FICO Interview Questions And answers -SAP

Question.1   How the system identifies a ‘Posting Period’? 

Answer:   Based on the posting date entered into the system while posting a document, the system automatically determines the period, by looking at the document date and the year. However, for this to occur .you should have properly defined the fiscal year valiant.

Question.2   What happens when you post to year 2006, when you are In 2007? 

Answer:   First of an, to post a document relating to a previous year, say, 2006 when you are in 2007, the relevant posting period should be ‘open’ in the system. When such a posting is done, the system makes some adjustment on the background.

 One: the carry forward balances of the current year, already done, are updated h case the posting is affecting balance sheet Rents.

Two: if the posting is going to affect the Profit & Loss accounts, then the system adjustments the carried forward profit or loss balances to the Retained Earnings account(s).

Question.3   What is a ‘Posting Period Variant?

Answer:   A Posting Period Variant Is useful In ‘opening /closing posting periods amiss many Company Codes, at one go. Define a posting period variant and assign the same to various Company codes. Since the posting period variant is cross-Company Code, opening and closing of posting period is made simple. Instead of doing individually for afferent Company Codes, you just need to open or dose the pasting period variant.

Question.4   Can you selectively ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ accounts?

Answer:    Yes. It is possible to selectively control the ‘opening’ and’ closing’ for various types of accounts. Usually, a is mentioned In the top most entry Indicating that all the accounts types are allowed for posting. Now, against the GUS) accounts specify the period which needs to be open. This ensures that all the account types are open for the current period, indicated by ” +”, and only the GL accounts are open for the previous period.

Question.5   Why it is not able to post to a customer a/c in a previously closed ‘Period’?

Answer:    When you want to selectively ‘close’ or ‘open’ posting period of some &cants (account range), there will be no problem with that if you an doing it for GI accounts. But. if it is a sub-ledger account (like the customer), the same has to be achieved via opening or closing the account interval of the ‘reconciliation account’ of that account type.

Question.6    can you open a ‘Posting Period’ only for a particular user?

Answer:   Yes. SAP allows you to open or does the posting period only for specific users. This can be achieved by maintaining an authorization group at the document header level.

Question.7   What is the additional log in the AP payment program and how can it be used for troubleshooting?

Answer:  The additional log is an important setting when performing a payment run. The amount of information stored in the log can be selected. If there are any errors with the payments run, due to either missing or incorrect master data settings, negative balances due to credit memo’s etc, the system will report these in the additional log.Support position interviews often ask this question as a way of determining if you know how to troubleshoot day-to-day Accounts Payable operations.

Question.8   How can you link customer and vendor master records and what is the purpose of doing so?

Answer:   On the customer master there is a field “vendor” and likewise on the vendor master there is a field “customer”. By entering these master data numbers, a link can be created between the AP/AR sub ledgers for use in the payment program, dunning routine and the clearing of open items. For example in the payment program, if a specific business partner is your vendor but also your customer, linking their master records together will allow the open AR invoices to be offset against the outstanding AP invoices.

Question.9   What are terms of payment and where are they stored?

Answer:   Payment terms are created in configuration and determine the payment due date for customer / vendor invoices. They are stored on the customer / vendor master record and are pulled through onto the customer / vendor invoice postings. The due date derived via the payment can be changed on each individual invoice if required.

Question.10   What is meant by a “baseline date” in SAP AR and AP?

Answer:   The baseline date is the date from which the payment terms (specific in IMG transaction OBB) apply. Usually this is the document date on the invoice but can also be the date of entry or posting date from the ledger.

Question.11  What are one time vendors?

Answer:   In certain industries (especially where there are a high volume of cash transactions), it is not practical to create new master records for every vendor trading partner. On-time vendors allow for a dummy vendor code to be used on invoice entry and the information which is normally stored in the vendor master (payment terms, address etc), is keyed on the invoice itself.

Question.12   What factors should be considered when configuring an Accounts Payable Vendor Group?

Answer:     The following are determined by the creation of a new AP vendor group (transaction OBD3)

. Whether the vendors in this group are one-time vendors i.e. no master record is created but the address and payments details are entered against each invoice to this vendor.

. Field status group – which fields on the vendor master are suppressed, optional or mandatory when creating vendors belonging to this group.

Additionally the vendor number ranges defined in transaction XKN1 need to be assigned to your vendor account groups in transaction OBAS. The decision needs to be made whether to assign an external number range (where the user chooses the master record number) or an internal number range (system assigned)

Question.13   Name the standard stages of the SAP Payment Run.

Answer:   The following steps are usually performed during the payment run.

 . Entering of parameters (company codes, payment methods, vendor accounts etc)

 . Proposal Scheduling – the system proposes list of invoices to be paid.

 . Payment booking – the booking of the actual payments into the ledger.

 . Printing of payment forms

Variations on the above may be found in different SAP customer, but the interviewer will be looking for the basis steps above.

Question.14   What is the purpose of payment methods and when are they stored?

Answer:    Generally payment methods are one digit alphanumeric identifiers that indicate the type of payments made to vendors or received from customers. There are many standard delivered SAP entries for each country. The payment methods are stored in the vendor / customer master record as well on vendor / customer line items. (The default from master record can be changed during manual postings)

Question.15   Explain briefly how you can import electronic bank statements into SAP.

Answer:     A text file is received from the bank which is then uploaded into the SAP system. The file contains details of the company’s bank movements e.g. cheques, bank interest, bank charges, cash receipts, etc. Depending on the system configuration SAP will attempt to book these transactions automatically to the correct accounts to avoid the need for manual entries by SAP users.

Any postings which the system can not derive automatically can be booked through “post-processing”

Question.16   In Accounts Receivable, what’s the difference between the ‘residual payment’ and ‘part payment’ methods of allocating cash?

Answer:   These are the two methods for allocating partial payments from customers.

As an example, lets say invoice A123 exists for $100 and a customer pays $60. With partial payment, the $60 simply offsets the invoice leaving a remaining balance of $40.

With residual payment, invoice A123 is cleared for the full value $100 and a new invoice line item is booked for the remaining balance of $40.

Question.17  What are correspondence types in AR / AP?

Answer:   Correspondence types are different outputs which can be printed and sent to your business partners based around either customer vendor or GL information. Popular correspondence types include customer statements, payment notices and line items lists. Within the most common AP/AR functions (such as ‘Display vendor line items’ below there is the option to generate correspondence requests. At the end of the working day these can be printed together as a batch and sent out.

Question.18  What are exchange rate “types” in SAP?

Answer:  Exchange rate types are how SAP categorizes the different sets of exchange rates int eh R3 system. By default exchange rate type “M” is used for the rates used to calculate local currency in the SAP system..

Question.19  During document posting, under what circumstances would SAP display the following warning / error message” “Calculated rate deviates from document header rate by x%”?

Answer:  This occurs when the exchange rate in the document header (either entered by the user or derived from the exchange rate table) differs by a larger amount than that specified as the maximum tolerance. (The message can changed to be either error or a warning).