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This blog looks at how you can deal with currency errors in purchase orders that have been converted to accrual objects, but with no successful periodic accrual postings.
Mistakes at work occur from time to time, sometimes they’re spotted by you and me, and sometimes by the system.
In the Purchase Order Accruals app (part of the Accruals Management solution), purchase order relevant data is transferred to the Accrual Engine, and then automatically converted to accrual items. Sometimes you find that everything seems to be running smoothly until you try to propose accrual amounts by running an accruals job,. Then you find yourself reading an error message that says 'inconsistent currency', and you start to wonder why this happens and how you correct the error.
We received some customer incidents recently asking how to address this issue, after users discovered that the currency is inconsistent between the accrual objects and the purchase orders. The root cause is obvious, and it’s clear that someone changed the currency in a purchase order after it was transferred to accrual objects. However, it's not easy to simply change it back when you have two systems integrated with each other. The steps you need to take vary depending on the context.
This is the simplest case, where you spot the currency error in the Manage Purchase Orders app before the Accrual Engine generates any posting data, regardless of whether online integration is applied or not. As no accrual records exist, the ideal solution is to correct the currency of the purchase order, automatically convert or manually transfer the purchase order to accrual objects again, and that's the end of work to be done.
This means that you've applied all the following four categories when configuring accrual item types to deal with deferrals:
As S/4HANA Cloud users, you can configure the categories for accrual item types in the Define Accrual Item Types and Methods for Purchase Order Items configuration activity. For S/4HANA users, go to the Define Accrual Item Types Customizing activity for this.
In this situation, errors are often spotted after the goods receipts or supplier invoices are recorded from the purchase order side. However, it is impossible to change the transaction currency in an accrual object. So, if the purchase order allows changes in currency, what you need to do is reverse the goods receipt or invoice first, then change the currency, and then re-transfer the purchase order to accrual objects.
If you use accrual item types for accruals only, which means you don’t configure the D category, you probably won’t meet the same inconsistency issue at all because the logic of the Accrual Engine always catches the currency conversion.
The proposed accruals that were generated by the Accrual Engine need to be overwritten with the updated currency. Otherwise, the system generates the error message in a propose job when it detects the inconsistent currency between the two applications. To deal with this situation, you need to do the following:
This table gives a summary of the error handling steps described above:
Of course, you might have more complicated cases other than the ones mentioned in this blog piece. For example, if you’ve posted accruals for some periods before you receive the error message reporting a currency inconsistency. Currently there isn’t any available workaround for currency correction in purchase orders after accruals are successfully posted. We’ll give you updates on this when we have something in place.
For more information about configuring and customizing purchase order accruals, please refer to the SAP Help Portal:
Mistakes at work occur from time to time, sometimes they’re spotted by you and me, and sometimes by the system.
In the Purchase Order Accruals app (part of the Accruals Management solution), purchase order relevant data is transferred to the Accrual Engine, and then automatically converted to accrual items. Sometimes you find that everything seems to be running smoothly until you try to propose accrual amounts by running an accruals job,. Then you find yourself reading an error message that says 'inconsistent currency', and you start to wonder why this happens and how you correct the error.
We received some customer incidents recently asking how to address this issue, after users discovered that the currency is inconsistent between the accrual objects and the purchase orders. The root cause is obvious, and it’s clear that someone changed the currency in a purchase order after it was transferred to accrual objects. However, it's not easy to simply change it back when you have two systems integrated with each other. The steps you need to take vary depending on the context.
Case 1: The goods receipts or supplier invoices are created for the purchase order, and you spot the currency inconsistency before running a ‘propose’ job.
This is the simplest case, where you spot the currency error in the Manage Purchase Orders app before the Accrual Engine generates any posting data, regardless of whether online integration is applied or not. As no accrual records exist, the ideal solution is to correct the currency of the purchase order, automatically convert or manually transfer the purchase order to accrual objects again, and that's the end of work to be done.
Case 2: You've chosen to use purchase order deferrals when you configure accrual item types and you haven’t run a ‘propose’ job.
This means that you've applied all the following four categories when configuring accrual item types to deal with deferrals:
- N - Accrual/Deferral for an accrual item type
- P - Plan for an accrual item type for planned costs
- A - Actual for an accrual item type for actual costs
- D - Deferral (with accruals) for a deferral item type for deferred costs
As S/4HANA Cloud users, you can configure the categories for accrual item types in the Define Accrual Item Types and Methods for Purchase Order Items configuration activity. For S/4HANA users, go to the Define Accrual Item Types Customizing activity for this.
In this situation, errors are often spotted after the goods receipts or supplier invoices are recorded from the purchase order side. However, it is impossible to change the transaction currency in an accrual object. So, if the purchase order allows changes in currency, what you need to do is reverse the goods receipt or invoice first, then change the currency, and then re-transfer the purchase order to accrual objects.
If you use accrual item types for accruals only, which means you don’t configure the D category, you probably won’t meet the same inconsistency issue at all because the logic of the Accrual Engine always catches the currency conversion.
Case 3: You have successfully proposed accrual amounts for the purchase order with the original currency.
The proposed accruals that were generated by the Accrual Engine need to be overwritten with the updated currency. Otherwise, the system generates the error message in a propose job when it detects the inconsistent currency between the two applications. To deal with this situation, you need to do the following:
- Reverse the goods receipt or supplier invoice from the purchase order document.
- Correct the currency in the purchase order.
- Wait for the purchase order transfer to the Accrual Engine.
- Re-run a job to propose accruals with the correct currency.
This table gives a summary of the error handling steps described above:
Of course, you might have more complicated cases other than the ones mentioned in this blog piece. For example, if you’ve posted accruals for some periods before you receive the error message reporting a currency inconsistency. Currently there isn’t any available workaround for currency correction in purchase orders after accruals are successfully posted. We’ll give you updates on this when we have something in place.
For more information about configuring and customizing purchase order accruals, please refer to the SAP Help Portal:
