Mail notification up on unintentional changes to posting periods (OB52)

     Posting periods are used to control the postings done in a company code at any given point. Posting periods are defined in posting period variant and posting period variant is assigned to company code.

     In regular production scenario, only one posting period is open at any point in time (Except during month end closing time where 2 period are open to handle MEC activities). This helps to restrict backdated postings in the periods for which, month end reporting has already been completed. However, there is no technical restriction/notification mechanism in the system while opening the previous periods.

     Below technique can be implemented to notify Finance team/people who are required to be informed about unintentional changes to posting periods when ever already closed previous periods are opened by some one. This can’t be controlled by authorization as we do need OB52 access for some users to handle MEC. But below solution ensures that, this access can’t be exploited by users.

     Current period information is stored in table table T001B and can be maintained using maintenance view V_T001B. Mail notification functionality can be implemented by using table maintenance events.

     There are many table maintenance events provided by SAP which are triggered at different point in times. In this case, event 02 (After saving the data in the database) can be used. ABAP coding can be done under this event to send the e-mail notification with required details like company code, period changes, to which account type(D,K,S,A,M,+) this change was done, user who is doing this change, date and time of change etc. to finance team. Respective team can validate if this change is done with proper approvals or not. This solution helps especially when document posting and MEC activities are outsourced to some other vendor.

I am not explaining about the coding part for sending e-mail here as there are so many articles already published on how to send mail from SAP. Additional checks can be placed in coding based on business requirements.

Your valuable comments are most welcome

Best regards,

Vinod Vemuru.