Organizational Structure In SAP

Organizational Structure In SAP

CONCEPT OF CLIENT

The client is the highest level in the SAP organizational structure hierarchy. SAP stores master data as well as transactional data in tables in a database. Every client has its own set of master records and tables i.e. every client has its own set of data in the database. If changes are made to the data in one client, then the data in other clients is not affected.

SAP best business practices suggest the creation of at least the following three clients in any SAP landscape:

• CUSTOMIZING AND DEVELOPMENT CLIENT: The customizing and development client is required for checking any configuration changes or ABAP Workbench developments for errors before they are implemented in the production client. This is because if some wrong configurations are implemented in the production client, then it can hamper day to day operations and even cause loss of important data. This process is called unit testing.
• QUALITY ASSURANCE CLIENT: All the modules in SAP are tightly integrated and interdependent. When any changes are made to the configuration or to the ABAP code the cross module effect of these changes needs to be checked extensively for errors. This process of carrying out cross module testing is called integration testing and is carried out in the quality assurance client.
• PRODUCTION CLIENT: The production client is where the actual business transactions are recorded. Any changes in configuration must first be tested on the development and quality assurance client to make sure they are free from errors and do not cause system instability. Once these checks are done, the changes can be made in the actual production client.

The three clients therefore result in three separate sets of tables within the SAP database. Once the configurations or ABAP developments are found to be error free in the development client, they are moved via transports to the quality assurance client for further checks.

Once the integration checks are also error free the changes are moved via transports to the production client. This ensures that configuration or ABAP coding errors do no effect the productive system. Besides these three clients other clients like the Sandbox or the training client can be created as per the requirements.

CONCEPT OF COMPANY CODE

The company code represents a legal entity. Every company which is registered in a country needs to produce the financial statements like balance sheet, profit and loss statement at the end of the accounting cycle. In SAP company code represents the smallest organizational unit for which a complete set of financial statements can be drawn.

The company code is a required organizational element. At least one company code has to be set up before the financial accounting component of SAP can be implemented. Whenever any transaction is posted in the SAP system, a company code is to be entered. At the end of the accounting period all the transactions for a company code are collectively used to prepare the financial statements.

CONCEPT OF A COMPANY

A company is an optional organizational element which can be used to combine together the financial statements of multiple companies into one statement. A company is not necessary to set up and is needed only if transactions of multiple companies need to be consolidated.

CONCEPT OF FISCAL YEAR VARIANT

The process of entering a transaction in SAP is called posting. Postings can happen any time during the year. Different countries use different accounting cycles for closing and year end activities. The fiscal year variant defines the number of posting periods and the number of special periods.

It also defines whether the fiscal year is calendar dependent or not. A maximum of 16 posting periods in all are allowed in SAP. Having different posting periods allows the transactions for different time periods to be separated from each other. For e.g. a company may have 12 normal posting periods from January to December and 4 special posting periods.

Then all the transactions made in January will be entered with the posting period set to 1. This way monthly transactions can be separated from each other.

CONCEPT OF FIELD STATUS VARIANT

Every screen of SAP offers various fields into which data can be entered. Every field can have its status set to optional, required, and suppressed or display. These fields are combined together and collectively called field status groups.

A collection of field status groups is called the field status variant. Field status variant is defined at the client level. A field status variant is assigned to a company code. Many company codes can have the same field status variant.

CONCEPT OF CHART OF ACCOUNTS

Chart of accounts is a list of the G/L accounts that may be used by one or more company codes. There are three different types of chart of accounts: operating chart of accounts, country chart of accounts, and group chart of accounts.

The chart of accounts is also defined at the client level. This allows more than one company code to use the same chart of accounts.

INTEGRATION OF VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENTS

All the above mentioned organizational elements are integrated into the SAP organizational structure which can be used to map business processes. Integration is carried out by assigning one organizational element to another organizational element. The assignments are as follows:

• All organizational elements are placed under the client. By definition client is at the highest level in the organizational hierarchy.
• Company is an optional element which can be created under the client and can be used to club together multiple company codes.
• The company code is the central element in the organizational structure hierarchy and is created either under a company or under the client directly.
• The company code is assigned to a chart of accounts. The chart of accounts contains the list of all the accounts which can be used while entering transactions for the company code.
• The company code is assigned to the fiscal year variant. The fiscal year variant definition can be used while entering the transactions to the company code.
• The company code is assigned to the field status variant. The field status variant decides which fields will be required, optional, suppressed or in display mode while entering any transactions for the company code.