What is the Variant Principle in SAP FI?

In this SAP FI tutorial, we will talk about the variant principle in SAP FI. You will learn what is the variant principle in SAP FI and also study different types of application of the variant principle: for posting periods, for fields statuses, and for fiscal year variants.

What is a Variant?

Variant is a group of settings which used for execution of operations in system or for assignments to company code. SAP provided standard variants, as per the requirement client specific variants can be created.

The variant principle is a combination of three steps as shown below:

1. Create variant
2. Maintain values in the variant
3. Assignment to a company code

In SAP FI, we use variant to make assignments of the following objects to company codes:

1. Posting period variant
2. Field status variant
3. Fiscal year variants

Posting Period Variant

Posting period variant is used to open and close accounting periods for each account type or for all account types. Here are the available account types:

• Account type A for Assets
• Account type D for Customers
• Account type K for Vendors
• Account type M for Materials
• Account type S for G/L accounts
• Account type V for Contract accounts
• Account type + is valid for all account types

Customizing Path

SPRO – SAP reference IMG – Financial Accounting (New) – Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) – Ledgers – Fiscal Year and Posting Periods – Posting Periods – Define Variants for Open Posting Periods, Assign Variants to Company Code, Open and Close Posting Periods

Transaction Codes

OBBO, OBBP, and OB52.

Relevant Tables

T010O (Posting Period Variants), T001B (Permitted Posting Periods), T001 (Company codes).

Configuration Steps

1. Define variant

2. Assign variant to company code

3. Maintenance of posting periods

In the above screenshot, From Per.2 is used to open special postings periods

Field Status Variant

Field status variant is used to group several fields into one field status group. In the field status group a field can be defined as Suppress/Required/Optional. Field status group maintain in the G/L account master data.

Customizing Path

SPRO – SAP reference IMG – Financial Accounting (New) – Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) – Ledgers – Fields – Define Field Status Variants, Assign Company Code to Field Status Variants

Transaction Codes

OBC4 and OBC5

Relevant Tables

T004V (Field Status Variant), T001 (Company codes)

Configuration Steps

1. Define field status variant. Copy the variant 0001 to ABCD. Next, changes can be done in ABCD.

2. Field status group copied in the field status variant ABCD.

Fiscal year Variant

Fiscal year divided into posting periods and special posting periods of a fiscal year. Each posting period is an accounting period/month. In the fiscal year variant, there are 12 periods and 4 special periods to be maintain. No postings are possible without assignment of a fiscal year variant to a company code.

A fiscal year can be year dependent or year independent. Year independent means the same as calendar year. Year dependent means the accounting year is not same as a calendar year. For example, India accounting year starts from April and ends in March.

Customizing Path

SPRO – SAP reference IMG – Financial Accounting (New) – Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) – Ledgers – Fiscal Year and Posting Periods – Maintain Fiscal Year Variant (Maintain Shortened Fisc. Year), Assign Company Code to a Fiscal Year Variant

Transaction Codes

OB29 and OB37

Relevant Tables

T009 (Fiscal Year Variants), T001 (Company codes)

Configuration Steps

1. Create a fiscal year variant

2. Assignment of a fiscal year variant to a company code

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