+/- Sign Change is new to Group Reporting as of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102 release. In this blog, we'll explain the top 5 things that you should know about +/- sign change so that you can start using it in your reports. But before we launch into the list, let’s look over some basic info about what this feature is.
What is +/- sign change?
In essence, +/- sign change allows you to reverse the +/- sign for the values of nodes and the FS items belonging to them in a
Consolidation Financial Statement Item hierarchy. You can select and manage the +/- sign change for these hierarchies in the
Manage Global Hierarchies app. When you then use the hierarchies in your consolidation analytical reports, the values for nodes with +/- sign change and their FS items will display as negative if they're typically stored as positive and vice versa.
This is useful, for example, when you want to display revenue, which in S/4HANA Finance is stored as a negative value to indicate a credit. However, there's a good chance that you'd rather see your revenue as a positive value. In that case, you can simply select
+/- Sign Change for nodes of revenue FS items so that they appear as positive values in your reports.
And with that in mind, let's get on to the list!
- You select +/- Sign Change for nodes, not individual FS items.
When editing a consolidation FS item hierarchy,
+/- Sign Change can only be selected for a node, not for individual FS items. To do so, you simply click on the name of the node and check the box for
+/- Sign Change in the pop-up window. Once you do this, you'll see a checkmark in the
+/- Sign Change column when viewing the hierarchy. CAUTION: Although checkmarks will not appear for the FS items directly underneath the node, they will inherit the +/- sign change settings once the hierarchy is activated. So even though you may not see visible evidence of +/- sign change for individual FS items, trust that the FS items directly belonging to the affected node will inherit the +/- sign change settings once the hierarchy is activated.
- It is purely for display purposes in reports.
Selecting
+/- Sign Change does not influence data in databases nor calculations. Selecting it for a node of FS items does not change the +/- sign for those FS item values in the database. In reports and released queries, there are two sets of measures – one that displays values as stored in the database and another that interprets the
+/- Sign Change selections for nodes in the hierarchy. When the respective hierarchy is enabled, the sign adjusted measures display values with the reversed +/- sign. However, measures without the +/- sign change display values without the reversed +/- sign.
- If you are a new customer as of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102 release, +/- Sign Change is already selected for the relevant nodes in predelivered hierarchies.
If you're a new customer as of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102 release, then +/- sign change is already taken care of for you! It is already selected for the relevant nodes, and the predelivered hierarchies are already activated and ready to be used your reports.
- If you've been a customer before the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102 release and have upgraded to this release, you must manage +/- sign change in predelivered hierarchies according to one of three cases.
With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102 release,
+/- Sign Change is selected for relevant nodes automatically when you edit a predelivered hierarchy. Once you activate the hierarchy, these +/- sign change settings are then activated as well. If you are an existing SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer who has upgraded to the 2102 release, you will then have to manage the +/- sign change settings depending on which of the following three cases is applicable to you:
- Case 1(most common): You want to apply +/- sign change to the predelivered hierarchies you're using, and you have not added additional nodes to the predelivered hierarchies:
Open a hierarchy and make a "dummy change" (make a change that you don't save and then immediately undo it). This is necessary to trigger the automatic selection of
+/- Sign Change for relevant nodes. Then, activate the hierarchy to activate the adjusted +/- sign change settings.
- Case 2(less common): You want to apply +/- sign change to the predelivered hierarchies you're using, and you have added additional nodes to the predelivered hierarchies:
When you're editing your hierarchy, manually select
+/- Sign Change for your additional nodes. This is necessary because the automatic selection of
+/- Sign Change is triggered only for predelivered nodes, not any that you add to the hierarchy yourself. Then, activate the hierarchy to activate the adjusted +/- sign change settings, including for the additional nodes you've selected.
- Case 3(rare): You do not want to apply +/- sign change to the predelivered hierarchies you're using:
When you're editing your hierarchy, deselect
+/- Sign Change for all nodes before activating the hierarchy. This is because the automatic selection of
+/- Sign Change for relevant nodes is triggered when you begin editing the hierarchy.
- You need to manage +/- sign change yourself for hierarchies you create.
You’ll have to set and manage +/- sign change yourself for any hierarchies that you create or have created in the past. The automatic selection mentioned in points 3 and 4 only applies to hierarchies predelivered by SAP. So, when editing hierarchies that you've created yourself, please be sure to also manage +/- sign change according to your needs before activating them. When you then use the hierarchies in analytical reports, please keep in mind that the reports must use the measure that interprets the
+/- Sign Change selection in order to display values with the +/- sign change settings.
Want to know more?
We hope that you found these top 5 tips useful and that you feel ready to use +/- sign change to its fullest potential! If you'd like more details, please visit the full product assistance documentation for +/- sign change in the SAP Help Portal:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/90c07e91c7a64f328be3fd6b48955b13/LATEST/en-US/264bf17d27614cfb94a6ca9cf2...
