Best SAP FICO Interview Questions – Real-Time Issues

Last Updated on January 10, 2023 by Pradeep

SAP FICO Interview Questions – Why Best?

These SAP FICO Interview Questions are collected from the true interview experiences of past students (alumni). It also includes the questions and queries that I have from them in classes and the best answers that I suggest to them.

Hence, these questions help you to have real-time based learning from what usually interviewers ask in SAP FICO interviews. Let us go ahead as per the different categories!

SAP FICO Interview Questions – On Asset and Payment

Q1. How do you do the Integrated Asset Acquisition in SAP with PO?

• Ans. – Following are the steps we follow to do the integrated asset acquisition with PO or logistics:-
• First, Create Asset Master
• Then, Create Purchase Order
• In the third step, Post the receipt of the goods
• Finally, Post the invoice receipt.

Q2. What main parameters you will keep in mind while setting up the dunning process in the system?

Ans. – Following are the main parameters to set up the dunning process in the SAP system:-

1. The dunning date that you need to print in the dunning notice
2. Posting cutoff date for selection of documents
3. Company codes, etc.

Q3. – What are the steps to follow to do Creating Master Records Centrally?

Ans. – We need to follow the below steps, to create a Master record (both the accounting and purchasing data) in one step.

SAP Easy Access => Accounting => Financial Accounting => Accounts Payable => Master Record => Maintain Centrally => Create

Transaction Code XK01.

Q4. In the P2P process, what functionality would you use to change settings after configuring the discount base?

Ans. – In the P2P Process in SAP FICO, we use Cash Discount Base for Incoming Invoices, (Tcode- OB70), to change settings after configuring the discount base.

SAP FICO Interview Questions – On Implementation and Configuration

Q5. – What is the relation between an SAP Controlling Area and Company Codes?

Ans. – Controlling Area may have two types of relationship with the company Code:

1. Single Company Code relation
2. Cross Company Code relation

This means you can assign one single controlling area to several different company codes. Controlling can have relationships with different company codes, either as, one: one or, one: many.

The Controlling Area is the umbrella under which you can store all controlling activities of cost center accounting, product costing, profit Centre and Profitability Analysis.

Read More:- Interview Questions on SAP S/4HANA Finance

Q6. – How many Charts of Accounts can a company code have?

The chart of Accounts is nothing but the list of General ledger accounts.

Ans. – You can assign two charts of accounts to a single company code.

One is the Operational Chart of Accounts which is mandatory to perform all operational activities.

Second, we can use (rarely) Country-specific charts of accounts in some scenarios.

Related: Learn Chart of Accounts in-depth – A Complete Beginners Guide

Q7. – What are the options in SAP when it comes to Fiscal Years?

The Fiscal Year is nothing but the way financial data is stored in the system.

We can take a maximum of up to 12 periods and 4 special periods. These periods are stored in what is called the Fiscal Year Variant.

Answer to Question:

You can take the Fiscal Year Variant either as:

• A Calendar Year (Jan-Dec), or
• A Non-Calendar Year (April-March, June –May, etc).

Since you create a Fiscal Year Variant at the client level, you need to assign it to a company code.

You can define a fiscal Year with 2 digit code. The table for the Fiscal Year Variant is T009.

In SAP ERP (ECC) you can assign two different FYVs to the company code and controlling area. For example, you can assign K4 (Jan-Dec) to the Company code and V3 (April-March) to the controlling Area.

However, in S4 HANA Finance, you need to assign the same Fiscal Year Variant to both, the company code and the Controlling Area.

Related: Changes in SAP S4 HANA Controlling

Q8. – What is the Year Dependent Fiscal Year Variant?

Ans. – In a Year dependent fiscal year variant, the number of days in a month is not as per the calendar month.

Let us take an example- for the year 2010, the period January ends on the 29th, Feb ends on 27th and March ends on the 29.

For 2011, January ends on the 30th, Feb ends on the 26th, March ends on the 30^th, etc. This applies to many countries, especially the USA. Accordingly, we need to configure the Fiscal Year Variant.

Q9. – How does posting happen in MM during special Periods?

Ans. – There is no posting that happens from SAP MM in special periods. Special periods are only applicable to the FI module. You need them to make any additional postings such as closing entries, and provisions, which happen during year-end. 

Q10. – How many currencies you can configure for a company code?

Ans. – A company code can have 3 currencies.

1. Local Currency/Company code
2. Group currency which is defined at the client level
3. Hard Currency at country level settings in Net weaver (you can define this if the inflation rate is high).

Q11. – Do we need to configure additional ledgers for parallel currencies?

Ans. – In case we configure two currencies (Company Code currency and parallel currency) we do not need an additional ledger. However, if we configure the third parallel currency, which is different from the second currency type, then we need to configure an additional ledger.

Full Series of SAP FICO Interview Questions – Click Here

SAP FICO Interview Questions – On FI GL (General Ledger)

Q12. – Give an example of GL accounts that the system posts automatically through the system. How do you define it in the system?

Ans. – Stock Consumption accounts are instances of GL accounts that the system posts automatically. In the GL account master record, a checkbox exists wherein you select the automatic posting option. This is called “Post automatically only”.

Q13. – What is an Account Group and where do you use it?

Ans. – An account Group controls the data that you need to enter at the time of the creation of a master record.

Account Groups exist for the definition of a GL account, Vendor Master Data and Customer Master. It controls the fields which pop up during SAP Master Data creation.

Q14. – What is the Field status Group?

Ans. – The field status Group controls the fields which come up when the user does the transactions. Here, three options are available:

1. You can have the fields only for display
2. You can suppress it
3. Lastly, you can make it mandatory.

Noteworthy, the field status group is stored in the GL master.

Q15. – What is the use of “Document Type” in SAP?

Ans. – A document type in SAP is specified at the Header level during transaction entry and serves the following purpose:

• Document Type defines the number range for documents
• Secondly, it controls the type of accounts that you can post to. For Example – Asset, vendor, customer, GL posting, etc
• Lastly, you can use a Document Type for the reversal of entries.

Q16. – What is the Financial Statement Version?

Ans. – An FSV (Financial Statement Version) is a reporting tool that you use to extract and depict the Final accounts from SAP. Examples are the Profit and Loss Account and Balance sheet.

Furthermore, you can freely define it to generate the output for various external agencies like Banks and other statutory authorities. Even you can define multiple FSVs too.

Q17. – What are Validations and Substitutions?

Ans. – Validations/Substitutions in SAP are defined for each functional area eg. Assets, Controlling, etc at the following levels:

• Document Level
• Line Item Level

You are required to activate and set them up specifically. Importantly, these are complex and you should do them only when you need them. Here you generally require help from the technical team for this work.

Q18. – Is it possible to maintain plant-wise different GL codes?

Ans. – You can maintain the valuation grouping code as per plant and you can configure it in the MM module. Certainly, you should activate the valuation group code for this.

Additionally, you can maintain Account codes as per the valuation grouping code after doing this configuration.

SAP FICO Interview Questions – On Organizational Structure

Q19. – Is the Business area lie at the company code level?

Ans. – The Business area lies at the client level. This means the other company codes can also post to the same business area.

Q20. – What are the different scenarios under which you may define a Business Area or a Profit Centre?

Ans. – Though, this is very disputable. However, both the Business Area and Profit Centres are created for internal reporting. Each has its own merits & demerits.

Many companies nowadays go for Profit centers as they feel that SAP would not support Business area enhancements in future versions.

For the typical month-end procedures, you need to execute both. Many times reconciliation becomes a big issue. A typical challenge in both of them is, many times, that you do not know the Business Area or Profit Center of the transaction at the time of posting. Thus, it makes the process complex for you.

Conclusion

SAP FICO interview questions are a highly searched term for those who want to get their desirable SAP FICO job. By seeing these SAP FICO interview questions and answers, you get a basic idea of what employers look for while hiring their workforce.

SAP FICO Interview Questions Covers key competencies

These SAP FICO Interview Questions are based on key topics of Finance and Controlling like Organisational structure, Company Codes, Charts of Accounts, and Fiscal Year variants. These topics show practical aspects of the configuration in FICO. Thus, I can say, these are some of the most frequently asked questions during FI & CO job interviews.

For more Interview Questions on SAP Controlling:- Click Here

How does reading these SAP FICO Interview Questions help?

These questions would help you to prepare for SAP FICO interviews. However, you shouldn’t ignore the fact that you should have practical skills to justify your answers.

Since nobody can give a surety that the given questions would be asked in interviews. This is because it majorly depends on the interviewer, the company & position you are applying for (role of SAP FICO End-user or an SAP FICO consultant), and their core requirements. Thus, based on these, they make a list of the SAP FICO interview questions to ask you.

Don’t rely on just reading SAP FICO Interview Questions & Answers

So you should not rely solely on reading these questions to prepare for your interviews. You also need to work hard on learning SAP FICO practically and its core competencies such as knowledge of business processes, configurations, implementation processes, key components of SAP FICO, submodules and their functionalities etc.

In other words, if you have done your homework properly, then only these SAP FICO interview questions would help you the best.

Learn more: SAP FICO Scenarios with real-time issues