When you carry forward the balances for General Ledger accounts at the end of a fiscal year, the system automatically adjusts the balances when you post values to the previous year.
SAP uses an indicator to determine whether the balances have been carried forward. Once this has been done, the balance is automatically carried forward whenever a posting is made, even when a posting is made to the previous year.
It is therefore not necessary to execute the balance carry forward again.
If, in the new fiscal year, you find that a General Ledger account was mistakenly set up as a Profit and Loss account in the prior year instead of as a balance sheet account (or vice versa), you should rerun the balance carry forward program after adjusting the General Ledger account master record so that the balance carried forward can be adjusted.
Features in General Ledger Accounting to carry forward balances in SAP
If you run parallel currencies in general ledger, and the second or third currency is the group currency, the balances are run in this group currency in ledger, and carried forward as part of the balance carry forward.
If you run parallel currencies in other additional general ledgers than ledger, you have to carry out the balance carry forward separately for the parallel general ledgers.
Features in the Special Purpose Ledgers to carry forward balances
User-Defined Field Movements
If you carry forward additional account assignments in SAP, such as profit center or functional area, to the new fiscal year, or you want to summarize using additional account assignments, you must assign field movements for balance sheet and profit and loss accounts to your ledger.
To assign the field movements, choose the following in Customizing for Financial Accounting: Special Purpose Ledger > Periodic Processing > Balance Carry Forward > Assign Field Movements.
If you want to use a field movement for balance sheet accounts, your field movement must contain the dimension Account. However, the field movement for profit and loss accounts must not contain the dimension Account (except for when you want to change the account using a user exit).
Secondary Cost Elements
In the standard system, the program only carries forward General Ledger accounts from Financial Accounting. If you also want to carry forward secondary cost elements in your ledger, you do this with a user exit (transaction SMOD/CMOD, enhancement GVTRS001).
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