Open and close posting periods for specific filing areas

Did you already know?

For some time now, DCW has offered the option of opening and/or closing posting periods differently from the fiscal year table, depending on the FM area.

How has it been so far?

You may be familiar with the situation: the last financial year is basically closed, but the auditors want an adjustment to be posted in the previous year. The only way to do this in DCW is to enter the last day of the financial year in the financial year table B0103.

financial year in the fields “open period from” and “to”, i.e. to reopen the date for all postings. A similar situation may arise during the year if VAT is to be posted as the last posting of the month and an invoice accidentally arrives from a previous system that is posted because the period is still open. In DCW, a posting date was either open or not, regardless of the type of document.

What have we changed?

First of all, the basic system has remained unchanged and if you want it to stay that way, you don’t have to do anything. The DCW system continues to check the validity of the posting date against table B0103.

However, we have created a new table B0109, which allows you to define a different open period for each financial year and storage area. This special entry then overwrites the general entry in table B0103.

It is not possible to change the key or delete entries so that the maintenance of the table can be fully documented. Set the entry to inactive after posting so that B0103 becomes the leading entry again. Avoid active entries over a longer period of time to prevent misunderstandings and incorrect postings!
Please note that the system only checks against table B0109 if the new switch “Open/close periods for individual filing groups” is set to “Y” in the client master data.

What should you bear in mind?

As checking the posting date is a very central and sensitive function, special care should be taken. Only use the new function if it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, there could be a risk of losing the overview.

One of the main reasons for developing the new function was to support financial accounting, particularly during the closing process. For this reason, the new checks were initially only implemented in financial accounting programmes. On the other hand, this means that the materials management programmes still only look at table B0103. In cost accounting, the previous control option via K0102 remains unchanged.

The extended check was also not built into every batch programme. In our view, it makes little sense, for example, to post a payment run in a period that has already been closed. For this reason, most batch programmes have been left unchanged. One exception is the “Execute depreciation” programme, because this is a classic “closing activity” and it may be desirable to post the depreciation when the other applications are no longer allowed to post documents.

When setting up the table, make sure that the client references correspond to those of B0103. Ideally, each client should have its own entries. The same applies to the authorisation to maintain the table. Think carefully about which users are authorised to maintain the table.

We generally recommend that you only set up the new function after consulting us. We will be happy to help you and discuss the benefits and risks of setting it up with you. Talk to us – we’ll be happy to help!