Every financial posting in SAP creates an FI document. Understanding what that document contains — and how SAP structures it — is the foundation of everything in Financial Accounting.

Document header and line items

An FI document has two layers:

Document header — one per posting. Contains:

• Document number — unique within a company code and fiscal year
• Document date — the date on the source document (invoice, journal entry, etc.)
• Posting date — the date the entry affects the books (determines which period it lands in)
• Document type — a two-character code that controls which account types can be posted and how the document is numbered
• Company code — the legal entity this posting belongs to
• Currency — transaction currency (SAP always also stores amounts in company code currency)

Line items — one or more per document. Each line contains:

• G/L account — which account is being posted to
• Posting key — whether it's a debit or credit (and which account type)
• Amount — in transaction currency
• Cost centre, profit centre, or other CO object — required for P&L accounts
• Text — a description of what this line represents

Document types

Document types control two things: which account types are allowed in the posting, and which number range is used for the document number.

Common document types you'll encounter:

• SA — G/L account document (standard manual journal entry)
• KR — Vendor invoice
• KZ — Vendor payment
• DR — Customer invoice
• DZ — Customer payment
• AA — Asset posting
• WA — Goods issue (generated automatically from MM)
• WE — Goods receipt (generated automatically from MM)

Fiscal year and periods

SAP tracks which fiscal year and period (usually month) a posting belongs to. This is derived from the posting date and the fiscal year variant configured for your company code.

Most European companies use a calendar year (Jan = period 1, Dec = period 12). Some use a non-calendar fiscal year (e.g. Apr–Mar).

Periods can be open or closed. If a period is closed, SAP will reject any posting attempt with that posting date. This is how month-end close works — the accounting team closes the period to prevent late entries.

Viewing FI documents

FB03 — Display FI document. This is the go-to transaction for looking up any posted financial document.

Enter the document number, company code, and fiscal year. You'll see the header and all line items. From here you can:

• See the full posting with all amounts
• Navigate to the original source document (click the reference field)
• Check the document flow (which other documents this is linked to)
• Display the document in accounting view or G/L view

FAGLL03 — G/L Account Line Item Display. Shows all line items for a specific G/L account across a date range. Useful for reconciling an account balance.