{"id":2184,"date":"2015-02-18T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dab-europe.com\/\/articles\/using-sap-reports-for-data-analytics-by-the-example-of-customer-balances\/"},"modified":"2025-03-11T12:49:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T12:49:00","slug":"using-sap-reports-for-data-analytics-by-the-example-of-customer-balances","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.dab-europe.com\/en\/articles\/using-sap-reports-for-data-analytics-by-the-example-of-customer-balances\/","title":{"rendered":"Using SAP\u00ae reports for data analytics by the example of customer balances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using SAP\u00ae reports for data analytics by the example of customer balances<\/h2>\n

Often when giving a training or doing consulting in context of data analytics, people are asking me about whether there are existing SAP\u00ae reports, which can make their data analytic life easier. This question is a valid one indeed, as any SAP\u00ae release usually offers a wide range of built-in reports which deliver information just by the push of a button. However I want to point out by the following example that only \u201cpushing the button to run the report\u201d is not just sufficient, at least not if you want to (or need to) explain and fully understand (or even to reproduce) the result. Interpretation requires context and knowledge about the data you are looking at, and no report will relieve the data analyst from his responsibility to understand the reports output. <\/p>\n

In this article I will use a report to display customer balances. I will show how to run it in SAP\u00ae, we will have a look at the result together and then we will reproduce the reports output based on the detail transactions. <\/p>\n

Starting point<\/h2>\n

When performing an audit (or analyzing data in general) a common task is getting an overview about the business we have with a certain business partner (like customers or vendors). An important part of this is analyzing the customer balances (also called \u201ctransaction figures\u201d). The following approach is based on a SAP\u00ae Training system.<\/p>\n

Listing customer balances by using report S_ALR_87012171<\/h2>\n

One way to retrieve the customer balances would be to browse the SAP\u00ae navigation tree looking for existing reports. Some relevant reports can be found for example by clicking your way through \u201cAccounting -> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable -> Information system -> Reports for Accounts Receivable Accounting -> Customer Balances\u201d (phew, that was quite a long way to go\u2026):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In this article I want to use report \u201cS_ALR_87012171 \u2013 Transaction figures: Sales\u201c as example. Please note that on your system you might have other or different options, which may provide even better ways to answer our \u201cCustomer balances\u201d question. However for making my point about the necessity of having know-how to understand or even reproduce the results, this example is sufficient. Running the report requires some parameters. I used the values \u201eCustomer Account = 1033\u201c and \u201eFiscal Year = 2005\u201c and \u201eCompany Code = 1000\u201c, as the training data is a bit outdated already. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Running the report with the parameters listed above provides as result the customers \u201cturnover\u201d split into 16 single lines \u2013 these are representing the 16 fiscal periods which do exist in SAP\u00ae Financials.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This reads as follows: In fiscal year 2005, we had turnover with that customer in the first eleven posting periods 1-11, which means January until including November. The first line contains a turnover of 153.271,57 Euro (the selected company code uses Euros as local currency), and the total turnover for the whole fiscal year is 2.395.751,99 Euro. Now we will try to reproduce that based on the single transactions, using the first posting period of January as example. <\/p>\n

To drill down you can place the cursor in the cell you want to get the details for, then go to the menu and select \u201eGoto -> Line Items\u201d. This lists the single financial customer documents, which are (supposedly) adding up to the total amount in January. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But having that result, can we reproduce the total value accordingly? In our detail screen we have open items (marked red) and cleared items (marked green). Credit postings are listed as negative amount (with a minus in front), debit postings positive. But how does it add up to 153.271,57 Euro? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By going to \u201eList -> Export\u201c, I can download the data to my laptop using Microsoft Excel\u2122 format to make calculations easier. SAP\u00aes built-in spreadsheet extract is not very eye-kind and nice to look at, so I formatted the spreadsheet a bit, making it more handsome. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The data is the same as in the SAP\u00ae screen, with open items on top followed by the cleared customer items below. Credit postings are negative and in red font, debit postings in black font. Additionally, I created three checksums: <\/p>\n