for the end user (well it's SAP ...). 

Now the Tab "Printout/data medium" is gone from the Fiori App, you do not have access anymore to that Tab. It just does not exist in Fiori such an option to select what variants you will be using for each program. Instead you should be using the new Standard delivered Payment Medium Workbench (PMW) CHECK.

You cannot use anymore the old and traditional program RFFOUS_C (or any similar variant of it). Also, you cannot use the traditional Funds Transfer / Electronic payment program RFFOUS_T and you should be using the PMW and build a DMEE for Electronic Funds Transfer instead.  This is "IF" you want to use the new Fiori App, if you don't and you still want to use the old F110, then those programs will still work in S/4 HANA. But why would you want to keep on using it if you have a new one ? Would you keep driving your old car with no AC, no power windows and no power steering wheel ? Well, I don't !!!

Not long ago, I went into a client who was running S/4 (greenfield implementation) and saw that they were using the traditional RFFOUS_C Print program. In fact, they took a copy of the program and they customized and put their own code inside it. This is something that we all used to do in the old ECC days, but we should not do this anymore. (See below what we should not do anymore).

Unless you have a compelling technical reason for using the old Print Program, then I see this as poor knowledge and lack of skills from the Consultant that implemented this solution. Which it wouldn't be the first time I see someone that lacks the technical knowledge doing something like this ...

 

As I mentioned before, YOU SHOULD STOP USING RFFOUS_C and start using the new SAP Standard delivered Payment Medium Workbench CHECK to be able to print Checks.

Another thing you should STOP doing is using SAPScript to design your Check Form layout. The new way in S/4 and new tool is Adobe Forms (not Smartforms). SAP Delivers a Standard form that you should take as a reference and design your own as per your business requirements. 

Adobe Lifecycle Designer will allow your Developer to meet 100% of your Business requirements Layout and add any type of custom code needed to retrieve any extra information that could be required to be printed in the form that is not yet available . No more copying the Standard program and modifying it so then the SAPScript form has access to new information. That is not needed anymore with this new technology. A good and up-to-date Abaper will know what I am talking about. (It is not the purpose of this post to explain that and I am not an Abaper either).

After you have configured the use of the Payment Medium Workbench CHECK and have developed your custom Adobe Form, you should add it in the configuration. After that your config should not have this setup anymore.

In the line "Form for the Payment Medium" you should select PDF and enter your PDF Form name there instead of SAPScript.

After that you need to configure your Variants in Transaction OBPM4.

There you will create a Variant which will allow you to select your Check Printer among some other things.

As you can see, it is not complicated, you just have to know how to do it and your SAP Finance Consultant should have up to date knowledge too.

I am putting as a reference 2 OSS Notes that explain part of this new setup and gives you a possibility of using the Old programs if you still want. But I would not recommend it, it is not the way to go these days and I suspect that eventually SAP could close that door in subsequent versions.

Note: The described procedure and screens belong to S/4 HANA On-premise.

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com

Reference OSS Notes:

2794915 - No "Printout/data medium" tab in "Manage Automatic Payments"

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2794915

2418837 - Manage Automatic Payments: Add Support for Classic Payment Medium Programs

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2418837