Dear Murthy garu,

I am Narendra,from Guntur, AP trying for a job on SAP FICO.

I went through your blog and i must congratulate you for the effort you have put in.

I started attending interviews but unfortunately no luck till now.

I had a couple of doubts in FICO:

How to upload Opening balances into SAP.

Configuration steps required for BAD DEBTS and maintaining reserves and surplus

The tricky question in almost every interview i faced till now is " Explain your project"

The project in my resume relates to a manufacturing company.

I didnt know to answer this question.

Please help in this regard.

Thanks and Regards,

Narendra

Murthy's Response:

The Opening balances relating to GL, AR, AP, Assets, all other modules (MM, SD ect), and balances relating to Controlling area will be loaded into SAP system as a single balance or as a line items (based on the client requirement) by using LSMW, or CATT, or by using any custom program through Cut over activity (Cut over activity means – stopping the exiting functions of the system and loading both Master & Transactional data into the system)

Please note that prior to loading opening or transactional data; we need to load all Master data in SAP system. Please find below the Cut over activates which are to be executed once the Configuration/development activity is completed.

Cut Over Activities:

A) Pre – Go Live activities

1. Master data Load into Production system

2. Upload Cost center plan

3. Execute the allocation cycles within cost center accounting

4. Update planned activity

5. Calculate Activity prices

6. Execute product costing run

B) Pre – Go Live activities

1. Ensure all the customizing requests are in the production system

2. Ensure all the number ranges for all the modules have been maintained in

the production system

3. Ensure that Operating concern has been generated

4. Ensure that all the Customer Master data is loaded

5. Ensure all material masters (all material types) have been loaded

6. Ensure that all the Vendor Master data is loaded

C) Upload transaction data into system

1. Upload Open purchase orders.

2. Stock upload

3. Mark and Release the cost estimate

4. Upload Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable open items

5. Asset Master and value upload

5.1 The upload of asset master and values through AS91

5.2 Transfer Asset balance into profit center

5.3 Remove the GL codes for asset from 3KEH table

5.4 Update the FI entry for asset through transaction OASV

5.5 Reinstate the GL codes for asset in 3KEH

6. Upload General Ledger account balances

2. Bad Debts Process in SAP system

Bad debts process involves the identifying the receivables, based on the client AR aging policy, as bad &writing off the identified AR as bad debts, and finally accounting for the recovered bad debts.

Steps:

1. Display customer account balances (FD10N)

2. Process Write-off transactions (F-30)

3. Perform collection of bad debts (F-21)

3. Reserves & Surplus:

Reserves & Surplus are created and added to the exiting balances based on the client policy. These reserves are the appropriations from the operating profits of the client for every year (like Bad debt/redemption reserves)

4. The other questions like Explain your project and manufacturing Company

These questions are to be answered by the consultant very smartly based on the Resume he/she presented to the client

Hello Murthy garu


I have joined a SAP FICO training course along with pragnya. Today was in my first class and it went well.
I just wanted to let you know that the documentation that you gave me was a big help when I was listening to
the class everything sounded familiar and more clear. I just wanted to say thank you for the guidance and support you have given me in this direction.
with regards
kalyani

Bloger response:

Hi Menka,


Check whether you have done variance calculation inKKS1 or KKS2 by removing test field selection
Then run CO88 (before doing this if you have CO-PA in place you need to enter the PA transfer structure in settlement profile
Settlement Profile (OKO7):
Under Valid Receivers check whether a valid receiver has been assigned (PA transfer structure).
Note: To know which is the valid receiver check the Settlement Rule maintained in the Order for which you are trying to do Settlement in CO88
If you see “Settlement not allowed” change that to optional or required.
Once you change as mentioned above, you will not get any Error

Regards
Murthy

Issue from Menka

Hi Murthy,


It was my pleasure talking to you. I am attaching my 2 tickets which I am struggling.
Can you please call me when you email me back so that I can log on to the system?
Please call me if you need any more screenshots or any other information.
Menka.

There are presently 5 production orders which are not settling and user is getting below error.
Please let me know how to go about with it.
Error message for 4 orders are common.
“Determine Variance before settlement “
As shown in below screen shots.
General Question
How to view the production order status I mean in below screen using SAP Tcode CO03
Under status it reads all TECO PRT PCNF PRC …..
So little confused.
If you can provide me general outline or steps for product costing and copa will be great.
I appreciate and thank you for your help and support
These are high emergency ticket can you please email me back with your reply at your earliest and give me call so that I can log on to my pc.

It is nice to be connecting with you Murthygaru.

I have the following doubt which I have posted on ITTOOLbox today.
Though you would be able to offer a solution:

I had defined Depreciation Areas 01, 60, 61, 62, 64.

But when I as trying to specify rules for transfer of APC values using TC OABC an unconfigured Depreciation Area 51 cropped up. And that is preventing me from going any further with the following message: Depreciation Area 51 not defined in the Chart of Dep/. The detailed message appears as follows:

QUOTE:
Depreciation area 51 in ch.of dep. Z999 not defined
Message no. AC526

Diagnosis
The function module FIAA_WRTAFB_CHECK/FIAA_PARAFB_CHECK checks depreciation area 51 in chart of depreciation Z999. However, this depreciation area is not contained in the table listing all the depreciation areas (T093/T093A) which the module checks.
Procedure
Inform your system Administrator.

UNQUOTE
Kind Regards,
Unnikrishnan
11, Shrivenham Road,
Swindon SN1 2QA

Dear readers,


As a beneficiary of this valuable service, I would like to thank this blog site's administrators, Mr.Murthy and Mr.Pavan for their priceless, noble service. Also, I would like to give heads-up to all those who are naive about SAP market in US, by sharing my own experience using this service.

I joined Mr.Murthy and Mr. Pavan's network few months ago and expressed my interest in pursuing a successful career in SAP FICO area. They immediately extended timely help, advice and guidance without any expectations. Their blog site came handy when I was preparing for SAP interviews and helped me face interviews with confidence. Today, I take pride in saying that I am a product of their networking service. Because of their assistance, I recently landed in an opportunity that meets my career goals and family requirements.

This is a pure, 100% service-oriented network that is keen in identifying talented SAP professionals and reaching out to those who are lacking career guidance. If you think you are talented, deserve to be more than what you currently are, have an obsession for challenge and passion for success; then this is the right time to seek for help. A network of talented SAP professionals, who don't expect anything in return, are at your service. Take advantage of their precious time, feedbacks, experiences, inspirations and testimonies.

Please reach out to Mr. Murthy at and take your first step towards a rewarding and aspiring career in SAP.

With cheers and best wishes,
Laxmi K

Validation rule for Plant-Company code posting

Hello Readers,
I have a scenario in which I have to restrict plant posting when i was posting company codes. Let me give the details.
Lets us say, I have to post a journal entry for a company code A and plant 1 only. We should not allow users to post journal entries other than Plant 1 when you are posting to company code A.
I am thinking of writing a validation saying that only plant1 is allowed to post when posting company code 0061.

I went through configuration transaction code OX18. But even if assign company code A to plant 1, system is still allowing me to post for other plants when I am trying to post in company code A.

Please share your thoughts on this.....

Thanks
Pavan

BAdI: Tax Jurisdiction Code from Delivery Address

Hi Sharavana,

Please find below solution for your issue on populating Tax Jurisdiction Code in a Purchae Order:

The Business Add-In (BAdI) ME_TAX_FROM_ADDRESS provides you with additional functionality to determine the tax jurisdiction code in purchase orders. At item level, the tax jurisdiction code maintained in the delivery address can be used for tax calculation purposes.


You activate tax handling with tax jurisdiction codes in FI Customizing (transaction OBCO). In the standard system, When an Enjoy purchase order (transaction ME21N) is created, the system takes the following sources into account for the jurisdiction code: reference documents (RFQ, contract), plant table, manual user input, account assignment object (if a tax jurisdiction code has been maintained there). In the process, the system overwrites the previous value in this list in each case. If, for example, you have maintained a tax jurisdiction code for a PO item with the account assignment object, this entry "wins" over the entry in the plant table.

If you implement the BAdI ME_TAX_FROM_ADDRESS, when a PO item is created, these tax jurisdiction codes previously determined by the system will be overwritten with the value from the delivery address. This also applies if no value has been maintained in the delivery address. In this case, the field remains empty. However, you can modi fy this behavior in the code of the implementation (cf. the following description of the example implementation). The checks provided in the system (e.g. whether the combination of tax code and tax jurisdiction code in the system is valid) continue to be run. If you implement the BAdI ME_TAX_FROM_ADDRESS, you must thus ensure that a valid tax jurisdiction code is always maintained in the delivery address. One option is to use an external system for tax calculation purposes here (e.g. Tax ware or Vertex). Or you stipulate in the implementation that an empty field is populated with a value from another source.

Manual input of the tax jurisdiction code by the user is taken into account in all cases. If the BAdI is active, however, input is only possible on the "Delivery Address" tab page, not on the "Invoice" tab page.

Requirements

• You can only use the functionality of the BAdI ME_TAX_FROM_ADDRESS in the "new" purchase order transaction ME21N. In the "old" PO transaction ME21, the code is not utilized.

• For the country belonging to the plant/company code of the PO item, tax handling with tax jurisdiction codes must have been activated.

• The system message 06 263 "Tax jurisdiction & of account assignment adopted in item", should be set to ' ' ("no message") in Customizing for Purchasing (transaction OLME -> Environment Data -> Define Attributes of System Messages -> System Messages).

Example

In the example implementation for BAdI ME_TAX_FROM_ADDRESS supplied, the following system behavior is defined:

• The tax jurisdiction code from the delivery address is set.

• If no value has been maintained there:

- A warning message is issued

- The value for the jurisdiction code previously determined by the system is inserted again

- The cursor jumps to the "Delivery Address" tab page, giving the user the opportunity to correct the tax jurisdiction code manually.

The following data is available to control the system behavior in determining the tax jurisdiction code with the BAdI:

• Purchasing document header (EKKO),

• Purchasing document item (EKPO) - old and new status

• Account assignment data for item (EKKN),

• Tax jurisdiction code from delivery address

• Tax jurisdiction code from plant table


Regards

Murthy Pillutla

Jurisdiction code determination in a PO

Murthy,

How the jurisdiction code is determined in a PO? Most of the time it
is defaulted from the plant. When a cost center is entered, the cost
center jurisdiction code overwrites the plant code. Is there any
sequence in the configuration? Or is it from a user exit/BADI?

Thanks,
Sharavana

Hi murthy,

Can u please send me 3 critical issues and solutions in SAP FI
thanks in advance
Thanks & Regards
G.Narayana
8892789544

Hi Narayana,

Please find below some scenarios


Accounts Payables



Question: Problem in running a automatic payment program. Suppose we have a balance of $125000 in my bank account and today we running an Automatic payment run. Total payment of the run is $175000. So when we run Automatic payment run it is not giving any error message. What to do with this problem.

Answer: The Automatic Payment Program does not check the Balance of your Bank Account. (GL A/c. Bal.) What it does check is the min & max amounts that you have maintained in your customization.
In Bank determination (FBZP), you have to fill in the available amounts for each Bank. This is the maximum amount up to which payments will be generated by the Auto. Pay. Run.
So if you want to ensure that on any single day the payment run does not pay more than bank balance, you have to update on a daily basis available balance to match with your bank balance.

Accounts Receivables:

A. How SAP handles the Dunning process?

In SAP system there are 9 predefined payment reminder notices which we can directly use as a notice for the particular customer relating to one dunning area (OB61)

You define your dunning levels in the dunning procedure (FBMP), and you may define as many as 9 dunning levels. To simplify, dunning levels may be understood as counter for the dunning notices you send to your customers:

- for dunning level 1 you will send him a kind payment reminder

- for dunning level 2 you send him a reminder (not so kind)

- for dunning level 3 you add to the reminder a deadline for payment etc...

So the dunning levels will reflect the number of letters sent, also the number of days the items is overdue (Interest will be calculated based on number of days & amount –OB42, and dunning charges will be calculated based on overdue due amount specified in notice),and dunning text(type of notice –Reminder/formal/with interest/) will be specified per dunning level Following a dunning run (F150), the dunning procedure/area/level/ block reasons, is updated in the customer master record (FD01) and in the open items.

B. Lock Box

Question: We are using partial payment option in lockbox (OB10) and we have 0 tolerance at both customer and user level.
The customer has an open invoice of $82500 and that he pays $95000 towards this invoice.
When tested this scenario
- the check status as applied and
- the Invoice and the payment document is still open.
What is the reason for this situation?

Answer: The check status applied is that because of ‘0’ tolerances, lockbox applied the cash to that invoice. If we had any tolerances then overpayment beyond the tolerance amount is not allowed and that the amount sits on the account.
Coming to the point b, because the customer is overpaying the invoice (not exact invoice amount) the invoice is still open.

Asset Accounting:

What is unplanned Depreciation and when we post it?

Unplanned depreciation (ABAA)

Use this procedure to post an unplanned depreciation manually. Ordinary depreciation reflects the deduction for wear and tear during the normal use of the asset. Unusual influences, such as damage that leads to a permanent decrease in the value of the asset, are covered by unplanned depreciation.

CO-PA

Question: Client requires the CO - PA report (KE30) match with their Profit & Loss Account ( F.01). Our doubt is the revenues we can get from SD, But other Incomes (ex : Interest recd, Excess Expenses paid recovered, Excess Taxes paid recovered etc ) and the Expenses how can we get the values in our CO - PA report. So, overall  we want the CO-PA report like Profit and loss account. How it can be achieved?
Answer:

1. For a complete reconciliation between FI P&L with COPA, the best way is to activate Account based COPA and develop reports. Also ensure that all the P&L GL accounts have to be created as Cost elements

                                                                              or
2. All FI postings which were not flown to CO-PA through PA transfer structure can be uploaded directly into CO-PA through T code: KEFC, but prior caution is needed while preparing the upload file where appropriate value fields are to be selected. This way we can run the KE30 report in close proximity to F.01 report.
Correct me if I am wrong in any scenario

Murthy Pillutla

OB52 month end closing issue authorisation group issue

Dear viewers, I had some issues in closing the year earlier this year. I thought it is a good idea to share. In OB52 screen, there are 9 fields after the accounts. PROBLEM1: There were many access issues for many period end transactions all over the company. RESOLUTION: I found out that someone who has access to OB52 had introduced Authorization group 01 for acct type "S", which restricted the access of all the transactions. I made this field(Authorization group) blank as there are only two people who has access to OB52 in the whole company. I found that there is no reason to maintain this field. This field is to be maintained only if you want to segregate the authorization according to "account types". Basis team has to maintain authorization groups assignment in the background. PROBLEM 2: Even after closing the previous period, since the Second period from and to are opened from couple of years back, any user can post in the previous periods. One user posted a journal it in the previous year because of this scenario. Resolution: Second period(from and to) were made restricted to 13 and 16th period of previous year for special period postings only. After few days, business came to me and asked to leave the second (from and to) periods blank. I explained them saying that the first (from and to) periods can be the only one that can be maintained but it is recommended as a best practice to maintain the second(from and to) period as 13 to 16 of previous period.

EXCHANGE RATE TYPE in SAP in OB08 (Foreign currency revaluation issue)

Dear Viewers, Problem: I recently added company codes for swizz, Germany and others. I had to define the exchange rate types in OB08(directly in QAS as this is non transportable), I got a green message saying that "You dont have maintainance authorization" SOLUTION: In order to have exchange rate type to be saved, we have to define the translation ratios in the following config: SPRO-->SAP NETWEAVER-->gen settings-->currencies-->define translation ratio. I defined 1:1 in my case and it worked.

Change in Actual Cost center in Statistical internal order

Dear viewers I got a request from the business asking me to change the Actual cost center field in one of the statistical internal order. I know that the change in the actual cost center field is not recommended. This field will be greyed once you use the internal order on purpose by SAP to avoid the inconsistencies in the internal order postings. Solution: Inorder to change that field in the internal order, we have to implement SAP note: 198036.

R-Block issue in service based POs

Murthy Garu, I would like to share one of the issues I had last week. Problem: In our configuration, tolerance keys PP and PE were defined as 5% or 250% as both the limits. But when we create a SERVICE PO for 1000qty and $1 each, the invoice was not allowing to pay even $1001(not accepting even $1 tolerance also). It was shooting an R-BLOCK in the invoice posting. SOLUTION: In a service based PO, Material field is blank and GR/IR is unchecked in the line item level. In order to resolve this issue, I had put a check mark on Estimated price in the control condition tab in the line item level. If we just check this field(Estimate price), the PO is not going to look at the tolerance keys PP and PE. We have to define PS tolerance key(transaction code OMR6), as the service PO is going to look at PS since we checked Estimated price. Note: PE is defined in the following config: SPRO-->MM-->Purchasing-->Purchase order-->Set tolerance limits for price variance