Every day, more than thousand transactions are created in a company. These transactions are identified by their categories or document types and stored in sap. Now the question is why these transactions are to be identified with a category or document type. In this article we will be discussing major reasons of having document types in sap fico.
Document entry in SAP FICO
A transaction includes a header section and line items. Based on your business transaction, their may be a mandatory requirement of some specific fields while posting a transaction. With a document type in the header section of your transaction, you can manage the fields that are related to it as a mandatory or optional entry.
It also controls field status of the header section. Fields like header text and reference number can be managed through document type’s field status. Based on business transactions, your company many require different data within the transaction. With the help of field status you can make it mandatory for posting.
Control of document types in SAP
Document header is the most important part of a transaction entry and displayed for each and every line items in that transaction. Document types in sap controls this header section and used to differentiate transactions to be posted in to the system. For example; while posting a vendor invoice you need to enter the vendor invoice document type “KR” at the header section which will allow specific accounts for vendor invoice.
There are some specific transactions which do not create accounting document. Without a document type all these transactions will be stored in a particular place and will be difficult to differentiate between accounting transactions and non accounting transactions.
At the period end when you look for information in a report, with the help of document types you can filter on the basis of business transaction. You can also identify which transactions are reversed as reversed transactions carry a different document type based on business transactions.
Audit in SAP
At the period end company’s books of accounts are required to be audited by an external party to report a true and fair picture of company’s books of accounts to shareholders. To make sure that proper internal control is in place they require each business transaction to be identified by different categories with their specific number range assigned.
With the creation of a document type you are also simplifying the storage of the original transaction. When sap creates different transactions related to the original one, it can easily be identified and accessed with the help of document types. Sap has delivered some standard document types for business use. One can even copy these and create their own based on business needs.