SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3787808 - Opening Balances Become Zero for Some G/L Accounts After Balance Carryforward

Symptom

Certain G/L accounts show ending balances in the fiscal year-end period, but after balance carryforward the opening balances in the next fiscal year are zero. 

No error message is displayed in the related balance carryforward run.

Environment

SAP Business ByDesign

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Go to the General Ledger work center.
  2. Go to List view.
  3. Open the Trial Balance report.
  4. Run the report for the last period of the fiscal year and the first period of the next fiscal year.
  5. Observe that the selected G/L accounts have an ending balance in the closing period but a zero opening balance in the new fiscal year.

Cause

Add row field 'P/L Account' in the Trail Balance report. See that for the selected G/L accounts, the 'P/L Account' displays as ‘1-Profit & Loss Account'.

Resolution

It's the standard system behavior that the balances of all profit and loss accounts are cumulated and transferred to the corresponding balance sheet account for annual net profit or loss. This ensures that closing balances and opening balances of the profit and loss accounts are always zero. 

See Also

Reference Help document: Balance Carryforward | SAP Help Portal

Keywords

balance carryforward, opening balance zero, p/l account, profit and loss, differences account, g/l account type differences, trial balance,  , KBA , SRD-FIN-GL , General Ledger , Problem

Product

SAP Business ByDesign all versions