High- Level Specification

Functional Overview

This enhancement is to ensure that manual journals posted in the system have adequate supporting documents attached before they get routed for review and approval.

The primary purpose is to increase the degree of SOX compliance and to further tighten internal controls around manual journal entries and to drive up efficiency in the journal review process in the new S/4 HANA systems.

Internal controls exist at Syensqo around the existence of supporting documents for manually posted journals in the system. This is currently monitored via detective mechanisms at period-end that requires manual With the proposed enhancement it is safeguarded that

1.) the internal control is adhered to in all cases in a preventive manner rather than via detective monitoring activities at period-end

2.) Approvers/Reviewers don’t need to spend time rejecting journals that lack supporting documents which should lead to efficiency gains compared to the current state.

Scope and Objectives

Detail the functional scope and objectives of the Enhancements. Please also describe the gap that will be addressed by this enhancement (Compared to SAP Standard)

This enhancement shall be applicable to manual journals posted via the below two Fiori applications and its respective successor apps in future S/4 HANA releases:

• F4670A - Verify Currency Adjustment- New Version
• F2457A - Verify General Journal Entries - New Version

Please note that Fiori app 'F4670A - Verify Currency Adjustment-New Version' also allows for bulk upload processing via Excel upload functionality. As part of this process, another enhancement (ERP-558) automatically attaches the Excel upload template as supporting document to all journals submitted for review in the respective upload batch. As such, the existence of a supporting document is system-assured if journal entries are entered via this mode of entry and therefore doesn't require further validation via this enhancement. Journals uploaded via Excel upload functionality shall be exempted from the validations proposed in this enhancement.

SAP standard does not provide similar validation features in its current S/4 HANA releases and also doesn't intend to implement any in the foreseeable future. An incident with SAP was logged to query about possible inclusions in the future roadmap designs for journal entries. While the request was acknowledged and generally understood as a legit requirement, SAP also pointed out that there is no roadmap item planned out currently to embed this feature into the standard product offerings in the foreseeable future. Please refer to OSS incident 858195/2025 for further reference.

Assumptions

The following assumptions are taken for this custom development:

• Fiori applications evolve over time as SAP is constantly improving its current product offerings. At the time of writing, the enhancement is applicable to journal entries posted via Fiori apps F4670A and F2457A which are the latest journal entry apps available in S/4 private cloud environments. If new apps are released by SAP in future releases that offer significantly better useability for journal entry processing, Syensqo may adopt these applications as new default entry methods for journal entries. The enhancement may need to be extended to those successor applications as well in future releases.
• The enhancement shall be withdrawn once SAP adds the built feature into its scope of standard functionalities for journal entry processing.
• The enhancement shall remain in place even if Syensqo decides to move away from a mandatory review process for high-value G/L journals to ensure compliance with internal controls and best practices for journal entry processing. Journals posted without adequate levels of support invite audit queries that may be difficult to resolve without proper justifications.
• The enhancement shall not be triggered for journal entries created in the background via integrated accounting interfaces from SAP standard or custom applications to not impede ongoing business operations. It is assumed that journal entries created from other applications have been properly validated via process controls in the upstream processes.

Dependencies

No dependencies other than

• Fiori apps need to be deployed with all required Odata services actively running.
• Master data readiness for posting journal entries in S/4 HANA systems.
• Base configuration for posting journal entries needs to be in place to commence testing.

Security, Integrity and Controls

No specific security or export control requirements applicable to this enhancement. The standard authorization checks of the calling programs shall be followed and accesses as well as authorizations to the underlying Fiori applications shall be granted according to the swim lane assignments in Signavio.

Configuration Requirements

Not applicable. Enhancement spot will be implemented and embedded in program logic. Call-up of enhancement is not dependent on system configurations.

Language Requirements

The error message issued by the enhancement shall be translated into the four logon languages defined in 'KDD055 - Multi-Language Support'. The four core languages endorsed in the KDD are:

• English
• French
• Italian
• Mandarin

Special Requirements

Not applicable. No special requirements identified for this custom development.

Design Rationale

Functional Requirements

The rationale behind this enhancement is to build preventive controls into the journal entry process in S/4 HANA to avoid manual controls and manual re-work for accounting managers at period-end by ensuring that journal entries cannot be submitted for review/posted unless supporting documents were furnished and attached the document.

In the current SAP systems, this is ensured via a detective, after-the-fact type of control where users execute custom reports to identify journals without proper supporting documentation and/or journal justifications. This is a manual process at period-end that can be time-consuming for the accounting managers. Efficiency gains for the accounting departments are therefore expected from this custom development,

Proposed Technology to Use

The proposed technologies for this enhancement are pre-delivered enhancement spots from SAP in the underlying programs behind the Fiori applications. 

A first analysis performed together with the technical team revealed that enhancement spots (BAdI) in the business context FINS_GLJE_VERIFICATION may be the most suitable technology to meet the requirements of the enhancement request.

Data Source Considerations

This section is not applicable to this custom development.

Data Validation Considerations

This section is not applicable to this custom development.

Custom Tables

This section is not applicable to this custom development.

Selection Screen Enhancement

This section is not applicable to this custom development.

Processing Logic

This section defines the detailed step-by-step logic implemented within the BAdI/User Exit to process the data received from the standard SAP program and database retrieval. It explains the operations performed on the data, the expected outcomes in different scenarios and how the system should behave in response to specific conditions.

Volumetrics

Manually posted journal entries

Performance Considerations

Specify if there are any specific performance factors that need to be taken into consideration during development i.e. enhancement must be able to be executed by 10 users at the same time, etc.

Error Handling

Detail how errors will be handled: Notification, Restart/ Recovery and Re-Processing Procedures

Testing

How to Test

Please provide some guidance and/or test data to help the developer unit test the enhancement. Please include both positive and negative testing (to validate error situations handling). The developer will need to test repeatedly, so where appropriate provide instructions to reverse the actions performed so the test may be run again or explain how to create new input data to the test. The developer will need logons for test users representing the various roles within the approval process.

Test Conditions and Expected Results

Test Considerations/Dependencies

List any considerations essential for application test planning (e.g., test this before ABC along with DEF separate from GHI). If the development encompasses a user interface, explain how to test it. List any insights as to how this component could be tested the most efficiently.

Other Information

Development Details

Package

Enhancement Implementation

Other Development Objects

Appendix

Custom Authorization Group Naming Convention

This table is based on the Syensqo development standards document. It provides the naming conventions for authorization groups to associated with custom reports and tables to comply with security requirements.

See also

Insert links and references to other documents which are relevant when trying to understand this decision and its implications. Other decisions are often impacted, so it's good to list them here with links. Attachments are also possible but dangerous as they are static documents and not updated by their authors.

Change log