SAP is based on the document principle meaning that a document is created out of every business transaction in the system. The Document is the result of a posting in accounting in SAP, and is the connecting link between various business operations. There are two types of documents:
1. Original Documents: these documents relate to the origin of business transactions such as invoices, receipts, statement of accounts from bank, etc.
2. Processing Documents: These include accounting documents generated from postings in the system, reference documents, sample documents, etc.
The processing documents other than the accounting ones are also known as special documents and they aid in the simplification of document entry in the system.
Every document consists of:
- A Document Header
- Two or more Line Items
What is a Document Header?
The Document Header contains information that is valid for the whole document such as:
- Document Date
- Document Type (Control Information)
- Document Number
- Posting Date
- Posting Period
- Company Code
(a) Trading partner,
(b) document header text,
(c) reference,
(d) cross-Company Code number,
etc.
What is a Document Type?
SAP comes delivered with a number of Document Types, which are used in various postings. The document type helps to classify an accounting transaction within the system, and is used to control the entire transaction and determine the account types a particular document type can post to.
For example, the document type AB allows you to post to all the accounts, whereas type DZ allows you to post only the customer payments. Every document type is assigned a number range.
The common document types include:
AA --- Asset posting
KG --- Vendor credit memo
AB ---Accounting document
KN --- Net vendors
AF --- Depreciation postings
KR --- Vendor invoice
DG --- Customer credit memo
KZ --- Vendor payment
DR --- Customer invoice
KG --- Vendor credit memo
DZ --- Customer payment
SA --- GL account document
X1 --- Recurring entry doc.
X2 ---Sample document
How is Account Type Connected to Document Type?
The Document Type is characterized by a 2-character code such as AA, DG, etc., whereas an Account Type is denoted by a 1-character code such as A, D, etc., specifying which accounts a particular document can be posted to. The common account types include:
A Assets
D Customer (Debtor)
K Vendor (Creditor)
M Materials
S GL
What do you mean by Net Postings?
Usually, when a transaction is posted,
for example, a vendor invoice (document type: KR), the system posts the
Gross amount with the tax and discount included. However, SAP provides
you the option of posting these items as Net. In this case, the posting
excludes tax or discounts. Remember to use the special document type KN.
(Similarly, you will use the document type DN for customer invoice-Net
compared to the normal invoice postings for the customer using the document
type DR.) For using this net method of posting you should have activated
the required settings in the customization.
Explain the Various Reference Methods?
SAP recommends Reference Methods as a document entry tool to facilitate faster and easier document entry into the system, when you are required to enter the same data time and again. Besides making the document entry process less time-consuming, this also helps in error-free document entry.
The various Reference Methods used
in SAP include:
1. Reference Documents
2. Account Assignment Models
3. Sample Documents
What is the Document Change Rule?
The functionality Document Change Rules configured in the system maintains the information relating to what fields can be changed? and under what circumstances?. As you are already aware, SAPs document principle does not allow changing the relevant fields once a document is posted; any changes can only be achieved through Reversal or additional postings. Fields such as company code, business area, account number, posting key, amount, currency, etc., can never be changed once the document is posted. However, SAP allows changing some of the fields in the line items such as payment method, payment block, house bank, dunning level, dunning block, etc. These can be changed document by document or by using mass change for a number of documents in a single step. The changes to master data are tracked and stored per user for an audit trail.
