What's So Special About Special G/L Indicators?

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What's So Special About Special G/L Indicators?

Sometimes the best SAP® functionality is sitting right in front of our eyes, but we're so used to
our routine that we pass right over it. Such is the case for Special G/L Indicators— a handy but overlook

Click here to read this Snippet

 www.SAPtips.com SAPtips
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Dr Cr Account Description Amount Comment

1. Invoicing VF01 RV - FI/SD interface posting

01 120000 Trade A/R (customer recon acct) 2,000,000 Create customer invoice in AR
50 410000 Revenue (1,904,762)
50 260592 Sales Tax Payable (95,238) Sales tax @5.00%

2. Factoring: record invoices for factoring FB05 DZ - Post with Clearing

09-0 120161 Trade A/R-Factoring (customer recon acct) 2,000,000 Move invoice to Special G/L indicator 0
15 120000 Trade A/R (customer recon acct) (2,000,000) This is an automatic clearing line

3. Factoring: incoming wire received FB01 SA - Standard Journal posting

40 104700 Checking account 34,580,000 Single posting for multiple invoices
40 892100 Other-Factoring Expense 420,000 Discount charge, fee to bank
50 120160 A/R Factoring Liability (35,000,000) Record factoring liability

4. Cash Receipt: Clear Factored Invoice F-28 DZ - Post Incoming Payments

40 104700 Checking account 2,000,000 This is the general cash/bank account
19-0 120161 Trade A/R-Factoring (customer recon acct)(2,000,000) This is an automatic clearing line
June 2003 Volume I Issue 3

5. Cash Receipt: Record Liability to Bank FB01 SA - Standard Journal posting

40 120160 A/R Factoring Liability 2,000,000 Release factoring liability.
50 269140 Collections Payable-AR Factoring (2,000,000) Record cash payable to the bank

6. Remit Collection to Bank: On a weekly basis repay the bank FB01 SA - Standard Journal posting
40 269140 Collections Payable-AR Factoring 2,000,000 Release liability to the bank
50 104700 Checking account (2,000,000) Wire cash to banK
SAPtips

receipt and repayment to factor-
ing company/bank. Transaction
code and document type are show
for each posting. In the case of
postings to customer reconcilia-
tion accounts, the customer num-
ber rather than the G/L account
number will be entered in the
transaction.
5.6. Clearing
When clearing accounts, you
need to explicitly select Special
G/L indicator items; they are
not selected by default. In step
4 of the factoring process, when
a cash receipt for a factored
invoice is received, the Special
G/L indicator needs to be
entered in the initial screen of
transaction F-28. Turn off the
Standard OIs checkbox if you
only want to select Special G/L
items. Unfortunately, there is no
parameter ID for this field.

SAPtips © 2003 Klee Associates, Inc.

 www.SAPtips.com SAPtips
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6. Concluding Thoughts
There are always untapped
areas of SAP functionality that
SAP users have not taken full
advantage of. Clearly, Special
G/L indicators are a great exam-
ple of such functionality. In this
article, we've "lifted the hood"
on the G/L indicators and looked
at how they can be configured to
support a variety of financial
processes such as invoice factor-
ing. Next time you're dealing
with the need to segregate cus-
tomer and vendor data for
reporting or transactional pur-
poses, remember that handy lit-
tle Special G/L indicator.

Rohana Gunawardena, Exium

Inc. Rohana is a Senior FI/CO
Consultant Specializing in glob-
al, multi-site rollouts. Rohana
has been working with SAP since Figure 16: In Transaction F-28 Explicitly Choose Special G/L Indicator 0
1992, focusing on the FI and CO
modules with emphasis on busi-
ness segment reporting, cross-
module integration to FI/CO,
sales-cycle accounting, and A/R.
June 2003 Volume I Issue 3

He also has experience with SD

and ABAP. Rohana is a Fellow of
the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and
Wales. He can be reached at
Rohana.Gunawardena@SAPtips.com.

Figure 17: In the Select Open Items Screen You Need to Explicitly Choose Special G/L
Indicator 0.
SAPtips

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