Whenever new SAP functionality appears, new terminology comes along with it. This is true of SAP General Ledger, formerly known as the new General Ledger, available in SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) 5.0 systems and higher. Some of the terms introduced are confusing and often the same term can mean two things. Based on my experience working with many SAP General Ledger implementation and migration projects, I have found that many in the SAP community still find some of these terms confusing or think of the context differently. I’ll cover some of the most commonly misunderstood and confusing terms in the SAP General Ledger world. The idea is to get the terminology right — so that everyone knows the exact same meaning.

Migration and Conversion

Typically, there are two options for implementing SAP General Ledger:

1. Fresh implementations for new SAP customers
2. Migration for existing SAP customers

New customers who want to use SAP General Ledger have to use a fresh implementation and convert their legacy financials data to SAP General Ledger. Existing customers who are using the classic General Ledger (classic G/L) have to migrate their financial data from the classic G/L to SAP General Ledger.

SAP provides migration tools to perform the migration from classic G/L to SAP General Ledger. Considering the extreme sensitivity associated with migrating financial data in the production environment, SAP must be involved. To achieve a high degree of safety and offer quality assurance in migration projects, SAP provides a mandatory service called the SAP General Ledger Migration service, which is fee-based.

Depending upon your situation, you can also perform a re-implementation of the SAP General Ledger. Say your company has been using SAP systems for many years and has customized the system so much that it might be easier to just perform a fresh implementation. In that case, you would follow the implementation methodology rather than the migration process.

Migration Date and Activation Date

In the SAP General Ledger space, there are two important dates: the migration date and the activation date. The migration date is the first day of the new fiscal year, while the activation date is the date when SAP General Ledger is turned on. The key dates are described as shown in Figure 1. Note that the activation date is later than the migration date; during this time frame, you complete your fiscal year-end activities for the previous fiscal year.

Figure 1

An example phase model for the migration process

Some of the most common confusion among the business community stems from the term “migration date,” which is not the date when SAP General Ledger data is migrated. Activation date is the go-live date of SAP General Ledger, which takes place during migration weekend.

Figure 2 shows sample dates for a typical SAP General Ledger migration. This assumes that the beginning of the fiscal year is the beginning of the calendar year, so the migration date is January 1, 2010. The activation is assumed to be on March 29, 2010, so the migration weekend will be March 27-28, 2010.

Figure 2

Typical dates of migration phases

Ledger Scenarios and Migration Scenarios

The term "scenario" has two meanings in the SAP General Ledger world.

Scenarios refer to fields that are updated in the ledgers during the financial transactions being posted in the system. For example, some of the scenarios to be assigned are segmentation (FIN_SEGM) and profit center update (FIN_PCA).

Scenarios also refer to migration scenarios for migrating from the classic G/L to SAP General Ledger. For example, migration scenario 2 refers to the merging of the FI ledger, profit center accounting (PCA) ledger, and the special purpose ledger in SAP General Ledger.

Ledger Scenarios

The ledger scenarios identify the fields that are updated in the ledgers during the financial transactions. The following scenarios are available in SAP General Ledger:

• Segmentation (FIN_SEGM): Update of the segment (SEGMENT), partner segment (PSEGMENT), and profit center (PRCTR) fields for accounting documents, Managerial Accounting (CO) plan documents, and Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) plan documents
• Profit center update (FIN_PCA): Update of profit center (PRCTR) and partner profit center (PPRCTR) for accounting documents, CO plan documents, and CO-PA plan documents
• Cost center update (FIN_CCA): Update of sender cost center (SCNTR) and receiver cost center (RCNTR) for accounting documents and CO plan documents
• Preparation for consolidation (FIN_CONS): Update of consolidation transaction type (RMCVT) and trading partner (RASSC) for accounting documents and CO plan documents
• Business area (FIN_GSBER): Update of sender business area (SBUSA) and receiver business area (RBUSA) for accounting documents, CO plan documents, and CO-PA plan documents
• Cost of sales accounting (FIN_UKV): Update of the sender functional area (SFAREA) and receiver functional area (RFAREA) for accounting documents, CO plan documents, and CO-PA plan documents

Migration Scenarios

The SAP General Ledger Migration service supports scenario-based migration. Migration scenarios represent the cases based on the customer’s current setup and the target expected setup in SAP General Ledger. Scenarios supported by SAP General Ledger Migration services are as shown in Table 1.

Phases of the Migration Process and the Migration Cockpit

Now I’ll talk about a term that is used in a couple of different ways — phases.

Phases of the Migration Process 

As shown in Figure 1, an SAP General Ledger migration is based on a phase model with three phases: phases 0, 1, and 2. The key tasks during these phases are described in Table 2.

Phase 0 represents the current classic G/L world in which you complete the planning and blueprint activities for SAP General Ledger.

Phase 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year, represented by the migration date. However, SAP General Ledger is still not activated yet. During phase 1, you are still in the classic G/L world and typically work on fiscal year-end activities, SAP General Ledger customization settings, and testing in the test environment. Phase 2 starts on the activation date and SAP General Ledger is turned on. Starting with phase 2, you’re working in the SAP General Ledger world.

Phases of the Migration Cockpit 

SAP has provided a special tool called the migration cockpit to help manage the migration from the classic G/L to SAP General Ledger. SAP provides this tool based on each company’s particular situation. The migration cockpit is a step-by-step guide for performing all the necessary tasks for the migration, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Migration cockpit process tree and monitor

The process of a migration using the migration cockpit is divided into six phases (shown in Figure 3), which I’ll briefly describe here:

1. Setup Phase:
   • Create migration plans
   • Assign company codes and ledgers to a migration plan
   • SAP General Ledger customizing
2. Checkup Phase:
   • Check for consistency
   • Check for organizational structures
3. Preparation Phase:
   • Lock users
   • Check batch-input sessions
4. Migration Phase:
   • Build worklists for open items and for documents
   • Migrate open items from previous years and current-year documents
5. Validation Phase:
   • Check for the successful migration
6. Activation Phase:
   • Activate SAP General Ledger accounting
   • Unlock the users
   • Release the system to the users

The detailed steps and activities of the setup phase are as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

Steps and activities within the setup phase

Be aware that the term phase can refer to either the three-phase model of the SAP General Ledger migration or the six phases of the migration process using the migration cockpit.

Migration Cockpit and Closing Cockpit

As described in earlier sections, the migration cockpit is a step-by-step guide with all the necessary steps (including interdependencies) to be executed for migrating to SAP General Ledger.

Note that the migration cockpit also provides additional information on the status of the activities. As shown in Figure 5, the migration cockpit provides the Process Tree / Monitor with further information such as the status of the task (if it was successfully completed, it is shown with green light), progress level, start and end date and time, run time, technical job name, and more.

Figure 5

Migration cockpit as Process Tree / Monitor

The SAP Financial Closing cockpit is a tool in the standard SAP system that helps streamline many of the tasks typically associated with the finance-close process. Proper use of the SAP Financial Closing cockpit can significantly accelerate the closing process, thus offering a fast close. It is free and included in the standard system.

Mitresh Kundalia

Mitresh Kundalia heads the SAP practice at Quality Systems & Software (www.QSandS.com), a consulting firm specializing in SAP S/4HANA, SAP General Ledger, and complex System Landscape Optimization (SLO)-type reorganizations. Mitresh is widely acknowledged as a leading SAP expert, with multiple publications and an SAP-PRESS book to his credit. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and white papers, and he has given presentations at various SAP conferences and events. Mitresh is the chief solutions architect of General Ledger Migration Optimizer (GLMO), a leading product to accelerate and jump-start the SAP S/4HANA and SAP General Ledger initiatives; SAP Data Reorganization Optimizer (SDRO), an SLO-type product for managing complex system landscape reorganizations; and Group Currency Activation and Conversion (GCAC), a product suite to manage introduction of parallel currencies and conversion of data in a live SAP system.

You may contact the author at Mitresh@QSandS.com.

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