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Chapter 3 ■ Document Control
■■Note
SAP comes with standard document types, which you can use as your document types. Some of the
standard document types delivered by SAP are listed in Figure 3-1. You can also create your own document
types, but it’s better to copy the standard document types supplied by SAP instead of creating your own
document types from scratch. The reason is that when you create your own document types, you also need to
make modifications to the standard table supplied by SAP, which can be time consuming.
You have two options when defining a document number range in SAP ERP:
Up to a future fiscal year: You define a large number range that the system
assigns to documents systematically as a document number over one fiscal year.
The system chooses the number from the number range that comes up next until
the number range is finished. This method has the drawback of running out of
numbers once the entire number range is used.
Each fiscal year: You define a number range for each year. You can define
number ranges for future years in advance. So at the beginning of next year, the
system starts from the first number in the number range you defined for that
year. The advantage of this method is that the number range is always sufficient.
Posting Key
Posting keys are defined by a two-digit number. They control the structure of line item entries in SAP ERP.
Posting keys are defined at the client level, which makes them accessible to all company codes in the system.
(Put another way, all company codes in the system within the same client can use the same posting keys
simultaneously.) The importance of the posting key is that it determines the account type (that is,, if the
account type is debit or credit) and the screen layout in SAP ERP. In order for the system to determine how
an item is posted in the system, a posting key is entered during data entry. The posting key controls the
following:
• The account to be posted
• Whether the line item should be posted as a debit or a credit
• How data you entered in the system is updated
SAP comes with predefined posting keys. Some important posting keys with their default posting key
values are listed in Figure 3-2.
GL Transaction
Customer Invoice
Vendor Invoice
Debit
40
01
40
Credit
50
50
31
Figure 3-2. Important posting keys
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