Fiscal Year Variant

Every company has different periods that can be used to post business transactions during the fiscal year. These periods are defined in what SAP calls “Fiscal Year Variants”. Some are already defined by SAP and you can use them as templates to create your own variants. The most common would be the one that has the 12 months as periods, plus one special period for closing purposes.

In customizing you define the following points:

• Number of posting periods.
• Number of special periods for closing purposes.
• Whether it’s a calendar year or not.
• Whether it’s year-dependent or not.

In case you don’t use a calendar year, you must specify for each posting period the last day, month and whether it belongs to the previous, following or current year.

Let’s see 3 common types of fiscal year variants you may want to set up.

With this fiscal year variant you have 12 periods equivalent to months and up to 4 special periods, every year.

In the following video you will see how to create one of this type:

With this fiscal year variant you have the same number of periods (up to 16) and dates every year. If the first period doesn’t start on the first of january (first row), you must use the “-1” value in the “Year shift” field.

In the following video you will see how to create one of this type:

This fiscal year variant is used when periods vary from one year to another. It could have different dates or number of periods. Sometimes it’s useful to create a shortened fiscal year variant, which has fewer posting periods than the previous year. This might be necessary when the company is sold before the end of the normal calendar year, or when the begining of operations of a new company occurs in the middle of the year.

In the following video you will see how to create one of this type:

Once you have defined the fiscal year variant you may want to:

• Generate or edit the fiscal year calendar data, such as the periods and start-end dates.
• Assign it to a company code. Remember that the controlling area assigned to the company code and all company codes assigned to that controlling area must have the same fiscal year variant.

Once the fiscal year variant has been generated and assigned to a company code, you will have to define posting periods.

The following objects have been mentioned in this topic and you should consider going over them:

• Company code.
• Controlling area.
• Posting periods.

These are some transactions codes to access some of the points related to this topic: