We define posting periods in the fiscal year variants of SAP FI module. You can open and close posting periods for a particular transaction type in SAP.
Usually, only the current Posting Period is open for recording transaction in SAP and all other Posting Periods are closed. At the end, the current posting period is closed, and the next Posting Period is opened for transaction recording in SAP FI.
You have the following options for opening and closing a Posting Period in SAP.
You can specify which company codes are open and closed for transaction recording in these variants. These are cross-company code variants so you have to assign them to your company codes. Working with these variants are recommended if you are responsible for a large number of company codes.
Relevance of Account Type
You can differentiate the opening and closing of Posting Periods by account type in SAP. This means that for a specific Posting Period, recording of transaction can be permitted to customer accounts, but not to vendor accounts.
For each Posting Period in SAP, you must specify at least account type “+” (valid for all account types). You can exercise more detailed control by specifying further account types.
Using the minimum entry, when you enter the posting date in the document header, the system checks whether the Posting Period determined in the variant can be posted to.
As soon as you enter an account number, in a second step, the system checks whether the Posting Period in SAP is permitted for the account specified.
Relevance of Account Intervals
You can differentiate the opening and closing of PPs by account intervals. This means that you only open a PP for posting to a specific account.
Account intervals always apply to General Ledger accounts. If you want to open sub-ledger accounts in SAP then you have to enter the corresponding reconciliation account and the account type.
During the closing operations, you can, for example, use the reconciliation accounts to close customer and vendor accounts before General Ledger accounts. This allows you to prevent further postings to these accounts after you have confirmed the balances with your customers and vendors. Balance confirmation is one of the prerequisites for further closing operations.
You can open and close Posting Periods only for specific users. To do this, enter an authorization group at document header level.
This authorization group is effective only in time period 1 and prevents users who do not have the appropriate authorization for the authorization object F_BKPF_BUP (accounting document: Authorization for PPs) from posting in periods which are only open for time period 1.
SAP Path for defining, opening and assignment of posting period variant
SAP Path: SPRO > Financial Accounting > Financial Accounting Global Settings > Document > Posting Periods > Define Variants for open posting periods
T Code: OBBO
SAP Path: SPRO > Financial Accounting > Financial Accounting Global Settings > Document > Posting Periods > Define variants for open PPs
T Code: OBBP
SAP Path: SPRO > Financial Accounting > Financial Accounting Global settings > Document > Posting Periods > Assign variants to company code
T Code: OB52
