Migration of Open GR/IR Balance

Question

Hi,
We are implementing SAP & we have to migrate open GR/IR balance from legacy system to SAP.
In legacy system there is no GR/IR account however there is a liability account against which Inventory is booked.
Let's say we have migrated the balance through GL Balance. If we receive invoice from the vendor for the same value then there is no problem however if the invoice value differs from the liability created then how to handle the same?
Regards,
D

Answer 1

Hi D,
The usual way is, to reconcile the old GR/IR balance in the old way as much as possible. It means, that the balance is posted to a separate account (not the GR/IR from MM) by open items, which will be understandable for the users (usually through a meaningful Assignment).
Incoming vendor invoices for these cases may be booked as FI invoices against this account with the same "label" (Assignment etc.) and it is reconciled the same way as any other open-item account (e.g., subtotal items by assignment, automatically clear matching ones and investigate others). Or, perhaps a better way is, to keep running the legacy application for invoice verification for all the old cases (where goods receipt occurred in legacy). Posted invoices should be interfaced to SAP, to the open item account mentioned above. This should be done if the migrated volume is high and you want to keep the invoice verification automated even for the old cases.
So, in general, the usual approach is to open a separate open item account, make an initial migration of the balance (split by meaningful open items) and then make sure that incoming invoices are labeled in the same way, whether manually or automatically. Users should keep an eye on it and follow up on the items (clearing or investigating). After a few months, there should hopefully be nothing left (although reality is often different) and the account should be blocked against posting. But having open items (by purchase etc., similar to SAP purchase orders and items) is the key to reconciling it.
I have not yet seen re-creating old purchase orders with goods receipts in SAP, although this is also an option (you just need to offset the migrated goods receipts against a negative movement for initial stock upload to keep everything in balance, but it should work as well - perhaps even better than the above. But it is more complicated for data migration and therefore not as common.)
Hope it helps - good luck!