- SAP Managed Tags:
1. Introduction of the Topic
During the implementation process, a lot of customers are asking whether they can change the G/L account in the asset configuration, they want to change the G/L account due to the following reasons:
For whatever reason it is, the customer would like to change the G/L account. But they will meet this error stating that change of G/L account is not possible, which is a correct system behavior, once we have the posting in the old G/L account, we cannot change it into the new G/L account. The system is designed like that for a good reason: it prevents the effect on the input of the asset depreciation calculation as well as the analytical reporting. This mechanism exist in SAP ERP Central Component, SAP S/4HANA (Cloud).
The reasons that I would like to write this blog post is because, firstly, some of us would like to test the G/L account posting in the Q system but do not know that they cannot change it any more, so please keep in mind that this logic exist and will not change in the future as it is designed on purpose. You can only post asset posting when you are sure that G/L account configurations are correct. Secondly, I would like to show you how to make up this once you meet this error and you do need to change the G/L account.
2. Solution
The only GAAP compliant solution is to proceed with a mass asset transfer. You need to create a new asset class and transfer the asset from the old asset class to new asset class. In the following session, I will show how to do that in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
Business case: you would like to change the accumulated depreciation G/L account
First, you need to create additional asset class. We creating asset class Z2000 by copying 2000, and create additional G/L account 17002001 to replace 17002000 in the configuration step "assign G/L account".
We use the app "Post Transfer within Company code" for both single asset transfer and mass asset transfer.
Single asset transfer
For the single asset transfer, we have the ability to create the new asset at the same time.
After you execute the transfer, a document is posted showing that the old acquisition G/L account gets credit and new acquisition G/L account gets debit. (In our example here, we used the same G/L account for acquisition for these two asset class)
Let's take a look at the asset value of old and new asset. You will see that old asset 200007 has the transfer of -48 Euro, the new asset 200008 has the value of 48 Euro.
After the depreciation run, the accumulated depreciation G/L account has been changed, and the asset 2008 has actual depreciation value.
Mass asset transfer
In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, if you do a mass asset transfer, you need to first create the new asset master data manually or through data migration, we do not have the possibility to create the new asset master record during the mass asset transfer. In SAP S/4HANA on premise, you can use the worklist function to transfer mass asset and create the asset master data at the same time, but our blog post is focus on the Cloud solution, which I will not describe the worklist here.
In our test case here, we have 3 old assets in asset class 2000 and 3 new asset in asset class Z2000. and we execute the mass asset transfer.
The asset transfer posting is as follows, the asset value change will be the same as described above, which I will not show here.
3. Conclustion
We did not test a lot of the asset while writing the blog post. In reality, if you have a lot of assets, you need to do a careful plan to monitor the asset transfer, this is a huge of work, This is why we still recommend that to be careful when configuring the asset.
During the implementation process, a lot of customers are asking whether they can change the G/L account in the asset configuration, they want to change the G/L account due to the following reasons:
- They use the wrong G/L account
- They create the new G/L account with the wrong number range
- They want to differentiate the G/L account posting according to the asset class, but they didn’t do that during the implementation
- ...
For whatever reason it is, the customer would like to change the G/L account. But they will meet this error stating that change of G/L account is not possible, which is a correct system behavior, once we have the posting in the old G/L account, we cannot change it into the new G/L account. The system is designed like that for a good reason: it prevents the effect on the input of the asset depreciation calculation as well as the analytical reporting. This mechanism exist in SAP ERP Central Component, SAP S/4HANA (Cloud).
The reasons that I would like to write this blog post is because, firstly, some of us would like to test the G/L account posting in the Q system but do not know that they cannot change it any more, so please keep in mind that this logic exist and will not change in the future as it is designed on purpose. You can only post asset posting when you are sure that G/L account configurations are correct. Secondly, I would like to show you how to make up this once you meet this error and you do need to change the G/L account.
2. Solution
The only GAAP compliant solution is to proceed with a mass asset transfer. You need to create a new asset class and transfer the asset from the old asset class to new asset class. In the following session, I will show how to do that in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
Business case: you would like to change the accumulated depreciation G/L account
First, you need to create additional asset class. We creating asset class Z2000 by copying 2000, and create additional G/L account 17002001 to replace 17002000 in the configuration step "assign G/L account".
We use the app "Post Transfer within Company code" for both single asset transfer and mass asset transfer.
Single asset transfer
For the single asset transfer, we have the ability to create the new asset at the same time.
After you execute the transfer, a document is posted showing that the old acquisition G/L account gets credit and new acquisition G/L account gets debit. (In our example here, we used the same G/L account for acquisition for these two asset class)
Let's take a look at the asset value of old and new asset. You will see that old asset 200007 has the transfer of -48 Euro, the new asset 200008 has the value of 48 Euro.
After the depreciation run, the accumulated depreciation G/L account has been changed, and the asset 2008 has actual depreciation value.
Mass asset transfer
In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, if you do a mass asset transfer, you need to first create the new asset master data manually or through data migration, we do not have the possibility to create the new asset master record during the mass asset transfer. In SAP S/4HANA on premise, you can use the worklist function to transfer mass asset and create the asset master data at the same time, but our blog post is focus on the Cloud solution, which I will not describe the worklist here.
In our test case here, we have 3 old assets in asset class 2000 and 3 new asset in asset class Z2000. and we execute the mass asset transfer.
The asset transfer posting is as follows, the asset value change will be the same as described above, which I will not show here.
3. Conclustion
We did not test a lot of the asset while writing the blog post. In reality, if you have a lot of assets, you need to do a careful plan to monitor the asset transfer, this is a huge of work, This is why we still recommend that to be careful when configuring the asset.
4 Comments
