SAP FI Financial Accounting

SAP Financial Accounting

Sap FI module Records and maintain financial Transactions of an organization in real time on daily basis and generate financial statements (Balance sheets, Profit and loss accounts, etc.) for external reporting.

FI Overview

SAP FI module as the term suggests deals in managing financial transactions within enterprises. This financial accounting module helps employees to manage data involved in any financial and business transactions in a unified system. This module functions very well for reporting requirements. The SAP FI module is very flexible and functions well in any type of economic situation. Be it a smaller organization or a larger organization, SAP implementation helps in consolidating data for diverse business transactions and legal requirements. Financial Accounting module helps one to get real-time financial position of an enterprise in the market. SAP FI incorporates with other SAP modules such as SAP SD, SAP MM, SAP PP, Payroll and more for better work results.

SAP FI is made up sub modules the sub-modules that are often used are accounts receivables, accounts payables, asset accounting, general ledger accounting and bank accounting. All the sub modules are interlinked and integrate in real time. The diagram below shows the integration between SAP FI modules.

Where do we use Sap FI?

SAP FI module enables you to manage financial accounting data within an international framework of multiple companies, currencies, and languages. SAP FI module mainly deals with the following financial components –

• Fixed asset
• Accrual
• Cash journal
• Accounts receivable and payable
• Inventory
• AR/AP
• Tax accounting
• General ledger
• Fast close functions
• Financial statements
• Parallel valuations
• Master data governance

SAP FI consultants are mainly responsible for implementing Financial Accounting and Cost Accounting with SAP ERP Financials.

SAP FI functional area 

Function Areas in finance accounting are used to define the expenses in a company according to individual function units. The most common Functional Areas are –

• Manufacturing
• Sales and Distribution
• Production
• Administration

SAP FI functional area Structure 

SAP FI – Company Basics

A company is defined as the smallest unit for which financial statements can be created in accordance with commercial legal regulations

In SAP FI, a company can comprise of multiple codes, however it acts as a single unit for which financial statements are available. All the company codes must use the same chart of accounts list and fiscal year, however each code can have a different local currency. A chart of accounts list consists of all the chart of accounts that can be used and each code must have one chart of account. A fiscal year normally consists of twelve months’ time period where company creates the financial statements.

SAP FI – Define Credit Control

Credit Control in FI is used to check the credit limit for the customer and it can use one or more codes. It is used for credit management in Application components such as Account Receivable (AR) and Sales and Distribution.

The credit control area is determined in the following sequence:

· User exit

· Distribution channel

· Customer master

· Company code for the sales organization

 SAP FI – General Ledger

The FI chart of accounts represents the list of GL accounts that are used to meet the daily needs and the operating country’s legal requirement in a company. The master chart of accounts must be assigned to each company code. Chart of accounts (COA) can be divided into the following types:

 · Operating Chart of Accounts –

 It contains all the General Ledger accounts that are used to meet the daily needs in a company. The operating chart of accounts has to be assigned to a company code.

· Country Chart of Accounts – 

It contains a list of all General Ledger accounts that are required to meet the operating country’s legal requirements. You can also assign a company chart of account to the company code.

· Chart of Accounts Group – 

This COA group contains a list of all the G/L accounts that are used by the entire company.

SAP FI – Retained Earnings Account

Retained Earnings Account is used to carry forward the balance from one fiscal year to the next fiscal year. You can assign a Retained Earning Account to each P&L account in the chart of accounts (COA). To automatically carry forward the balance to the next fiscal year, you can define P&L statements as per COA and assign them to the retained earning accounts.

SAP FI – G/L Account

General Ledger (G/L) accounts are used to provide a picture of external accounting and accounts and to record all the business transactions in a SAP system. This software system is fully integrated with all the other operational areas of a company and ensures that the accounting data is always complete and accurate.

 SAP FI – Financial Statement Version

General Ledger accounts can be used as per legal regulations to generate the final statements. Financial statement versions are used to create the financial statements, to run account balance reports and for General Ledger accounting planning.

SAP FI – Journal Entry Posting

The use of Journal Entry (JE) posting in SAP FI is to take a batch, validate it for consistency, and create FI documents and post those entries in various line item accounts needed for subsequent business processing. JE Posting is a process that, with a few exceptions, runs "behind the scenes" and is the heart of Journal Entry. It receives journal entry data (representing financial transactions) from the PRA modules (Valuation, Revenue Distribution, etc.), and summarizes them in batches and posts them to the PRA JE line item tables and to SAP FI. Journal Entry Posting is the link between the journal entries coming from PRA applications and the FI documents and JE line item table items that are created.

SAP FI – Fiscal Year Variant

Fiscal year variant contains the number of posting periods in a fiscal year and the number of special periods. You can define up to 16 posting periods in a fiscal year in the controlling component CO. You need to specify the fiscal year variant for each company code. When you create a controlling area, you also need to specify the fiscal year variant. The fiscal year variants of the company code and controlling area may only differ in the number of special periods used. You need to ensure that the fiscal year variants match. In other words, they may not have a time conflict.

SAP FI – G/L Reporting

There are various G/L reports that can be generated in SAP FI. The most common ones are:

· G/L Chart of Accounts List

· G/L Account Balances

· G/L Account List

· G/L Account Totals and Balances

SAP FI – Customer Master Data

In SAP FI, all business transactions are posted to and managed in accounts. You must create a master record for each account that you require. The master record contains data that controls how business transactions are recorded and processed by the system. It also includes all the information about a customer that you need to be able to conduct business with him. Customer master data is used by both the accounts and sales department in an organization. By maintaining customer master data centrally, it can be accessed throughout your organization and avoid the need to enter the same information twice. You can also avoid inconsistencies in master data by maintaining it centrally.

SAP FI – Block a Customer

You can block a customer account in AR so that postings are no longer made to that account. You have to block a customer account before marking a customer master record for deletion.

SAP FI – Delete a Customer

You can archive customer master records that you no longer need. When data is archived, it is extracted from the SAP database, deleted, and placed in a file. You can then transfer this file to an archive system.

SAP FI – Sales Returns

Sales Returns in SAP FI are used to manage full products that the customer has returned. These are used in consumer goods industry. All returns are related to quality defects and not incorrect deliveries. The path that the returned merchandise takes often has to be tracked in detail. Returned items have to be sent for inspection.

SAP FI – Create a Vendor

Vendor Master Records are used by both the Accounting component and the Purchasing component. Before you create a vendor master record in Accounting, you need to make sure that the master record is not already created in Purchasing.

SAP FI – Block a Vendor

You can block a vendor account for posting. You have to block a vendor master record before you can mark it for deletion. You would also block a vendor that you use only as an alternative payment recipient, so that nobody can post to it by mistake. You can apply the following blocks:

· Posting a block for certain company codes or for all the company codes.

· Purchasing a block for certain purchasing organizations or for all the purchasing organizations. This is of course only if you have purchased and installed the purchasing application component.

 SAP FI – One-Time Vendor

In SAP FI, you can also create One-Time Vendor Master Record for the Vendors with only a few transactions and there is no need to maintain their master records separately. In such cases, you can create One-Time Vendor with General Information such as Name, Address, Phone, etc.

For more details about sap erp training and sap FI training please visit : www.asipt.net/sap-erp-training