SAP Balance Carry Forward

Balance Carryforward

Use

Balance carryforward involves carrying forward account balances into the new fiscal year. The balance to be carried forward is shown in the account balance display. To carry forward balances, you can use a program for G/L accounts and another program for customer and vendor accounts.

Caution

You have to carry out the balance carryforward manually; it is not performed automatically even if you have already made postings to the new fiscal year.

The system carries balances forward as follows:

Balance Sheet Accounts and Customer/Vendor Accounts

• The balances on these accounts are carried forward to the same accounts in the new fiscal year.
• Additional account assignments are transferred.

Profit and Loss Accounts

• P&L accounts are carried forward to one or more retained earnings accounts. The balances of the profit and loss accounts are set to 0.
• Additional account assignments are not transferred.
• Transaction currencies are no longer applicable and are summarized in local currency.

Prerequisites

• Balance Sheet Accounts and Customer/Vendor Accounts

  There are no prerequisites for carrying forward balances from balance sheet accounts and customer/vendor accounts.

• Profit and Loss Accounts

  For profit and loss accounts, the following prerequisites must be met:

  • A profit and loss account type must be specified in the master record of every profit and loss account. This is the key with which you define a retained earnings account for each chart of accounts.

  • You need to have defined your retained earnings accounts.

    You make the settings in Customizing for Financial Accounting under Financial Accounting  Business Transactions  Closing  Carry Forward  Define Retained Earnings Account.

    For the Special Purpose Ledger, you make the setting in Customizing for Financial Accounting under Special Purpose Ledger  Periodic Processing  Balance Carryforward  Retained Earnings Accounts  Maintain Local/Global Retained Earnings Accounts.

    Note

    Most companies use only one retained earnings account. However, by using the profit and loss account type, you can use more than one retained earnings account. This could be useful for international corporations, for example, that have to meet various requirements when producing their profit and loss statement. For more information, see Special Features in P&L Accounts.

Features

General Functions

• Automatic Balance Adjustment

  When you perform balance carryforward for G/L accounts at the end of a fiscal year, any postings made to the previous year lead to automatic adjustments of the balances. The system uses an indicator to determine whether balance carryforward has already occurred. From then on, whenever a posting is made, the balance is automatically carried forward, even when a posting is made to the previous year. Consequently, it is not necessary to repeat the balance carryforward.

• Account Adjustments

  If, in the new fiscal year, you find that a G/L account was mistakenly set up as a P&L account in the prior year instead of as a balance sheet account (or vice versa), you must first adjust the master data of the affected account record and then repeat the balance carryforward.

Special Features in General Ledger Accounting

• Parallel Currencies

  If you use parallel currencies in General Ledger Accounting, and the second or third currency of your general ledger is the group currency, the balances are managed in this group currency in ledger 00 and carried forward as part of the balance carryforward.

  If you run parallel currencies in additional parallel general ledgers other than ledger 00, you have to perform the balance carry forward separately for the parallel general ledgers.

Special Features in Special Purpose Ledgers

• User-Defined Field Movements

  If you carry forward additional account assignments, such as profit centers or functional areas, to the new fiscal year, or you want to summarize account data using additional account assignments, you must assign to your ledger field movements for balance sheet accounts and P&L accounts. To assign the field movements, go to Customizing for Financial Accounting and choose Special Purpose Ledger  Periodic Processing  Balance Carryforward  Assign Field Movements.

  Caution

  If you want to use a field movement for balance sheet accounts, your field movement must contain the dimension Account. However, the field movement for P&L accounts must not contain the dimension Account (except for when you want to change the account using a user exit).

• Secondary Cost Elements

  In the standard system, the program only carries forward G/L accounts from Financial Accounting. If you also want to carry forward secondary cost elements in your ledger, you have to use a user exit (transaction SMOD or CMOD, enhancement GVTRS001).

Activities

To perform the balance carryforward, you must call the program as follows:

• G/L Accounts

  From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting  Financial Accounting  General Ledger  Periodic Processing  Closing  Carryforward  Balance Carryforward.

• Customer and Vendor Accounts

  From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting  Financial Accounting  Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable  Periodic Processing  Closing  Carryforward  Balance Carryforward.

  Caution

  For the balance carryforward in Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable, you can only perform balance carryforward for individual accounts. For the balance carryforward in General Ledger Accounting, you have to perform balance carryforward for all G/L accounts.

• Special Purpose Ledgers

  From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Accounting  Financial Accounting  Special Purpose Ledger  Periodic Processing  Closing  Carryforward  Balance Carryforward.