Migrating classic GL to S4 HANA Finance

This post based on my experience working with SAP as a ramp up partner

way back in 2013 in simple finance. We tried to migrate classic GL to S4 with
help of SAP as ramp up partner and failed first time. We tried again and want
to share my experience what we found working with SAP. My observation is
following however it may be changed in last couple of years. In last two
project I did with new GL so didn't find this constraint.

What we expect?

Simple finance comes in built with New GL (Technical) and not with complete
New GL functionality wise.

 Client who are on Classic GL can directly move to Simple finance, how-
ever as soon as we move to Simple finance then technically client is on
New GL which means that back end tables and codes need to be ad-
justed to fit in new GL like system.

S4 will not support the below New GL functionalities as per our frequent
conversation with SAP during ramp up:

 Implementation of Document Splitting

 Balance Sheets at the Profit Center Level
 Migration from Special Purpose Ledger to New General Ledger Account-
ing
 New Implementation of Parallel Accounting
 New Implementation of Segment Reporting
 Implementation of the Ledger Approach for Parallel Accounting
 Change in Chart of Accounts and Conversion of Chart of Accounts
 Inclusion of Customer Fields
 Transfer of Quantities to New General Ledger Accounting

These are the functionalities which gets replaced in S4 even you are mi-
grating from classic GL:

 Foreign Currency Valuation

 Reconciliation Between Controlling and Financial Accounting
The following functions can be adapted after the migration even you
were on classic GL:

 Cost of Sales (COS) Accounting

 Preparations for Consolidation

If your client agree on above condition then you can go ahead and it only re-
quire two days effort to perform 5 additional migration steps in production
required in Simple Finance.

This observation I have noted way back in 2013 and would like to share with
you. This post may be useful for your next upcoming project.

What is SAP New GL Migration?

SAP New GL Migration is the migration of data from the classic General Ledger
Accounting to New General Ledger Accounting in SAP FICO. It helps to inte-
grate Managerial Accounting and Financial Accounting while reducing the cost
of the project.

When do we need to do this Migration?

Let’s understand this thing with a situation.

Suppose we look at new transactions and reports and compare totals records
in the classic General ledger with those in New G/L.

Now here, the activation of New GL depends on whether you are a new cus-
tomer or an existing customer.

During a new installation of SAP FICO, New G/Accounting in the standard sys-
tem is set to active. While the use of classic General Ledger is theoretically also
possible for new customers.

How does the Need for SAP New GL Migration arise in ECC?

During the release upgrade for an SAP R/3 system to SAP ERP, the classic Gen-
eral Ledger initially continues to remain active. Total table GLT0 remains in
effect.

Thus, if you want to upgrade from the classic General Ledger to New G/L in
SAP FICO, you can do this, by activating and using New GL.
Functionality becomes better this way

The already known classic financial accounting paths continue to remain

available in SAP FICO for better orientation. You will also see new menu paths
in the application and the SAP Easy Access menu as a result of the activation
of New G/L transactions appear such as FB50L or FB50L.

How is the New GL Migration useful for you?

When you activate New G/L accounting in SAP FICO, the system updates the
balances also in the tables of the Classic General Ledger accounting. This is in
addition to the tables of New G/L accounting.

This parallel updating is useful for a period of time from a security point of
view.

You can use Transaction GCAC (Ledger Comparison) to compare the total
records of any two ledgers. You can also compare local and global ledgers with
each other as well as those ledgers with differing fiscal year variants and
charts of accounts.

Using the report called Transaction GCAC, you can compare the totals records
in the table of New G/L accounting with the totals records in the tables of the
classic General Ledger accounting ( GLT0).

Without a data migration, the differences shown are those arising from trans-
actions prior to the activation of New G/L.

New GL Migration Projects

Naturally, activating New G/L is not simply a question of flicking a switch. Mi-
gration always involves a project.

A Project involves multiple activities. Like:-

 New GL Migration
  Activation of Migration Cockpit
 Document Splitting
 Activation of Segment Reporting
 Activation of Parallel Accounting

Particularly if you are an existing customer in SAP, New G/L may under no cir-
cumstances simply be switched on. If you update a document during the start-
up process, you cannot undo the activity and, in the worst case, it may lead to
data inconsistency.

The SAP New GL Migration Project is itself a vast subject of FICO. Since the
purpose of this article is to provide you with a quick snapshot, I will cover the
GL Migration Project topic in detail in a separate article later on.

So, let’s move ahead now.

Other Dependent Projects

The following are the self-contained projects. These are not part of a migra-
tion project.
a. Introduction of a parallel accounting system
b. Introduction of segment reporting
c. Adjustment of the leading valuation, if a parallel valuation is already
performed
d. Adjustment of the leading valuation area in the asset accounting
e. Conversion of the Chart of Accounts
f. Currency conversion, such as the introduction of new currencies

SAP New GL Migration Cockpit

The Migration cockpit is a tool for performing the migration. It consists of

three parts that support the structured and efficient processing of migration
activities.
From here, you implement all activities that are not directly part of a specific
migration package. For example, you can create a project or package or regis-
ter selected users.

SAP System Landscape

Customers usually have a three-stage SAP ERP system architecture which

comprises the development, quality assurance and production system. These
systems generally involve separate SAP installations, each of which is con-
nected to a transport system.

With regard to migration, the individual systems assume the following func-
tions:-

Development System

In the development system, you configure New G/L development of BAPI or

your own programs also occur in this system

Quality assurance system

The quality assurance system is a copy of the production system. Additionally,

the system transports the new configuration and programming from the test
system to the quality assurance system.

So in principle, this system is suitable for test migrations to New G/L.

Production System

In the production system, you can access the configuration only to a very lim-
ited extent. Only when the last test migration completes successfully should
you change to the live operation.

The key points that you should remember while doing the New GL Migration

During the migration project, you must ensure that customizing for New G/L
Accounting has no negative effects on your current day-to-day activities.

You must prevent an “accidental activation” by all means.

If you use a scenario with document splitting in SAP FICO, it is necessary and
useful to transport the configuration (without activating New G/L) before the
migration to the production system.
Only under these conditions, you can perform the validation and logging of
document splitting rules.

You also need to consider an identical procedure for scenario migration from
the accounts approach to the ledger approach.

New GL Migration Scenarios in SAP

Scenarios in SAP New GL are used to define, which ledger is to be updated

during posting. The migrations primarily involve moving existing data.

Suppose you want an existing Classic Profit Center Accounting to map in New
G/L in the future. For this, you must copy the data from table GLPCT into the
new totals table FAGLFLEXT.

Therefore, you must deliver the Standardized methods and program packages
with the scenarios that SAP created. This finally helps to provide secure and
effective support for the migration within a project.

What a universal journal table ACDOCA covers and what not?

Yes, universal journal is the biggest innovation in the area of Finance in S/

4HANA which is clubbing various SAP components into a single accounting
document as a true integrated information system. Below picture is depicting
the structure of the universal journal in S/4HANA covering general ledger,
profit center accounting, fixed asset accounting, material ledger, controlling,
and profitability analysis.

Such integrated information helps in generating various reports of fixed as-

sets, inventory related topics, receivables, payables, revenue, COSG, balance
sheet, profit and loss etc. from this data source. This also resulted in the re-
duction of various tables (index, totals etc.).

In this blog, I am listing some key observations when comparing with classical
data structure:

1. Not everything in ACDOCA is there in BSEG

Below postings contains the line items in ACDOCA table only and not in BSEG
table (identified with document status as “U” in BSTAT field in BKPF table) for
the database improvement, performance etc.:

 Asset depreciation postings

 Ledger specific postings

 Foreign currency valuation postings

 CO internal postings

The year-end carry-forward figures are stored as period 000 in ACDOCA

 ACDOCA contains carry forward figures in period 000 in the table, and
thus when calculating YTD (year-to-date) figures, you do not need to go
back to previous years and can total 000 period related figures with
other periods needed.

ACDOCA volumn is quite large compared to BSEG

 Number of line items in ACDOCA table can be huge, as entries are

breaked down to the lowest level considering document splitting and
entries also gets multiplied based on the number of ledgers imple-
mented in the environment.

 So, the database size and partitioning need to consider such ACDOCA
volumn with a medium to long term business operation view.

Archived data appearance in ACDOCA even after deletion of BKPF/BSEG

records

 When you archive data in financial accounting, with delete step data in
BKPF/BSEG gets deleted for eligible records.
  However, ACDOCA table entries are not archived immediately and in-
stead an entry with inverted sign is inserted into ACDOCA to set the re-
sulting balance to zero.

 A real data record reduction from ACDOCA will take place by executing
compression run.

 The compression run replaces all entries of ACDOCA fulfilling above cri-
teria with aggregated entries. This aggregation takes place on the granu-
larity of the balance carry forward, thus no changing this balance. In
case balance will be zero (i.e. all documents and totals are already
archived), no aggregated entry will be written.

There can be difference between BSEG and ACDOCA for same dimension

 You may observe the same field having different value in BSEG Vs. AC-
DOCA for same record.

 g. you may be doing assignment (ZUONR) field changes in the entry

view from substitution process, but that substituted value may not have
copied to the ACDOCA table line. The field to be copied are governed
from BAdI BADI_FINS_ACDOC_BSEG_FIELDS and you should have a look
on this during your system substitution etc. on the financial information.

Custom fields in coding block – Integration to ACDOCA:

 When you add a custom field in the coding block structure, then will
also get added to ACDOCA as integrated.

 But how that field will be used in various unified journal entry process,
will be depending on the settings for such custom fields. You can see
that in a central table FINSC_ACDOC_FCT, which has various attributes
of such custom, e.g. for the process of:

o Usage for Balance carry forward for profit and loss

o Usage for Balance carry forward for balance sheet

o Usage for G/L totals

o Usage for G/L reporting

 o Usage for G/L balance valuation

o Usage for allowed changes in G/L during update FI doc

o Usage for directly user changes in G/L during update FI-doc

o Usage for G/L Allocations

o Usage for Summarization Level of a field in ACDOCA (Whether

summarized independently or depending on other criteria’s or
not summarize at all)

Reporting may go beyond ACDOCA – “most of time”

 Reporting may not be purely for financial details and that may need to
be mixed with other dimensions, like master data attributes, name of
supplier, cost center hierarchy etc.

 So, during reporting design, you need to leverage the SAP provided pre-
build CDS view combining universal journal data with other dimensions.
And yes, for new reports best practice is to develop based on ACDOCA
architecture rather than BSEG setup.

I hope this provided you some new perspective on looking at the universal
journal table ACDOCA!

The depreciation run is a periodic processing program in asset accounting

that posts planned depreciation to all relevant assets. Most companies execute
the depreciation run every month, although you could run this program on a
quarterly or yearly basis.

To execute a depreciation run with SAP S/4HANA Finance, follow the applica-
tion menu path Accounting > Financial Accounting > Fixed Assets > Peri-
odic Processing > Depreciation Run > AFAB - Execute. Alternatively, you
can enter Transaction AFAB directly.

On the selection screen shown in the figure below, enter the company code,
fiscal year, and posting period for which to run the depreciation. You can op-
tionally specify an accounting principle if you want to limit the run to one or
more specific accounting principles.
 You can choose the Totals Log radio button if you want to see only the depre-
ciation totals or choose the Detailed Log radio button to see the depreciation
for each asset.

For our example, select the Detailed Log radio button and select the Test
Run checkbox, so you can see the results and possible errors before actually
executing the run. Proceed by clicking the Execute button.

SAP Finance Sub modules comparison from

ECC to S/4 HANA