Finance Terminology
Client: In commercial,
organizational and technical terms, a self-contained unit in an R/3 System with
separate master records and its own set of tables.
Company Code: The smallest
organizational unit of Financial Accounting for which a complete self-contained
set of accounts can be drawn up for purposes of external reporting.
Business Area: An organizational
unit of financial accounting that represents a separate area of operations or
responsibilities within an organization and to which value changes recorded in
Financial Accounting can be allocated.
Enterprise structure: A portrayal
of an enterprise's hierarchy. Logical enterprise structure, including the
organizational units required to manage the SAP System such as plant or cost
center.
Social enterprise structure, description of the way in which an
enterprise is organized, in divisions or user departments. The HR application
component portrays the social structure of an enterprise
fiscal year variant: A variant
defining the relationship between the calendar and fiscal year. The fiscal year
variant specifies the number of periods and special periods in a fiscal year and
how the SAP System is to determine the assigned posting periods.
Fiscal Year: A period of usually 12
months, for which the company produces financial statements and takes
inventory.
Annual displacement/Year shift: For
the individual posting periods various entries may be necessary. For example, in
the first six periods the fiscal year and calendar year may coincide, whereas
for the remaining periods there may be a displacement of +1.
Chart of Accounts: Systematically
organized list of all the G/L account master records that are required in a
company codes. The COA contains the account number, the account name and control
information for G/L account master record.
Financial statement version: A
hierarchical positioning of G/L accounts. This positioning can be based on
specific legal requirements for creating financial statements. It can also be a
self-defined order.
Account group: An object that
attributes that determine the creation of master records. The account group
determines: The data that is relevant for the master record A number range from
which numbers are selected for the master records.
Field status group: Field status
groups control the additional account assignments and other fields that can be
posted at the line item level for a G/L account.
Posting Key: A two-digit numerical
key that determines the way line items are posted. This key determines several
factors including the: Account type, Type of posting (debit or credit),Layout of
entry screens .
Open item management: A stipulation
that the items in an account must be used to clear other line items in the same
account. Items must balance out to zero before they can be cleared. The account
balance is therefore always equal to the sum of the open items.
Clearing: A procedure by which the
open items belonging to one or more accounts are indicated as cleared
(paid).
Reconciliation account: A G/L
account, to which transactions in the subsidiary ledgers (such as in the
customer, vendor or assets areas) are updated automatically.
Special G/L indicator: An indicator
that identifies a special G/L transaction. Special G/L transactions include down
payments and bills of exchange.
Special G/L transaction: The
special transactions in accounts receivable and accounts payable that are shown
separately in the general ledger and sub-ledger.
They include:
- Bills of exchange
- Down payments
- Guarantees
House Bank: A business partner that
represents a bank through which you can process your own internal
transactions.
Document type: A key that
distinguishes the business transactions to be posted. The document type
determines where the document is stored as well as the account types to be
posted.
Account type: A key that specifies
the accounting area to which an account belongs.
Examples of account types are:
- Asset accounts
- Customer accounts
- Vendor accounts
- G/L accounts
Dunning procedure: A pre-defined
procedure specifying how customers or vendors are dunned.
For each procedure, the user defines
- Number of dunning levels
- Dunning frequency
- Amount limits
- Texts for the dunning notices
Dunning level: A numeral indicating
how often an item or an account has been dunned.
Dunning key: A tool that identifies
items to be dunned separately, such as items you are not sure about or items for
which payment information exists.
Year-end closing: An annual balance
sheet and profit and loss statement, both of which must be created in accordance
with the legal requirements of the country in question.
Standard accounting principles require that the following be
listed:
- All assets
- All debts, accruals, and deferrals
- All revenue and expenses
Month-end closing: The work that is
performed at the end of a posting period.
Functional area: An organizational
unit in Accounting that classifies the expenses of an organization by functions
such as:
- Administration
- Sales and distribution
- Marketing
- Production
- Research and development
Classification takes place to meet the needs of cost-of-sales
accounting.
Noted item: A special item that
does not affect any account balance. When you post a noted item, a document is
generated. The item can be displayed using the line item display. Certain noted
items are processed by the payment program or dunning program - for example,
down payment requests.
Accrual and deferral: The
assignment of an organization's receipts and expenditure to particular periods,
for purposes of calculating the net income for a specific period.
A distinction is made between:
- Accruals -
An accrual is any expenditure before the closing key date that
represents an expense for any period after this date.
- Deferral -
Deferred income is any receipts before the closing key date that
represent revenue for any period after this date.
Statistical posting: The posting of
a special G/L transaction where the offsetting entry is made to a specified
clearing account automatically (for example, received guarantees of
payment).
Statistical postings create statistical line items
only.
Valuation area: An organizational
unit in Logistics subdividing an enterprise for the purpose of uniform and
complete valuation of material stocks.
Chart of depreciation: An object
that contains the defined depreciation areas. It also contains the rules for the
evaluation of assets that are valid in a specific country or economic area. Each
company code is allocated to one chart of depreciation. Several company codes
can work with the same chart of depreciation. The chart of depreciation and the
chart of accounts are completely independent of one another.
Asset class: The main criterion for
classifying fixed assets according to legal and management
requirements.
For each asset class, control parameters and default values can be
defined for depreciation calculation and other master data.
Each asset master record must be assigned to one asset
class.
Special asset classes are, for example:
- Assets under construction
- Low-value assets
- Leased assets
- Financial assets
- Technical assets
Depreciation area: An area showing
the valuation of a fixed asset for a particular purpose (for example, for
individual financial statements, balance sheets for tax purposes, or management
accounting values).
Depreciation key: A key for
calculating depreciation amounts.
The depreciation key controls the following for each asset and for
each depreciation area:
- Automatic calculation of planned depreciation
- Automatic calculation of interest
- Maximum percentages for manual depreciation
The depreciation key is defined by specifying:
- Calculation methods for ordinary and special depreciation, for interest and for the cutoff value
- Various control parameters
Period control method: A system
object that controls what assumptions the system makes when revaluating asset
transactions that are posted partway through a period.
Using the period control method, for example, you can instruct the
system only to start revaluating asset acquisitions in the first full month
after their acquisition.
The period control method allows different sets of rules for
different types of asset transactions, for example, acquisitions and
transfers.
Depreciation base: The base value
for calculating periodic depreciation.
The following base values are possible, for example:
- Acquisition and production costs
- Net book value
- Replacement value
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