When is 'Clearing Balance Sheet' and 'Clearing Inc Stmt item' used?

[Former Member]

Hi,

In what circumstances, clearing balance sheet item and clearing inc stmt items are used. Commonly, it's used for balance carry forward task, where system recognized the net profit for the year (in PL) and current ytd profit (in BS).

i was trying to post the following entry via manual posting and system generated additional 2 lines:

DR Sales 100

CR AR 100

DR Clearing BS item 100 < System auto generated additional one line

CR Clearing PL item 100 < System auto generated additional one line

(The above entry is enter at posting level 01)

I was trying to post another 2 balance sheet items via manual posting at posting level 30. There was no additional 2 lines created.

Please advise.

Regards, Renee

[Former Member]

Rene,

In real life there are usually closing periods in enterprises, when accountant close their books. Closing partially means that all revenues/gains and expenses/costs are summed up, and net profit in income statement calculated. During this procedure accountants usually make closing entries. After that this calculated net profit is to be transferred to balance sheet, to the retained earnings of the current year item.

In SAP SEM-BCS there are no closing entries. Instead, the system monitors whether entries in P&L were made. The P&L hierarchy in BCS has the following structure:

- one main node under which all revenues and expenses are gathered

- clearing item located OUTSIDE the P&L main node (equals to net profit).

The amount on the clearing item equals the sum of all P&L items under main node, with the opposite sign. So, the sum of P&L items & clearing item is zero.

If the system detects postings to the items located under P&L main node, it recalculates the net profit and adjust the clearing item in P&L accordingly. Since net profit in P&L should correspond to the RE in B/S, the system adjust clearing item in B/S also. So, AT ANY MOMENT the B/S & P&L in the system correspond each other. The work of special/clearing items is like pseudoclosing.

That's the purpose of these clearing items. And as I said earlier they has nothing to do with balance carryforward.

Resume: in case of postings to P&L, the net profit changes and the system adjusts net profit in P&L & B/S (adds two additional entries).

There is NO NET PROFIT CHANGE (and additional entries) when postings made in the balance sheet ONLY (as in your case). -- (As you know, there is almost no possibility to make postings to clearing item in B/S).

[Former Member]

Eugene,

I am confuse how clearing item located OUTSIDE the P&L main node get the net profit (which is computed from main node). Where and how it is triggered? It's suppose to trigger from BCS and BexAnalyzer?

Pls advise.

Renee

[former_member588240]

Renee,

Eugene has written nicely about the usage of clearing balance sheet and clearing income statement. My Kudos// Appreciation to Eugene.

Straight answers to your question: In BCS, you have to configure and not in Bex analyzer. For calculating Retained Earnings, you need to use the said clearing items (clearing balance sheet and clearing inc stmt item).

I guess you used manual entry posting for standardization of entries. In such scenario, system will automatically create 2 additional entries in order to balance the BS and Income stmt, as specified by you, which will automatically make assets = liabEQ and IncomeExpenses=0.

Posting level 30 is for consolidation investments. It is one of the last few steps in the consolidation functions. At that posting level, there is no need of clearing item. Hence you do not find additional 2 entries in the total records cube content.

Thanks,

Tim

[Former Member]

For the first and second postings, neither Clearing balance sheet nor clearing inc stmt items are defined.