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Former Member
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Hi Friends, I am starting this blog series to provide details on some of the key new features of Sfin 2.0  / Simple Finance 1503 on premise edition.

Today I want to talk about the changes Parallel ledger and functionality of using Extension / Appendix ledger.

We will talk about the change in customizing, feature and how it helps in reducing data volume.

Change in Configuration :???:

To assign additional ledger to company code in the Simple Finance, these is few change in the location of customizing nodes

So if you see the above node, the assignment of Ledger to Company code is moved from the ledger menu.

Now the assignment is going to be done under the initial preparation steps for Simple Finance Migration

The node is "Define Settings for Journal Entry Ledger"

Inside the customizing is not much different:-

You can setup the ledger and Assign it to company code.

One key difference you can see if appearance of Appendix Ledger.

As per standard help provided by SAP:-

There are two types of ledger:

  • Standard: A standard ledger contains a full set of journal entries for all business transactions.
  • Appendix: An appendix ledger is assigned to a standard ledger and inherits all journal entries of the standard ledger for reporting. Postings made explicitly to an appendix ledger are visible in that appendix ledger but not in the underlying standard ledger. This concept can be used to avoid duplication of journal entries if many business transactions are valid for both ledgers and only a few adjustments are required in the appendix ledger.

For our example we will define another ledger A1 and use it. We will define it as an Appendix ledger. When you define an Appendix ledger , it also should have a base ledger which is the main ledger for the appendix ledger. For our example we will keep base ledger as "0L".

So what does this mean??

Lets suppose we have a company code with assignment to Ledger N1 as non leading ledger, To this we also assign ledger A1 for the company code.

Now we do a normal FB50 posting and see its affect on ACDOCA table:-

We will see how it is present in ACDOCA table:-

Note We see entry for both 0L and N1 ledger but not A1 as it is an appendix ledger.

Now we will do a ledger specific posting in ledger A1 itself using FB50L and compare how ACDOCA looks like

Now as you can see the ledger specific entry gets posted only to A1 ledger, which is similar to behavior in SAP New GL.

The key difference is that for appendix ledger entries do not flow in all cases, only when ledger specific posting are made.

How does new Asset Accounting fit with Appendix Ledger??

With SAP Simple Finance , SAP brought out new asset accounting which basically allowed firms to maintain ledger / accounting principle.

While writing this appendix ledger, a question was posed by my colleague Bharat on how this would work with New Asset Accounting.

A short answer would be It doesn't . It would be great if someone from SAP too confirms it.

To demo this, we first assign an accounting principle to our Ledger & Company Code combination

Next we will try to change our COD / Chart of Depreciation and see if we can use / assign this accounting principle

So we assign the accounting principle 60 here.

Note-we see the target group 0L shown for principle 60 which is assigned to our ledger A1. So only the Base ledger gets assigned in the COD.

Once we try to save it gives an error as the Target group is already assigned to main accounting principle / GAAP.

So for the appendix ledger and its assigned accounting principle the ledger group will always be 0L or the base ledger.

Hence it will mean that we cannot use appendix ledger (only) for the new asset accounting as you would always have 0L assigned to your main GAAP.

This is another criteria to evaluate your use of Appendix ledger

OK!!, So what does this mean

So the most profound change with using appendix ledger will be in reduction of data volume. You will not have an N multiple number of entries based on the ledger defined. Also the appendix ledger will show the entries of main ledger for reporting.

What is the use case for this? :???:

Suppose if the parallel ledger / Non leading defined in your current landscape does not have too many difference  in Accounting principles ( may be the accounting GAAP regulation are similar) and the number of Adjustment entries are very few ( say just ~ 20-30)

Then using an appendix ledger instead of an standard ledger / New GL parallel ledger will provide a data reduction by almost 100 %.

This will be a key benefit for organization having multiple entities in a single client.

Another criteria will be the use of New asset accounting and having cases where we have some asset posted to only a single GAAP / Accounting principle.

If these scenarios are present, then you cannot use appendix ledger to maintain those.

So these are the two main criteria for business / consultant to check before using appendix ledger.

Hope this blog helps, I will take up another concept in the next blog in the series.

Other blogs in the series:-


Reporting options with S/4 HANA

SAP S/4 Finance blog series-2-Reporting options with COPA as use case

IBP Setup and overview

SAP S/4 Finance blog series-3-SAP Integrated Business planning-Overview & Setup

S/4 1511 release & its details

S/4 Finance- Blog series-6- 1511 changes in detailsS/4 Finance- Blog series-6- 1511 changes in details

S/4 Finance- Blog series-5- 1511 and its details

CO-FI initial setup

SAP S/4 Finance blog series-4-Changes in Controlling  & how to use them

PS- Some more names :smile: - "Appendix ledger" is now renamed as "Extension ledger", "Base Ledger" as "Underlying Ledger" and "Standard Ledger" remains unchanged

Regards

Rishab

70 Comments
Former Member
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Excellent narration Rishab. Much appreciated.

Former Member
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Thanks Srinivas, appreciate the response :smile:

Former Member
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Updated the blog with the use case with new asset accounting, would love if someone from SAP can add more details on it.

Former Member
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Excellent piece of information.. thanks for sharing!

Former Member
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Hi Rishab,

I have been playing with the appendix ledgers in a sandbox. The functionality looks good and I understand the use case. However, I decided to also create a parallel standard ledger so I could highlight the differences to the users. Unfortunately, I receive the following error:

This appears to indicate that in simple finance only the appendix ledger is allowed as a non-leading ledger. Was the N1 ledger from your example a migrated ledger? or did you create it new in that system after simple finance was updated?

Can you confirm if you are able to create multiple standard ledgers in you simple finance instance? Or can someone from SAP confirm that the appendix ledger is now the only type of ledger that can be used for parallel ledgers in simple finance 1503?

Thanks,

John

Former Member
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Hi John,

You can always have non leading ledger created. Now you have just got 2 options:-

1 ) Standard

2) Appendix

In your screenshot above, I think you are trying to assign an appendix ledger to company code. This is not possible.

You can create a non leading as standard ledger only.

If you want to assign appendix ledger, make sure you create the appendix ledger which has 0L or any standard ledger assigned to it.

The appendix ledger will be mainly used as a reporting ledger only.

As said in blog it wont be possible to have New asset accounting in the appendix ledger.

Hope this clarifies.

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Thanks Rishab,

I have able to create an Appendix Ledger without issue it is assigned to 0L as the base ledger and assigned it to a company code.

The issue I am having is creating a standard non-leading ledger and assigning that to a company code is when the error above is received.

I will look into it further myself through other channels.

Thanks for you feedback and again this is a very helpful blog covering a topic with very little standard documentation.

John

Former Member
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Yes John, and if you see the posting which can be made, I dont think you can assign an Appendix ledger directly without it having an standard ledger assignment.

Thanks again, and lets keep exploring  new things in S4 HANA

Former Member
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Update on this error I displayed above. This is an issue that I will open an OSS note for. If you create a new standard ledger, don't save it, click the company code settings, select new entry you will receive the above error. If you save after creating the ledger, then come back and assign the company codes the error is not received.

Hope this helps if anyone else has this error.

John

Former Member
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Rishab

I am not trying to create an appendix ledger without a standard ledger assignment.


Please see my note below. It appears to be bad error that is being thrown by SAP. I will open and OSS and let you know what I find.

Former Member
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Awesome John :smile: :smile: , you help make SAP better

Former Member
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Very informative and useful post....keep going :smile:

Just a doubt, if i post a document in FB01L to an Asset, how will it impact?

Former Member
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Hi Suresh, if your question is that can I post to an appendix ledger by FB01L..well no you cant.

You cant setup the depreciation area on Appendix ledger only.

So only option is to use Standard ledger if you want to use New Asset Accounting

Former Member
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Hi Rishab,

I think we can post to appendix ledger by FB01L.

Regards,

Vikash

Former Member
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Hey Vikash,

I think my reply was confusing :smile:

So for appendix ledger:-

1) To normal document- Yes you can post and it is like any other ledger specific posting, as written in the blog :wink:

2) Now Suresh was asking ( or I assumed :oops: ) that he wants to post to an asset from FB01L with reference to asset. Thereby using Appendix ledger for asset accounting.

To this I have to say it is not quite possible or useful. This is because you cant have a depreciation area linked to Appendix ledger. So in this regard I said it is not possible to post to Asset and use New Asset Accounting with Appendix ledger

I hope this clarifies my reply..

Thanks Vikash

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hi Rishab,

Hats off to you for such an excellent initiative and contribution. One quick question is, if I'm migrating from New GL (with operating and non leading ledger) to SFIN then why would ideally I need a Appendix ledger. Because ideally I should be doing away with my non-leading ledger and using appendix ledger not both, please clarify.

Top of it if my NAA cannot work stand alone with Appendix ledger then even the above stated does not hold good, am I correct?

Thanks & regards,

Prasad Garud

Former Member
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Hi Prasad,

Excellent question..and it opens many perspectives:-

1) If you are migrating to Sfin and if you have 2 ledgers...both the ledgers have to be migrated and created as Standard ledgers... The technical migration and details on AC100 will tell you this.

It also makes sense as since the migration will move FAGL totals table to the new table and would want to have both the ledgers present to be able migrate 1 on 1..

2) So can you ever use Appendix ledger...yes but my guess is only after your Sfin system is up and running.

On your second statement..yes..if you have some Asset posting in non leading ledger..you cant use the Appendix ledger.. You should definitely go Standard ledger

So hope this clarifies this issue.

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hi Team,

I have completed migration of sFIN release 2 on a Sandbox and currently validating the transactions in various sub-ledgers.  In Asset accounting when in run depreciation I am betting below error.

Processing Terminated due to RFC error. Error message no: AA765. Any help in this regard please?

Regards,

Srini

9989477847

Former Member
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Thanks for replying Rishab.

Considering this, eventually if I have a situtation wherein I have a 0L as well as non operating ledger existing in New GL then ideally I need to set these up as standard ledgers in SFIN.

Eventually this means still I will be duplicating entries in ACDOCA table. This is because as per example provided in post above, when I post a document using FB50, this will update ACDOCA table for all the standard ledgers within SFIN, please confirm.

Top of it I cannot do away with setting up my non leading ledger in SFIN as standard ledger considering that I have asset accouting entries posted to my non leading ledger in existing New GL which cannot be supported in SFIN if I set it up as appendix ledger.

Once I set up my 0L as well as non operating ledger as standard ledgers, ideally speaking I don't need any appendix ledger as its not significant any more. So eventually I don't gain much from SFIN from a ledger perspective except for the fact that FAGLFLEXT (totals) table is not required in SFIN.

The whole reason SFIN cameup with appendix ledger is to avoid duplicate records per ledger in the table but that does not work well with NAA stand alone postings not going into Appendix ledger, please confirm my understanding on this shortcoming.

Thanks again,

Prasad Garud


Former Member
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Hi Srinivas,

Could you please open a discussion in this forum..

More people will be able to see your query and reply to it.

Also please provide more details on the issue.

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hi Prasad,

About your query, I have couple of points which I would like to mention:-

1) Migration process- If you see the below given path and when you run the migration, SAP would check your current settings and migrate the customizing to your new Sfin system. I am talking about the step highlighted in yellow.

This step will migrate your customizing and will create your existing ledgers as standard ledgers ( lets say L1 is your ledger)

Now after this you run the subsequent steps and migrate the ledger level data.

This is the step which will occur in migration and is pretty much standard and you cant change much here.

But if you really want to use appendix ledger only ( which means you dont have any depreciation area which was posting to L1  and have only very few posting in L1), then

you may decommission L1 ( read note-891144) and then create appendix ledger and use it.

This will be an expensive route and benefit will only be on data volume front. Also it would be fraught with issues considering you are doing SFIN migration too.

2) The idea of appendix ledger is to support reporting for a GAAP which is not much different from my leading GAAP ( if I may say it) for my entity. So in your scenario, if client wants to have a book for tax reporting purpose where very few accounting difference lies, you can use the appendix ledger.

Hope this helps,

I will confirm that you cannot use NAA with appendix ledger standalone.

Thank you for your perspective :smile: :smile: , It has added a good dimension to this blog

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hi,

When you tried to assign a depreciation area to the appendix ledger did you use a delta area?

Thanks

Andras

Former Member
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Thanks a lot Rishab for the clarification, I'm quiet clear now.

I'm leading here at at client site and we plan to migrate to SFIN next year....so all of this did help me to get deeper insight....will keep this blog posted for few newer things that I research and find.

Thanks,

Prasad Garud

Former Member
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Sure Prasad, happy to help

Former Member
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Hi Rishab, I have updated it as add comment only here in the blog. Not sure where it is missing

Former Member
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Recently implemented Sfin parallel ledgers.

Beautifully put to gether.

Great job & Thanks :wink:

Former Member
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Very informative article.

Former Member
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Great work, indeed very helpful.

Regards

Ruksana

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Nice summation..thanks

Just thinking aloud on use of appendix ledger... If i have some crazy audit adjustment (pushed down from corporate) that i do not want updated on my leading ledger... i can create appendix ledger and post audit adjustments.

In the end i have 2 sets of trial balance

- Trial balance before audit adjustment on leading ledger 0L

- Trial balance after audit adjustment on appendix ledger.

Just a suggestion... there will always be a counter argument.

Siva

Former Member
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Thanks Aman for your kind words :smile:

Former Member
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Thanks Ruksana, do read other blogs put by me :smile: :smile:

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hey Siva,

Yes that is a good use case :smile: :smile:

and more we know and understand about the solution the more we can link and use SAP better :smile:

Thanks again,

Regards

Rishab

RPrabakar
Participant
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Hello guys,

Thanks for great blogs here, lots of learning. Here are some more doubts - in NGL leading and non leading ledgers were pointed to different FY variants, would that be possible now with extension ledger (Appx Ledg), in that case we may have NAA inconsistency..what are your views, can we discuss in detail about it?

Thanks - Prabhakar

Former Member
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Hi Rishab,

Great info..

I have one question- I am trying to configure appendix ledger but when I go to "Define ledger" there is no option of "appendix ledger " in drill down. It's "Standard Ledger" and "Extension Ledger".

Also can I have Appendix ledger assigned to another appendix ledger or it should be always leading/non leading ledger?

Thanks-Rashmi

Former Member
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Hey Rashmi,

Appendix ledger is renamed to Extension ledger and the extension ledger will behave the same as told about appendix ledger

About the second question, you cant have an extension ledger assigned to another extension ledger.

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Thanks Rishab.. :smile:

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Rishab, very good blog. With reference to your error coming from new AA please notice that if you configure the system in NewGL to use account-approach parallel accounting, same error will come in AA. As i need to configure separate accounting principle within the same leading ledger i want to assign them in AA dep. areas. Then ledger group is inactive as field and you can set only acc. prinicple per each dep. area. If you put both, you have same error as you stated, as well... Now i'll post incident message most probably to get some help from SAP...

Former Member
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Good going Karwacki, Do post your solution and response.

Regards

Rishab

former_member189603
Participant
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Hi Ramky,

To my understanding, the company code settings for the appendix ledger are derived from the standard ledger to which it is assigned. So I beleive it won't be possible to assign a different FY to an appendix ledger.

rishab.bucha kindly confirm.

former_member189603
Participant
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Hi Rishab,

Excellent Blog. It is very useful piece of inofrmation. I have recently started learning about SFIN and your blogs will certainly help me. Once again Thanks for the Efforts.

"KEEP WRITING & SHARING"

Regards,

Saurabh

Former Member
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Hello Saurabh,

Thank you for your kind words, Other 4 blogs are present  which will help you further,

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hi Rishab,

Excellent document.Thanks for the contribution.

Regards,

Kalim

Former Member
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Hey Mohammed,

Thank you for your kind words,

There are other 4 blogs done by me on IBPF, COPA reporting and FI-CO setup steps

Would love to hear from you on those too,

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Hello,

Thanky you very much for excellent article.

all the best erwin

Former Member
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Hey Erwin,

Thanks for your feedback,

Please do check my other blogs on IBP, COPA reporting, 1511 feature, CO initial setup.

Would love to hear from you

Regards

Rishab

Former Member
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Nice Presentation Rishab,

I do have a question for the use cases mentioned above for Appendix ledger. I understand the first point of using its as similar to parallel ledger. Could you explain the other use you mentioned, pasted below.

=========================

Another criteria will be the use of New asset accounting and having cases where we have some asset posted to only a single GAAP / Accounting principle.

If these scenarios are present, then you cannot use appendix ledger to maintain those.

=========================

Thanks

Former Member
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Hello Jamshed,

Thank you for your feedback,

The criteria which I mentioned is for using New Asset accounting solution which allows ledger / accounting principle specific posting and maintenance of Asset values.

This wont work if you have appendix ledger and you can only go for delta accounting approach.

Hope this helps,

Regards

Rishab

Muralinag14
Active Contributor
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As per SAP, Appendix ledger can’t be assigned for any automatic postings, it’s just for manual ledger specific postings. May be SAP will trying to add some other functionalities in future. Regards Murali. N

RPrabakar
Participant
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Hi Guys,

Great discussion. Elsewhere in the KT material, it is mentioned that extension ledgers are used to post the adjustments (babu you are right). That said, in new asset accounting, SAP has dropped dep area posting ( delta area differential posting between 2 dep areas were posted earlier). Now that it is based on accounting principle, most of the times two accounting principles will not have same fiscal year variant, for ex US GAAP(sep-aug) and India GAAP (Apr-Mar). This will also have some issue in New Asset Accounting as both Asset and FI modules should have one fiscal year variant. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Regards, Prabhakar

Muralinag14
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

in sFIN also no specific solution, please check sap note 1951069