How do you make your migration to the new  G/L a smooth one -- and account for all the interdependencies and  activities in your business? 

Mitresh Kundalia, SAP Financials expert and consultant with Quality Systems and Software, recently hosted an exclusive Q&A on migrating to the latest version of SAP General Ledger here in the Financials Forum. Read the set of questions and Mitresh's responses below, or see the full transcript here.

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New G/L offers some of the most powerful and robust functions in the areas of Financials.  Let me mention some of the great features now offered in New G/L.  [Please note that New G/L is now called as SAP General Ledger]

One of the most useful and powerful features is that New G/L offers for Balanced Books at dimensions lower than Company code. To meet Balanced Segment Reporting requirements of IFRS-8 (or IAS-14) New G/L has introduced a concept called as SEGMENT and now you are able to prepare fully balanced financials at Segment level. The technical configuration in SAP is called as ‘Document Splitting’. So, using Document Splitting, now, you are able to prepare fully balanced Segment Reporting in Real-time. No more month-end adjustments or re-classifications!

My book on this topic is published by SAP-Press - www.sap-press.com/product.cfm?account=&p...  

You may be interested to know that approx. 70% to 80% of the customers migrate to New G/L for this reason – to be able to achieve Balanced Segment Reporting.

Another great feature is introduction of Parallel Ledgers in New G/L. Using Parallel Ledgers now customers can meet the parallel Accounting requirements. For example, you can now have a leading ledger (0L) for the US GAAP and additional Non-leading Ledgers to meet other reporting requirements, such as Local GAAP, IFRS etc. These so-called ‘Parallel’ Ledgers, support additional reporting requirements, in addition to Main Ledger (or a “Leading” Ledger). Parallel Ledger will be Stepping-stone from the IFRS Changeover.

Also, New G/L simplifies the Ledger structures in Financials. Until now, you had so many different ledgers, such as Classic Ledger, PCA Ledger, Special Purpose Ledger etc. New G/L unifies these ledgers into single Ledger – ‘the single source of truth’.

In addition to these three great features, New G/L also offers few other features – such as Real-time CO-FI integration, Extensibility of Coding block, Fast Close, TCO reduction, compliance and more.

Hi Mitresh. Thank you for taking our questions today!

I'm curious to know: What are the technical prerequisites for the new G/L?

Thanks,
Lucy

May 20, 2011 -- 1:09PM, Gary Byrne wrote:

Can you discuss CO-FI integration a little more? That is, provide some more details.

With the introduction of New G/L and ability to fully balance the books by Segment (and Profit Centers), New G/L now offers a feature called as "CO-FI Real-time Integration". Any relevant postings made in CO, will now be posted in New G/L (FI) in Real-time. Therefore, the name 'CO-FI Real-time Integration". This assures that CO and FI are always in sync, for any postings made to the specific characteristics.

For example, if you have CO postings which cross Segments or Profit Centers, these CO postings will be integrated with New G/L (FI) and thus be able to get Balanced financials for Segments or Profit Centers.

Whenever a CO posting crosses any of these parameters (Company codes, Profit Centers, Segments etc.), these postings are made to FI also.

The key piece of configuration is 'Define Variants for Real-time Integration' and 'Assign Variants for Real-time Integration to Company Codes'.

May 20, 2011 -- 1:14PM, Lucy wrote:

Hi Mitresh. Thank you for taking our questions today!

I'm curious to know: What are the technical prerequisites for the new G/L?

Thanks,
Lucy

Hi Lucy

The foremost technical requirement for New G/L is that you must be on ECC 5.0 at-least. Recommended is ECC 6.0.

Also, the best practice is to have TWO SEPARATE projects - one for the upgrade to ECC 6.0 and a separate project for Migration.