Documents

In this section I discuss documents and the various elements regarding them, I will cover
the following

 Types
 Number Ranges
 Screen Variants
 Change Rules
 Tolerance Groups
 Parking
 Archiving
 Validation and Substitution
 Default Values

As I have mentioned SAP transaction processing is based on the document principle, with a
unique document being generated as a result of a posting in Financial Accounting (FI).
There are two types of documents original and processing

Original Documents checks, receipts, invoices, bank statements, etc

Processing Documents accounting documents, recurring entry, etc

It is important to remember that once a document is posted and a document number

generated, you cannot change or modify the document, except for certain fields (descriptive
text), this makes sure that the transaction integrity is always maintained, if you want to
make changes to amounts or tax codes you have to post a new document.

There are several types of documents in the system with each document numbered
uniquely, form a pre-defined number range which can be internally or externally supplied.
Together with posting keys (which we will talk about later) will allow a document to posted
and will determine the accounts to post too.

There are two different area's in a document - a header and the line items

Header identifies a document

Line Items portrays the transactions of the document

In the below screenshots you can see a document header (left-hand screenshot) and a data
entry view which contains part of the header and the line items (right-hand screenshot)
First lets discuss the document header which contains of the following elements

 Document Date - represents when the transaction took place (posting, invoice or
payment), it is when the original document was issued, this will generally be prior
to the posting date, it is a mandatory field
 Document Type - determines which account (G/L, customer, vendor, etc) a
document is to be posted to, it also determines the type of transaction as to invoice,
payment, credit memo, etc.
 Company Code - represents the legal entity for which the document is prepared
 Currency or Exchange Rate - when you enter the currency key the system
automatically transfers the valid exchange rate for that posting date, however you
can enter a specific exchange rate to be used.
 Translation Date - used when you want to use a different exchange rate from the
document date, together the system will determine the applicable exchange rate for
the date entered
 Posting Date - is the date which the transactions is entered into the system, this in
general will be later than the document date, this field is also mandatory.
 Period - the posting period is derived from the posting date, see PPV for more
information
 Document Number - depends on the document type (internally or externally)
 Reference - used for searching, it can contain any business reference, including the
document number.
 Ref. Transactn - describes the type of business transaction
 Entered by - the user who created the document
 Entry date - the date which the document was entered
 Parked by - the user who parked the document (if the document was parked before
posting)
A document header can also contain document text, trading partner business area and cross
company code number, there are also some rules regarding the document header

 The document date can be different from the posting date, you can enter any date
(past or future) from a permitted posting period as the document date, though the
system will default to the current date as the posting date. When you post to the
previous periods in the fiscal year the carry forward balance for the current year is
automatically corrected in the special periods.
 The posting date can also be different from the document entry date and the
document date (date when the original document was created)
 You must enter a currency key when entering the first document of the day and the
system will default to this currency key when entering in all subsequent documents
for that day, the same is true for the company code. However you able to change
these.
 You can edit REFERENCE, DOC.HEADER TEXT, CROSS-COMPANY CODE
NO and TRADING BUSINESS PARTNER AREA in the document header

A line item is made up of an account number, posting key (otherwise known as the debit or
credit indicator), amount and additional details such as tax code, tax amount, cost or profit
center, business area and segment, each document will have at least two line items.

You can automatically enable the system to automatically create some of the line items
such as

 Tax on sales or purchases while entering customer/vendor invoice

 Payables and receivables between company codes when posting cross-company
code transactions
 Gains or losses from exchange rate differences between invoice and payment
(customer/vendor)
 Cash discount paid/received during payment postings
 Residual items or bank charges while posting a customer or vendor payment and
clearing open items
 Tax adjustment posting for a down payment when entering special G/L transactions

You can only post a complete document in the system, it is considered complete when its
debit is equal to credit. It can always simulate a posting to check that it is correct, just make
sure that the traffic light for the document is green, if red the document will not be posted
as there is a error.

In the below screenshot you can see a document, you can clearly see the document type AA
(asset)
You can then drilldown into the document and see the line items, using the hat icon you can
get more details on the header

Document Types

Set a the client level and applicable for the whole document a document type distinguishes
business transactions and helps in document storage. It also helps in the following

 Controlling posting to the correct account types (customer, vendor, assets, G/L, etc)
 Assigning number ranges
 Determining if vendor net procedure must be applied (to calculate any discount and
post the net amount during vendor invoice posting)

Below is a screenshot of some of the document types already configured in the system
Using Datadisk Mobility we will configure the system to demonstrate how to configure/use
document types, first we will create the document type JD, for this we will use transaction
code OBA7, select the new entries button and fill in the detail below, although we specify
the number range as JD we will be creating this later

 Document type - enter a two character identifier

 Number Range - we will discuss this later in this section
 Reverse Document Type - this document type will be used for reversals, if left
blank the system use the original document type
 Authorization Group - this restricts the use of that type to effectively control the
postings
 Account Types Allowed - the type account that this document type can be used
with
 Btch Input Only - used for batch processing
 Net Document Type - applicable only for vendor invoices, this enables you to
deduct cash discounts from vendor invoices when posted with the document type
KN (net vendors)
 Cust/Vend Check - this imposes a restriction that not more than one vendor or
customer account would be allowed to be posted in the same document
 Negative Posting Permitted - when selected you can reserve the original postings
without altering the trial-balance transaction figures, this is only possible when the
company code has been configured with to receive negative postings
 Inter-Company Postgs - this allows cross-company account assignments within a
single document, this enables account assignment to several partners and account
assignment to one or more trading partners and one external business partner
  Enter Trading Partner - check this to enter the trading partner manually in the
document, it is normally transferred to a posting document from the master record.
You may select this checkbox in combination with Inter-Company Postgs
 Ex Rate Type for Foreign Crncy Doc - use this exchange rate as the default when
no exchange rate is specified in the document header, this applies when you do not
want the default exchange rate to be used by the system, by default the system uses
type M (average rate) when no exchange rate is defined.
 Reference Number - use this if you want a reference number to be entered during
document entry
 Document Header Text - select this is you want to mandatory text to be entered
 Debit Rec Indic - this applies to global companies in a joint venture where the costs
incurred are shared among various recovery indicators and settled among them
using periodic settlement program, use this to denote the the debit recovery
indicator of the debit lines of a document type
 Rec Ind Credit - this denotes the internal recovery indicator and is similar to above
except that this is on the credit side.

Do not select the Inter-Company Postgs checkbox if you want to make postings to asset
accounts for that document type, this is also true if you want to inherit the partner company
in all the line items for consolidation purposes. Select the checkbox for business
transactions such as adjustment postings and postings that have no effect on sales
(automatic payments) but require account assignments on an inter-company basis. You can
set both Debit Rec Indic and Rec Ind Credit at the document type level, cost element level
or cost object level.
Now we need to make the reference number mandatory for the document types DR, KR,
RE and RN as per the below screenshot, remember to save when updating

Document Numbering

The document number helps to identify a specific document with a company code and
fiscal year, each document is uniquely numbered from the document range, it is assigned
when you post a document. As document numbers ranges are company code dependant you
need to create them for each of your company codes. The document number is
alphanumeric and can be up to 10 characters, if shorter than 10 characters the number is
padded with leading zero's (0) if numeric and trailing zero's (0) if alphanumeric. You can
have both the same or different number ranges for both master records and other
documents. You can also use the same document numbers ranges in different company
codes.

You can select either of the two types of number ranges

you allow the system to automatically assign a document number, sequentially from a rang
Internal defined for a particular document type. The internal numbers are always numeric and th
in the current number field
you supply a unique number every time you create a new document, this number could com
External
system. No last number is stored in the current number field.
Each number range will have a validity period defined in the system, this can be year-
dependant or year-independent

defined only once all year-independent number ranges last forever in the system (with valid
year-
create fairly large number interval to make sure that you don't run out of numbers, this is im
independant
must be sequential
you define these with a specific fiscal year, so you will need to do this every year or you ca
year-dependent
keep you going. You can make the number ranges smaller as you will be creating them eve

Although it is possible to change the numbering you should only do this in special
circumstances, as long as the number has not been used the system will allow you to do
this, the system will warn you if a number has been used already.

You can also have number ranges for reversal documents, for all document types with
internal numbering the system uses the same number range for reversal as well, unless you
specify separate internal number ranges. You should define separate number intervals for
special documents such as sample and recurring documents, you should not use these
intervals for any other document types, SAP recommends using the number range "X1" for
recurring entry documents and "X2" for sample documents, so not to interfere with SAP's
standard settings. Try to create a link between the original document and the processing
document, on the invoice you could write SAP document number and in SAP you can use
the reference number field to hold the original invoice number, then you have a clear link
between the documents.

Now lets create the document ranges for the Datadisk Mobility, to create number ranges we
use transaction code FBN1, the initial screen asks for a company code and has three buttons

 intervals (spy glasses) - used to view already defined number ranges

 intervals (pencil) - used to create or delete number ranges
 status - allows you to change the current number field
We select the intervals with the pencil (the below screenshot is the display button), then
select the plus icon to add an interval. Then add the below number ranges for the year 2013,
notice that the JD number range is external, then save.

Now we can save some time by copying the number ranges to additional fiscal years, we
use transaction code OBH2 to do this, just enter the details below and save, you will get a
results screen.

If we go back to transaction code FBN1 you will notice that the additional number ranges
for the fiscal year 2014 have been created.
Now again to save time we can copy these number ranges across our company codes
(DD12, DD13, DD21 and DD22)

Again we get a result screen detailing that the numbers ranges have been copied to the
company codes.

You can maintain the document entry screen variant either using transaction code OBY6 or
OB71 (as seen in the below screenshot), we are using standard variant 2 (applicable for all
countries where extended withholding tax is in force).
Normally after posting you will not be able to change the content of fields (amount or
account), which is central to the document principle, however with the help of document
change rules that we will be discussed next you can determine when fields within the
posted document can be changed. Even with this rules you still will be prevent from
changing some objects (business area, cost center), it is recommended not to tinker with the
document change rules that have already been supplied by the system.

We use transaction code OB32 to add or change the document change rules, you have
change rules for document header, line items, the initial screen details the document field
names, just double click on a field

In the below screenshot's I have chosen the reference and the bank account fields, as you
can see the reference field can be changed but the bank account cannot.
You can view table NRIV to display the number ranges

Posting Keys

A document cannot be posted without entering a posting key, the posting key controls the
entry as well as the processing of a line item in a document, it determines the type of
account that can be posted with that key whether the amount should be posted to the debit
or the credit side of the account, what fields will be displayed on the document entry screen
and the field status of these fields (see FSG and FSV).
SAP comes with a number of posting keys as you can see from the screenshot below, you
can use transaction OB41 to create/change or delete posting keys

To create a new posting key select the create button and fill in the details, two characters
for the posting key and some descriptive text

The next screen is the detail screen, most of the below is self-explaining, if you do select a
reversal key make sure that this is configured first.
You can view the table TBSL for the posting keys

Tolerance Groups

Defining tolerances instructs the system on how to handle the following issues within the
defined tolerance limits

 What is the maximum (payment) difference amount for which the system should
adjust the cash discount, the difference is added or subtracted from the cash
discount
  What is the maximum amounts or percentages for which the system should
automatically post any difference to a separate gain or loss account if the cash
discount cannot be adjusted

There are three types of tolerances

 Employee tolerance
 Customer and vendor tolerance
 G/L account clearing tolerance

Basically you administer tolerance through groups, for example the employee tolerance
group will apply to all employees within the group. The system will use the lowest
tolerance group while processing a document.

See Datadisk Mobility for the tolerance groups and limits that we will configure, we will
use transaction code OBA4, select the new entry icon, first we will create the null tolerance
group for the company code DD11,

Now do this for the remain company codes, you can use the copy as button, you will have
to remove the decimal point for DD13, you should end up with something like below, five
null tolerance groups.

Null Tolerance Groups Specific Toleran

Now lets explain this how this works on how the system manages payment differences that
are within the defined tolerance limits, first the system will adjust the cash discount when
there is a payment difference, if not possible it then looks at the percentage or amount
settings in revenue or expense rows and goes ahead with processing

Lets see some test cases to really get a better picture

Lets say that an invoice os $20,000 and the following is set

Set the  Expense and Revenue (cash discount adjust to) is set to $5
Scene  Expense (Amount and Percentage) are set to a maximum of $15 and 0.5%
 Revenue (Amount and Percentage) are set to a maximum of $15 and 0.5%

Incoming payment of $1986

Since this is an underpayment the system first checks if the expense (cash discount adjust to) can
Case 1 the payment difference, because the difference ($14) exceeds the discount adjustment limit of $5
Now the system looks up at the Expense (Amount and Percentage) field values, These are 0.5% o
the actual payment is $14 (2000 - 1986) which is well within the Expense (Amount) upper limit o
to book the loss of $14 to an expense amount and the transaction is cleared automatically.
Case 2 Incoming payment of $1990
 Again this is an under payment so the system checks the Expense (cash discount adjust to), as the
exceeds the discount adjustment limit of $5, the discount is not adjusted. Again the system looks
and Percentage) field values, 0.5% of 2000 = $10 and registers that the actual payment difference
The system proceeds to book the loss of $10 to an expense amount and the transaction is cleared
Incoming payment of $1997
Case 3
The system adjusts Expense (cash discount adjust to) to accommodate the payment difference ($3
the discount adjustment limit of $5 and thus a posting $3 is automatically carried out to a cash di
The system will tolerate an under-payment or over-payment to a maximum of $15, which can be
Summary
2015, if an invoice amount is $2000.

All the payment differences exceeding the tolerance limits set for automatically clearing
them can be treated either as partial payment or residual items.

 Partial payments - the system does not clear the original receivable, but posts the
payment with an invoice reference and enters the invoice number in the invoice
reference field in the payment items. To determine the due date of the payment the
system calculates the net due date for an invoice, this date is then entered in the
baseline date field of the payment. The payment is then included in the dunning
program and in cash management at this date, in other words some action will need
to place regarding this payment.
 Residual payments - can be used to clear the original receivables and post the
remaining amount to the customer account as a residual item. The payment amount
is noted in the line for the original receivables and post the remaining amount to the
customer account as a residual item. The payment amount is noted in the line item
for the original receivable.

You can also clear such original receivables and post the difference to an expense account.

To assign users to tolerance groups we will use transaction code OB57, remember if a user
is not assigned to a tolerance group he/she will be assign to the null tolerance group. The
screenshot below shows that the user vallep is assigned to the tolerance group DDGB.

You can view the table T043T for the tolerance groups
The user/tolerance group table is T043, you can see that user BC_RFC is assigned to
tolerance group 1000

Define Text for Line Items

You can predefine text for line items which saves you from having to input the same text
for line items, you just enter a short text key and field will be populated with the entire text
when you press enter and you can also maintain them in different languages define by the
logon.

We will use transaction OB56 to create our text lines, see Datadisk Mobility for all the text
lines we will be creating, the id (up to 4 characters) and text edit format (max 50 characters)
fields are self explaining the control display field tells the system to display the text that
will be transferred to the line item and gives you a chance to modify if you so desire.

Default Values
You can speed up input by using default values, you can have default values for document
type, fiscal year, value, posting date, the system will also allow you to change them if you
so wish. I will show how to

 Default document type or posting key for a transaction (defining default values)
 Default fiscal year
 Default value date
 Message control for document processing

First we will start with define default values regarding the document type and posting keys,
for this we will use transaction OBU1, double-click on the required entry and update the
dialog screen with the new values, select continue to save.

You can get the system to propose a fiscal year default, this can be useful if you use year-
dependant document number ranges, we use transaction code OB63, just select the propose
fiscal year checkbox

We can get the system to propose a default value date, this will use the CPU date as the
default date when you enter line items in a document. We will use transaction code OB68,
select the proposed value date checkbox for the company codes.
You can setup system messages, these can be in either a dialog box or in the footer, you can
also change warnings to error messages, deactivate warnings and error messages and make
specifications for dialog processing and batch input processed in the background. We will
use transaction code OBA5, first select we select the application area, in our case we will
select F5 (type in F5 not hit F5 button)

This then takes you to the change/new entries screen, here you can switch off messages,
create new messages, etc. I will leave you to the documentation to dive deeper in message
control.

Document Parking

Document parking allows you to enter and park (store) incomplete documents in the system
without extensive entry checks, you can call up the parked document at a later date and add,
change, check or post it. I will discuss the following
  Changing the posting date for a parked documents

For each company code you can set the posting date is to remain unchanged or can be
overwritten with the system date by selecting from the available options

 posting date is not changed during posting (blank)

 posting date is set to the system date during posting (1)
 posting date is set to the system date if the posting period is closed (2)

Datadisk Mobility wants all the parked documents to be posted with the system date as the
posting date, we will use transaction code OBD1, just enter a value in the prk pst dt field, in
our case we will enter 1. You can use this function only in classic FI parking transactions,
in the new FI Enjoy (single-screen) transactions you can change the posting date at any
time.

Validation and Substitution

You can use validation to minimize errors in document entry, as this will call for additional
checks other than the system-built mandatory checks while posting a document.
Substitution on the other hand will enable the system to populate certain certain fields with
the appropriate values (business area, cost center, etc) based on a pre-defined conditions in
the system.

First we will look at validation, which as I mentioned above allows you to to perform
additional checks to minimize data entry errors. Validations are define at the company code
level and you can set them for either the document header or line items, once set they will
be used for automatic or manual entries.

For Datadisk Mobility lets create a validation for company code DD11 that only allows
business units FIX and SERV, for this we will use transaction code OB28, on the overview
screen select new entries and enter the details below
On the next screen select the validation button

Enter the name and descriptive text as per the below screenshot, then highlight DD11 in the
line item in the validations window on the left-hand side and select the step button

This will create a new folder called Step 001 as you can see below, you can add some
descriptive text, Now select the prerequisite icon from the window
And enter in the expert mode window (the white window on top of the right-hand side, if
not in export mode select settings->expert mode ) the text show in the below screenshot

Then select the check icon in the left-hand window and again in the expert mode window
enter the text as below
Finally we assign a message number (in this case 004) to the validation, this will be
displayed if any errors occur when posting

Save the configuration and select the Step 001 folder where all the configuration will be
displayed
Now finish off the first put of the configuration by activating the validation, this means
putting a 1 in the Activtn level column (0 - inactive, 1 - active and 3 - active but no batch
input)

You can now add additional validations for the remaining company codes is you so desire.

Substitutions helps to replace field contents based on a pre-defined condition/s, as with

validation you can use them with document headers or line items and they are for both
automatic and manual entries. The procedure is the same as validation, we will use
transaction code OBBH, add the text below

This time we only need to add the prerequisite and substitutions which is similar to what
we did for the validations
To insert substitutions you select the computer with a green cross a dialog box will appear
listing what fields can be substituted, here I selected Location the next screen will ask if
you want to method you want to use, here I choose constant value and entered NE. What
this means is that if the BSEG-ZZSTATE equals any of the above screenshot the location
field will be change or populated to NE.

Again selecting the step 001 folder displays all the details of the substitution

Lastly we activate the substitution by putting a 1 in the activtn level column

Archiving Documents

You can archive or delete old documents that you no longer need, you can specify the
number of days that an accounting document (and the respective secondary indexes) must
be kept in the system for before archiving, you can specify if it is either a document type or
an account type. We will use transaction code OBR7 (account life) and OBR8 (document
life), I will explain the account life which is the same as the document life,

 CoCd - company code

 AcType - the type of account (A - assets, D - Customer accounts, K- vendor
accounts, etc)
 From acct - here we select 0 and A to cover both numeric and alphanumeric
accounts
 To acct - same as above
 Life - minimum life for the account
 SecondaryIdxRun Time - you determine how many days the secondary index for a
document can remain in the system with respect to the clearing date and archiving
key date

The below screenshot's shows that an account cannot be archive until it exceeds 730 days,
however even after archiving the accounts need to be available to be accessed from the
respective archives for at least 365 days (1095 - 730)

Finally we can check to see if an account or document can be archived, we use transactions
code FB99, at the initial screen enter the details of the document and select the green tick
A results screen then appears details if the document can be archived, in our case below yes
it can.

For more information on Documents from a users point of view see my other Documents
section.