New General Ledger (FAGLL03) – Issue in Usage of Free Selection?

A. Business Requirement

To use fields from free selection for New General Ledger (FAGLL03) G/L account line item display.

B. Problem Statement

While using some fields from the free selection, including those additional fields added as per SAP note 945932, system might throw message below and deletes free selection field from the selection. Thus usage of these fields may not be impossible.

Custom selections deleted because fields not active in ledger

Message no. MSITEM103.

C. Functional Analysis

System only allows usage of relevant fields in the new general ledger for free selection. If the field is not updated (data not updated in the new G/L tables) then allowing these fields in free selection also doesn’t make sense. New general ledger checks which fields are relevant by checking if the field has been added in the scenarios assigned to the new G/L.

Scenarios can be used to define which fields in a ledger are to be updated during posting. Various business requirements can be fulfilled by configuring fields in scenarios. For example, using Cost of Sales Accounting.

Standard scenarios provided by the SAP:-

– Cost center update (Cost center & Sender cost center)

– Preparations for consolidation (Trading partner & Transaction type)

– Business area (Business area & Trading partner business area) etc.

Using scenarios in New G/L is not obligatory, but it is important to note that assigning fields to the scenarios will affect the field update of the FAGLFLEXA / FAGLFLEXT tables.

For example, if you do not activate the Business Area Scenario, no business area (GSBER) will ever get updated in the New G/L tables, which means you will not have the option to view business area information on any of the new G/L report. Hence it cannot be used in the free selection and will give error mentioned in the problem statement section.

D. Technical Analysis

• New G/L program FAGL_ACCOUNT_ITEMS_GL calls function module – FAGL_GET_REPORTING_FIELDS which selects fields that can be allowed in free selection for reporting (The fields will be displayed in the dynamic selection but it may not be allowed to be used due to message in problem statement section above).
• This function in addition to few mandatory fields returns fields from following tables:-
  • FAGL_SCEN_FIELDS: Fields added for each scenario assigned to the ledger
  • FAGL_CUST_FIELDS: Custom fields added in the new ledger
• If the field used in free selection is not one of the fields return by above function module, the message displayed in problem statement section is displayed and respective free selection is deleted from the selection.

E. Solution

Add the required fields in respective scenario for the ledger in transaction – FAGL_SCENARIO.

Select the Scenario –> Click on Scenario fields –> Click on new fields on application toolbar –> Select interface from the drop down as shown below

–> Add the field in corresponding column.

Also make sure that the scenario is assigned to the ledger in transaction – FAGL_SCENARIOASS.

F. Note

It is advisable to activate the scenarios which are linked to fields that the customer is already using, to ensure those fields are also updated in the New GL tables.

Activating the scenarios does not mean that you have to activate document splitting. You can activate the scenarios even though no document splitting or CO-FI etc. functionality will ever be used.