Glossary of Key Terms
Glossary of Key Terms
| Term | Definition |
| Account Group | Determines the group for which a G/L account is created (e.g., Administrative Expenses). For customers or vendors, it controls the screen layout and number range for master records. |
| Accounts Payable (AP) | A submodule of SAP FI used to manage and record accounting data for all vendors. |
| Accounts Receivable (AR) | A submodule of SAP FI that records and manages accounting data for all customers and is an integral part of sales management. |
| Asset Accounting (FI-AA) | A component used for managing the fixed assets in the FI system. It serves as a subsidiary ledger to the General Ledger. |
| Asset Explorer | A function that shows all values of a fixed asset, including APC values and depreciation, planned values, and posted values. |
| Automatic Payment Program (APP) | A program that posts accounts payable, like payments to a vendor, automatically based on vendor invoices. It identifies due/overdue invoices for processing. |
| Bank Accounting | A submodule of SAP FI that deals with all transactions done through a bank, including incoming/outgoing transactions, balance management, and master data. |
| Business Area | An organizational unit used to differentiate transactions that originate from different lines of business in a company (e.g., manufacturing, marketing, sales). |
| Chart of Accounts (COA) | Represents the list of G/L accounts used by a company. Types include Operating, Country-specific, and Group Chart of Accounts. |
| Company | The smallest organizational unit for which financial statements can be created in accordance with commercial legal regulations. |
| Company Code | The smallest unit in an organization for which complete, self-contained financial statements (e.g., profit-loss statement) can be generated. |
| Cost Center | A component in an organization that adds to the cost and indirectly adds to the profit, such as Marketing or Customer Service. Used for controlling purposes. |
| Credit Control Area | An organizational unit used to specify and control customer credit limits. It can include one or more company codes. |
| Customer Master Data | A record containing all information about a customer needed to conduct business, used by both accounting and sales departments. |
| Document Type | A key used to distinguish between different business transactions, classify accounting documents, and determine the document number range. |
| Dunning | The process of tracing customers who have not paid open invoices within a given time span, which can involve sending reminder letters (dunning letters). |
| Field Status Group | Assigned to a G/L account, it defines which fields are suppressed, optional, or required during transaction posting to that account. |
| Field Status Variant | A tool that contains multiple Field Status Groups. It is assigned to a company code to apply a consistent set of screen field properties for postings. |
| Fiscal Year Variant | Defines the number of posting periods and special periods within a fiscal year for a company code. |
| Functional Area | An organizational unit used to define expenses according to individual functions, such as Manufacturing, Sales and Distribution, or Administration. |
| General Ledger (G/L) | The primary record used to record all business transactions and maintain all accounting details of a company. |
| Hold a Document | A function to temporarily save an incomplete or incorrect G/L document before posting. |
| House Bank | Provides the details of the bank account which is used by a company to make payments to its vendors and customers. |
| Internal Order | A controlling object used as an interim collector of costs (and sometimes revenues) for a time-restricted job or activity. Costs are settled to a receiver upon completion. |
| Journal Entry (JE) Posting | The process of taking a batch of financial transactions, validating it, creating FI documents, and posting those entries to various line item accounts. |
| Park a Document | A facility that allows a user to save a document without posting it to G/L accounts, typically when the user lacks the necessary posting authorization amount. The document can then be reviewed and posted by an authorized person. |
| Posting Key | A two-digit numerical key that determines the account type (Asset, Customer, Vendor, etc.) and the type of posting (Debit or Credit). |
| Posting Period Variant | Maintains which accounting periods are open for posting. It is assigned to company codes to control posting in open and closed periods. |
| Product Costing | A module in SAP CO used to determine the value of the internal cost of products, used for profitability and management accounting for production. |
| Profit Center | An organizational unit used for internal controlling to evaluate the profit or loss of individual, independent areas within an organization. |
| Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) | A module used to analyze the profit or loss of an organization by individual market segments (e.g., products, customers, sales areas). |
| Retained Earnings Account | An account used to carry forward the balance from one fiscal year to the next. It is assigned to each Profit & Loss (P&L) account in the chart of accounts. |
| T-code (Transaction Code) | A short code used in SAP to access a specific task or screen directly, bypassing the standard menu navigation. |
| Travel Management | A submodule of SAP FI used to manage all travel expenses of a company, including travel requests, planning, and expense reporting. |
| Vendor Master Record | Contains all necessary data about a vendor and is used by both the Accounting and Purchasing components. |
| Withholding Tax | A tax that is deducted at the source of the income, which can be configured and applied to vendor invoices in SAP FI. |