SAP provides migration tools to perform the migration of your financial data from the classic General Ledger to the SAP General Ledger. Considering the sensitivity associated with migrating financial data in production environments, SAP must be involved. To achieve a high degree of safety and offer quality assurance in the migration projects, SAP has a mandatory service called SAP General Ledger Migration.

I’ll explain how you can use one feature — validation for document splitting — to reduce the number of errors during your migration.

Migration with Document Splitting

Document splitting functionality helps produce balanced financials at organization units lower than company code (e.g., segments) and thus meets many legal reporting requirements, such as balanced segment reporting. Migration scenarios 3, 5, and 6 in Table 1 are relevant for companies that are migrating to the SAP General Ledger and want to use document splitting functionality. I used this table in my previous article “Get Your SAP General Ledger Terminology Right,” but I’m reproducing it here for convenience and consistency.

Table 1

Migration scenarios

Migration with document splitting is more complex than without document splitting. The existing data in the classic General Ledger does not have splitting information and needs to be rebuilt in the SAP General Ledger with splitting information. As part of the migration process, work lists are built with the data (e.g., open items and account balances) from the classic General Ledger and enriched with the document splitting information.

Figure 1 shows the default process for migration with document splitting. During phase 0, you are still using the classic General Ledger, so document splitting is not turned on. During phase 1, you complete your year-end activities and close the old fiscal year. During the migration weekend, just prior to the activation date, you migrate financial data for phase 1 and open items to the SAP General Ledger. During the migration process, the split information is built and updated to the SAP General Ledger. In addition, the document splitting is turned on for phase 2 and onward. This way, you are in the SAP General Ledger environment, and the split information, including phase 1 documents, is available for the whole new fiscal year — effective as of the activation date.

Figure 1

Default process for migration with document splitting

Migration with Document Splitting Using Validation 

One of the tasks during the activation of the SAP General Ledger is to build the splitting information for the open items as well as the documents from phase 1. To assure the most successful migration, there should be no problems while building the splitting information. However, you have no way to identify any potential problems until you execute the migration in the production system just prior to the activation date.

To safeguard successful migration, SAP offers an option called validation for document splitting. Though not mandatory, SAP recommends using validation for document splitting during phase 1 to identify any potential problems and issues associated with splitting information quite early. Without validation, the number of errors during the migration may be quite high, and efforts to fix the issues will be significantly higher, especially considering the sensitive cut-over tasks.

The migration process using validation for document splitting is shown in Figure 2. Note that during the validation for document splitting, you do not post the splitting information to SAP General Ledger tables — you are still working in the classic General Ledger.

Figure 2

Migration process with validation for document splitting

Note
Validation of document splitting is available only in SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) 6.0. As the document splitting is applicable only for scenarios 3, 5 and 6, these functions are applicable for migration packages 3, 5, and 6. The functions for validation of document splitting are not available in SAP ECC 5.0.

Validation for Document Splitting  

Validation for document splitting is like a soft check for document splitting — it enables you to identify any issues or errors. If the document being posted in the production environment does not meet the document splitting requirements, you can set up the appropriate validation level so that users can take appropriate actions.

The following validation levels are offered:

• No validation
• Only log. If the splitting information is not available or missing, the transaction is posted, but the log is written to a separate set of tables. You can review the logs to view the splitting information.
• Warning messages and log. If the splitting information is missing, a warning message is displayed on the screen and the log is written. The users can still continue posting the transactions in the system.
• Error message. If the splitting information is missing, an error message appears and users cannot post the documents until the issue is resolved.

Depending on the situation and various company-specific factors, you can consider setting the validation level to be a hard error so that the issue related to splitting must be fixed promptly. This may sound challenging, especially when the users in the production system are getting hard errors, but this may significantly reduce the number of issues during the migration. Of course, extensive testing for document splitting must be completed so that there are very few error cases, if any.

Three Levels of Validation for Document Splitting

You can configure validation levels for document splitting at three different levels within your organization:

• Validation at the migration plan level. At the highest level of a migration plan, you can set the validation level. The effective date of the validation should be set to the migration date.
• Validation for specific processes. You can adjust the validation level for specific processes, offering additional flexibility to set the validation level at a more granular level.
• Validation at a more granular level using a Business Add-In (BAdI). In addition, a BAdI is available to set the validation level at the lowest level based on your requirements.

Validation with Document Splitting in the Migration Cockpit 

The steps for validation of document splitting are performed in the Migration Cockpit, and the key steps are in the setup phase (Figure 3). I’ll go through each of these in this section.

Figure 3

Validation of document splitting in the Migration Cockpit

Activate Validation of Document Splitting

One of the first steps is to activate the validation of document splitting. The validation date is set as the beginning of the new fiscal year (i.e., the migration date), as shown in Figure 4. The validation level set here is at the highest level. Note that the validation date refers to the posting date of the transactions. The system checks for all the documents with a posting date greater than or equal to the validation date for document splitting.

Figure 4

Activate validation of document splitting

Adjust Validation for Specific Processes (Optional)

You can fine-tune the validation level for specific processes (Figure 5). For batch processes, for example, you might want to set the validation level as Only Log. You can set the validation levels for transaction codes, reference transactions, batch processes, and more.

Figure 5

Adjust validation for specific processes

Create/Change BAdI for Validation Adjustment (Optional)

If you have more specific, non-standard requirements for managing the validation level, a BAdI is also available. You can use BAdI FAGL_SPLVAL_ADJUST to set the validation level at the most granular level, based on your requirements. This way, you have various levels of control for setting the validation levels.

Create/Change BAdI for Simulate Base Account Assignments (Optional)

An additional BAdI is available to simulate the base account assignments. You can use BAdI FAGL_SPLVAL_ASSGNMT to simulate the account assignments if account assignment information is not yet available for these line items.

Check Validation Document Splitting

The system checks to see if you have activated the validation level with at least Only Log. The system issues a warning message if validation of document splitting is not activated. Based on the steps for validation of document splitting done in the setup phase, additional checks are performed during other phases. For any corrective actions, for example, you need to review the log validation of document splitting.

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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