Analyzing the Automatic Account Assignment of your SAP General Ledger Accounts
Paul Ovigele, Ovigele Consulting
Ever wondered how you can easily find out where G/L accounts are assigned in the system? The assignment of accounts is made in several tables depending on which module the table represents, so there has never been an easy way to find out where an account has been assigned without going into several configuration transactions. In the past, this was a laborious process which involved downloading certain tables (if you had the access!) into Microsoft excel and performing various manipulations of the data (vlookup, pivot tables, etc) to get the information that you need.
That is up until release ECC 5.0, where SAP has delivered the ‘Account Detective’ report. This report lists all the accounts in a company code or chart of accounts along with their master data settings, and gives you the option of finding out where they have been assigned.
To access the ‘Account Detective’ go to transaction S_ALR_87101048. If you want to analyze the accounts in just one company code, then enter the company code and check the box “Only Accounts in the Company Code”.
Then enter the relevant controlling area and chart of accounts. You can only enter one chart of accounts because most account determination tables are populated on a chart of accounts basis. You can then either enter one or several accounts that you want to analyze. The modules that are available for account determination analysis are explained as below:
| Module | Explanation | Examples |
| FI Account Assignment | Assignment of accounts to Financial tables |
|
| MM/HR Account Assignment | Assignment of accounts to materials management, inventory management and human resources tables |
|
| Cost Element Categories | Categories that are linked to the primary cost elements of the accounts. Also, indicator for automatic assignment of cost element to a cost object |
|
| AA Account Assignment | Assignment of accounts to Fixed Asset tables |
|
| SD/EK Account Assignment | Assignment of Accounts to Sales and Distribution tables |
|
If you do not select any of the options in the ‘Account Determination Analysis’ checkbox, you will get a list of the accounts that you selected and their respective settings in the general ledger master record. This list is useful if all you want to do is analyze (say) the number of accounts that are open item managed, available for line item display, or automatically posted to. If you select any of the ‘Account Determination Analysis’ checkboxes, you will get the list of master data settings as the header line, and in the tables where the accounts have been assigned in the item lines.
If you click once on the table name (and have the appropriate authorization) you will be taken to the ‘Data Browser’ transaction (SE16) where, if you want, you can display the items that exist in the table. If you double-click on the account line you will be taken to another screen that shows all the attributes of the general ledger master, such as the account group, tax category, field status group, etc.
For more infrormation on the Account Detective, and other ideas on how to optimize your SAP Financials landscape, I’ve put together my top tips in the book “100 Things You Should Know About Financial Accounting with SAP” which is published by SAP Press:
https://store.sapinsider.wispubs.com/products/h3166
Also, please find the below information about my live Q&A forum:
Technical tips and tricks to get more out of your SAP Financials transactions:
A Q&A with SAP PRESS author Paul Ovigele
Seeking quicker, easier ways to perform SAP Financials transactions, post accounts, display your reports, and monitor your G/L accounts? Ask Paul Ovigele your questions in a live moderated forum on Thursday, July 28, from 12:30-1:30 pm EDT in the Insider Learning Network’s Financials Forum.
A link directly to the Forum is here: www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/go/thread…
Premium
