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Reasons For Archiving Financial Accounting Data

What is financial archiving? Where it is used? Why? Where is it configured in IMG?

There are both technical and legal reasons for archiving Financial Accounting data.

Archiving:
1) Reduces storage and runtime problems caused by the constant growth of transaction data.
2) Makes master data easier to manage and to keep up to date.
3) Enables data to be accessed at a later date.

You can archive data no longer required in the online system using certain standard functions. This data is then stored in archive files and deleted from the online system. For legal and commercial reasons, it is important that you are able to access archived data files online again, and the reloading function allows you to do this.

Data must meet certain conditions before it can be archived. Some of these controls are already defined in the system, for instance the fact that you cannot archive documents that contain open items. Certain other controls are user-defined.
Every archiving function can be accessed from archive management (SARA).

To reach archive management, choose:
Tools --> Administration --> Archiving or from the Accounting --> Financial Accounting --> General Ledger, Accounts
Receivable, Accounts Payable or Banks menus --> Periodic processing Archiving .

When you access archive management from these menus, the archiving object is defaulted by the system in the field Object name. Otherwise you must enter the name of the archiving object manually.

Archiving and Reorganization are totally different issues

Archiving is a process when you archive old master/transactional records which are not in use any more from long time. You archive those records keep on some backup device. These records can be displayed, and only Display, can never be reloaded in tables again physically.
This will free up the space in tables from those records which are not in use any more but exist in tables physically.

Reorganization basically removes deleted data from tables. During different transactions you delete some records, which are deleted virtually but not physically. Even Archive process delete those records virtually.
So you run Reorganization to free up the space consumed by deleted records.

This make the difference between the two clear.

Now about reorganization.

It depends on which OS and DB you are using.

If Oracle, SAPDBA is best tool to reorganise.

In addition to above, you can reorganise the whole database, but it takes time depending upon your database. Some times it can be more than a day or you can reorganise a table suggested in Early Watch system.

It all depends on you.

What is financial archiving? Where it is used? Why? Where is it configured in IMG?

There are both technical and legal reasons for archiving Financial Accounting data.

Archiving:
1) Reduces storage and runtime problems caused by the constant growth of transaction data.
2) Makes master data easier to manage and to keep up to date.
3) Enables data to be accessed at a later date.

You can archive data no longer required in the online system using certain standard functions. This data is then stored in archive files and deleted from the online system. For legal and commercial reasons, it is important that you are able to access archived data files online again, and the reloading function allows you to do this.

Data must meet certain conditions before it can be archived. Some of these controls are already defined in the system, for instance the fact that you cannot archive documents that contain open items. Certain other controls are user-defined.
Every archiving function can be accessed from archive management (SARA).

To reach archive management, choose:
Tools --> Administration --> Archiving or from the Accounting --> Financial Accounting --> General Ledger, Accounts
Receivable, Accounts Payable or Banks menus --> Periodic processing Archiving .

When you access archive management from these menus, the archiving object is defaulted by the system in the field Object name. Otherwise you must enter the name of the archiving object manually.

Transaction SARA contains all the SAP archiving objects for all the SAP R/3 applications modules. All the SAP archive functions are shown in SARA. Choose the corresponding SAP archive object, hit enter and the archive administration menu will be shown. Provided here will be an example on how to archive the SAP Material Master.

Archive a Material Master Record

When a material is no longer required in a company or plant, you can archive and delete the material master record.

You have to Flag the material master record for deletion. This is known as logical deletion.

Before a material master record can be archived and deleted, other objects (such as purchasing documents) that refer to this material must themselves be archived. You can see which objects these are and the dependencies between them in the network graphic.

If a material master record cannot be archived and deleted at a given organizational level, the reason is given in the log (for example, a purchase order exists for the material). The log also contains technical data such as the number of material master records read and the number deleted.

Some of the archive error log message :-

• Costing data exists
• Use in routing
• Use in sales and distribution
• Use in bill of material
• Delivery exists
• Costing data exists
• Info record exists
• Purchase order exists

Archiving object MM_MATNR for archiving material master records.

You can display the archived data, but not reload it.

To archive the material master, first goto transaction MM71.

Type in a variant name and click Maintain. (Tick the Test Mode for archive simulation).

Save the variant.

Maintain the Start date and Spool parameters and click execute.

Click Goto Job Overview to check the archive status.

To do a permanent delete, goto transaction SARA and click Delete button.

Maintain the Archive Selection, Start date and Spool parameters.

Click Test Session for testing or click execute to start the deletion program.

Click Goto Job Overview to check the delete status.

Now, if you goto MM02/MM03, you will not be able to find the record in the material master.

Archiving is a process when you archive old master/transactional records which are not in use any more from long time. You archive those records keep on some backup device. These records can be displayed, and only Display, can never be reloaded in tables again physically.
This will free up the space in tables from those records which are not in use any more but exist in tables physically.

Reorganization basically removes deleted data from tables. During different transactions you delete some records, which are deleted virtually but not physically. Even Archive process delete those records virtually.
So you run Reorganization to free up the space consumed by deleted records.

This make the difference between the two clear.

Now about reorganization.

It depends on which OS and DB you are using.

If Oracle, SAPDBA is best tool to reorganise.

In addition to above, you can reorganise the whole database, but it takes time depending upon your database. Some times it can be more than a day or you can reorganise a table suggested in Early Watch system.

Archiving the Material Master

Transaction SARA contains all the SAP archiving objects for all the SAP R/3 applications modules. All the SAP archive functions are shown in SARA. Choose the corresponding SAP archive object, hit enter and the archive administration menu will be shown. Provided here will be an example on how to archive the SAP Material Master.

Archive a Material Master Record

When a material is no longer required in a company or plant, you can archive and delete the material master record.

You have to Flag the material master record for deletion. This is known as logical deletion.

Before a material master record can be archived and deleted, other objects (such as purchasing documents) that refer to this material must themselves be archived. You can see which objects these are and the dependencies between them in the network graphic.

If a material master record cannot be archived and deleted at a given organizational level, the reason is given in the log (for example, a purchase order exists for the material). The log also contains technical data such as the number of material master records read and the number deleted.

Some of the archive error log message :-

• Costing data exists
• Use in routing
• Use in sales and distribution
• Use in bill of material
• Delivery exists
• Costing data exists
• Info record exists
• Purchase order exists

Archiving object MM_MATNR for archiving material master records.

You can display the archived data, but not reload it.

To archive the material master, first goto transaction MM71.

Type in a variant name and click Maintain. (Tick the Test Mode for archive simulation).

Save the variant.

Maintain the Start date and Spool parameters and click execute.

Click Goto Job Overview to check the archive status.

To do a permanent delete, goto transaction SARA and click Delete button.

Maintain the Archive Selection, Start date and Spool parameters.

Click Test Session for testing or click execute to start the deletion program.

Click Goto Job Overview to check the delete status.

Now, if you goto MM02/MM03, you will not be able to find the record in the material master.

Keyword: BASIS
Title : Data Archiving - Requirements & Importing Archving Technology

SAP ARCHIVING MANAGEMENT:

As the usage of SAP database increases it’ll results in huge amounts of enterprise data, which is stored in SAP R/3. The new updated data is entered into the system while the old data still resides in the SAP enterprise system. So the Database size increases rapidly. Since some of the old data is critical, it cannot be deleted. Hence, a SAP database keeps on expanding rapidly and enterprise systems, which have limited data retention abilities for a few years, suffer from problems such as data overflow, longer transaction processing times, and performance degradation.

The solution of this problem has led to the concept of Data Archiving in SAP. Data Archiving removes out-of-date data from the SAP database that the R/3 system does not need online, but can be retrieved on a later date, if required. This data is known as archived data and is stored at an offline location. Data Archiving is nothing but removal of Application Data belonging to completed business process from the database. Data Archiving not only consistently removes data from the database but also ensures data availability for future business requirements. The removed data is compressed and stored in another location. Before deleting data in the database, a delete program compares the contents of the archive files with the same data stored in the database; deletion takes place only if both sets of data are identical. We can use the Transaction SARA for Archiving management. For each archive run, a specific program variant determines which data should be archived. Depending on the archive object, there maybe several parameters to maintain. During an archive run, the status can be monitored in RZ20.

Data archiving is an administrative task that must be performed regularly, particularly if you are facing fast growing data volumes. How often you archive largely depends on the growth rate of your database tables.

Three Phase Archiving Process

Data archiving process comprises three major phases. They are:

1. Creating an archive file

2. Removing the archived data from the database

3. Transferring the archived files to a location outside the SAP database

Creating Archive Files

The archived files of data are created in the SAP database by the Archiving Management system. The Management system reads the data from the database and writes it to the archive files in the background. In instances of archived files exceeding the maximum specified limit, or if the number of data objects exceed the stipulated limit in the system, then the system automatically creates new archive files.

Deleting files from the Database

While archiving management system writes data on the archive files, another program deletes it from the database permanently. The program checks whether the data has been transferred to the archive. It is quite important too as it is the last check performed by the system before deleting data permanently from the database. Several deletion programs run simultaneously, because the archiving program is much more faster than the deletion programs. This is important as it increases the efficiency of archiving process.

Transferring Archive Files