Changing Fiscal Year Variants/ Shortened (Extended) Fiscal Year

Update from July 2019 to to remove the option of “change fiscal year”:

Your company got aquired by a company with a deferred calendar year? Usually this is the time, when you might need to think of changing the fiscal year variant.

What other option do you have now? In principle the recommended approach is to do a re-migration.

Here you have in principle two options:

1. Create a new company in the existing tenant
   this option allows you to keep the historical data, re-use existing configurations and master data information (as long as not org dependent).
   Drawback: Certain master data have to be re-migrated (with a new key, e.g. Fixed Assets or company), not all configuration can be changed (Veto checks)
   Or
2. Start in fresh system
   Advantage of this approach is, that you start fresh and have the chance to optimize your system configuration. In addition you can re-use the same IDs, names, etc. because there is no usage of the “existing data”
   Disadvantage: it is a re-implementation, even if you can download data and copy the solution profile from your existing tenant.

If you stay in the same tenant (option 1), then you can reuse the configuration, all company independent data and all existing postings stay in the system. Following steps I see as the key steps to achieve it:

1. Create a new company in the new tenant in parallel to the old company
   Advantage: master data can be re-used, at least the company independent part;
   historical data are still available
2. Create the new Set of Books
   Fiscal year variant is a key field for the Set of Books definition, that why it cannot be changed.
   The Chart of Accounts, etc. can be reused.
3. Assign the new company to the new Set of Books
   You cannot assign a subsequent Set of Books to a company after the first posting.
4. Extract all open transactions and migrate them to the new Set of Books
   Similar to a standard migration, you need to migrate open items. For open Purchase Orderss and Sales Orders you need to check if you need to migrate them, re-using is no option.
   Remark:
   For data download you can use reports, OWLs and the download tool of your ByDesign system.
   Before the upload
   • Please check especially with respect to Fixed Assets, that the right values are used. Also the Fixed Asset IDs cannot be re-used.
   • Ensure that the old bank accounts data are not valid any longer (otherwise bank statement processing will determine the “old” bank accounts and clear old items)
5. Add the new company specific data to the master data for the new company.
6. All employees have to be transfered to the new company
   unfortunately “fire and re-hire” is the only option.
   Recommendation: define a new determination reason, e.g. “Reorg” to see the transfers for the re-org.
7. Update User Access Rights:
   You have to ensure, that the employees can only create and edit data for the new company. So check the access rights of all your employees.
   For self services the new cost centers will be defaulted.
8. Last but not least: Delimit the old company by maintaining the end date
   The validity of an organizational unit is considered when creating new data. So you will get an error when creating e.g. POs for the old company.

Feedback is welcome.

Marlene Katzschner
SAP SE