Chart of Accounts Conversion in SAP – 4 Key Success Factors

In addition to the typical and already known project planning issues (costs, staffing, milestones, deliverables and so on), there are some key aspects I would like to highlight in order to get a successful (and not too stressful!) conversion project using the Landscape Transformation scenario in SAP. Let us suppose that the conversion will be done within the same SAP system.

In future posts I will show other alternatives to the LT scenario that you could find more interesting or applicable to your company or customers, as maybe you are dealing with an IT landscape with several SAP and non-SAP systems, with different Chart of Accounts in every system.

·      Accounting involvement

One of the key factors, if not the most important, is to point out the figure of the Chart of Accounts coordinator. Coordinator must have a good overview of the existing Chart of Accounts in the system and must act as a team player. Many discussions must be held in order to get a consistent GL mapping, trying to guide every participant to a common and hopefully successful approach.

This point sometimes does not sound as critical, but at the end of the day to choose the right person can make a difference. 

·      System prerequisites and cleansing

Especially if your system can be considered as mature (as it normally is if you are thinking about a transformation), several consistency checks must be performed in advance and fixed. IT involvement must not be underestimated. 

·      Getting the correct mapping… on schedule!

As many account parameters must be compared, please feel free to give Excel a try… but I doubt this is the best tool in terms of time and cost. Many comparisons must be run, and the number of accounts could go up to 10.000 or even more, so imagine how „easy“ would be to compare and reconcile every time a significant change has been done.

The usage of an access database is highly recommended. Developing costs are much lower than the enormous reconciliation effort that the accounting department must make.

How this tool would look like? Here you can find an example how the main analysis looks like:

Errors and warnings must be analysed by accounting and IT:

The usage of this own-developed tool saves hours of painful manual reconciliations, preventing human errors that are usually made when comparing huge amount of data.

·      Consequences of sharing a common Chart of Accounts

This chapter covers some (not all) technical consequences while configuring and converting to only one Chart of Accounts.

·      Integration with logistics – posting rules are Chart of Accounts dependant. Cross analysis is considered as mandatory and testing activities become critical.

·      Asset Accounting – you would need to harmonize your depreciation areas, as accounts are not based on Chart of Accounts depreciation. Different accounting principles could be using the same depreciation area.

·      Tax Accounting – harmonization of posting rules and accounts is highly recommended.

In addition, do not forget to adjust your financial statement structures, report variants, sets and report painter. Otherwise, some unexpected and not so nice surprises could be found out after the go-live… and suppose nobody of us would like that!

So wishing you the best of luck in your conversion projects and if having comments or questions, please contact me.