The chart of account is a variant which contains the structure and the basic information about your general ledger A/cs. Each company code or CC defined in SAP system has to be assigned with an operating chart of accounts (COA) by which posting occur for that company code. COA is a list of all the general ledger A/cs which are defined for recording transactions under a company code. If you want a specific posting to occur to a particular company code then you need to define the company code segment in general ledger master for that company code. It can be defined through transaction code FS00.
A COA in SAP contains the definition of all general ledger A/c in an orderly manner. Those definitions are;
- A/c number
- A/c name
- Control Fields
- Account Group (i.e. Whether you defined a Profit and Loss Account or a Balance Sheet Account)
There is no limitation in defining the number of COA in SAP. You can define many countries specific COAs but you can assign only one to a company code or CC as its operating COA. A particular COA can be assigned to a number of CC by which the general ledgers of these CC will have identical structure.
To consolidate company codes using different operating COAs, a group COA is defined and all the operating COAs are assigned to this. After this assignment one need to fill up the group COA number in general ledger master while creating a general ledger master record in company code.
If you are using a country specific COAs then the field “alternate COA” while creating general ledger master will become mandatory.
You can also translate a particular COA to different language by which any one logging in to SAP with that language can see the account name in the appropriate log on language while displaying master data and while posting a transaction.
A COA in SAP has two segments, one segment is called COA segment and other one is company code specific segment. The first segment will be valid for the entire COA by which this segment will be same for those company codes which are assigned to the COA. Once you have entered the information to a COA segment, such information is accessed automatically by all the company code assigned to it. CC segment of a general ledger A/c is valid only for that company code for which it is defined. The COA segment and CC segment together form an account. As the number and the name of the account is maintained in the chart of accounts, the account has the same name and number in all assigned company codes. Every company code need to create its own CC segment to get the transaction posted.