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Chapter 5 ■ Creating a General Ledger (G/L)
Some typical examples of master data in a SAP R/3 database include customer data, vendor data, bank
data, G/L accounts, material data, and so on.
• Transaction Data: Data triggered as a result of events arising from day-to-day
business transactions. A typical transaction data is time-driven with a numerical
value and often refers to one or more objects in the system. Examples of transaction
data in SAP R/3 include invoices, payments, credit memos, and goods receipts.
• Table Data: Sets of tables containing data about objects, such as payment terms,
tolerances, pricing conditions, and so on.
Now that you know what a master record is, let’s look at how to create G/L account master records in
SAP ERP. A G/L master record contains data relating to a G/L account that remains in the system relatively
for a while. The data held in the G/L master record controls the general ledger account behavior. The G/L
master record also governs the treatment and posting of accounting transactions to the G/L accounts in the
system.
Creating G/L Account Master Records
Various options are available when creating G/L master records in SAP ERP:
• Create G/L accounts with reference: This allows you to copy existing G/L accounts
from another company code to yours. The company code you are copying the G/L
accounts from is referred to as the “source” company code and your company code
is the “target” company code. SAP comes with a standard chart of accounts and
company codes in the system, along with sets of G/L account master records that can
be copied when creating your G/L account master records. The benefit of copying
existing G/L account master records is that your G/L account master records will
inherit their properties, which saves time.
• Data transfer workbench: This is when you transfer G/L account master records from
a legacy system. This function is ideal when you want to transfer G/L accounts from
another system into SAP.
• By copying: The system allows you to copy G/L account master records already in the
system. This is possible only when you have an existing chart of accounts that meets
your requirements. For example, a chart of accounts that has a structure that matchs
your G/L account master record could be copied in this manner.
• By creating manually: This is when you have to physically create G/L account master
records individually. The drawback to this method is that it is time consuming,
especially when you have to create large numbers of G/L accounts.
Let’s look at how to create G/L accounts in SAP ERP. In this activity, you will create your G/L accounts
manually. This will give you the fundamental understanding of how to create G/L accounts step-by-step. You
will also be looking at how to copy G/L accounts using existing G/L accounts as a template.
■■Note
All transactions in SAP FI work with G/L accounts. In the remaining chapters in this book, you will be
creating G/L accounts, which you will assign to objects in your subsequent configurations.
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