SAP Business One 8.8 - Data Archiving Preview
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving Enhancement
SAP Business One 8.8 offers users the opportunity to archive data and remove it from the day to day operating database. This is achieved by using a very user friendly archiving utility provided in the core program that allows users to select up until which period or sub-period they would like to archive. The tool works by examining document clusters (A series of related documents from quotation through deposit and check reconciliation) and selecting those that have been completely executed for archiving. The user does not need to worry about having all transactions in a given period closed since the system will automatically exclude the open transactions and move to the next validated cluster. I have prepared a couple screen shots that highlight the effect on the system but first I would like to share a video which demonstrates how the archiving function works when archiving a previous fiscal year.
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving Enhancement
In the Screen shot below we can see one of the accounts that contains both transactions within the period selected for archiving as well as transactions which can pass the clustering test (when all transactions contained within a specific cluster are closed). It is important to note the state of your accounts prior to archiving so that it can be fully understood what changes the archiving tool will perform. this level of preparedness will help keep outside accounting costs lower prevent suprises when review those accounts in the future.
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving - Account Balances
Chart of Accounts Pre-Archive
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving - Results
Now we will look at the same account in its post archive state to confirm that the balances are correct and to more clearly see what changes the archiving tool has made. This is especially important in determining how the system is accounting for the removal of older transactions that can affect balance sheet accounts. It can be clearly seen by comparing the before and after states that they system has removed all of the transactions that passed the cluster test and left those that did not. For the accounts that were removed the system has generated a single journal entyr because we archived a single period and told the archiving tool that we wanted our journal entries divided into periods though we do have the option of either sub-periods or months as well.
Chart of Accounts Post-Archive
Now to again make one final confirmation of the accounting we look at the single journal entry created in this scenario. As we can see there is a single entry for each affected account, since we have done our proper due diligence we know that all of the account balances are accurate and we must merely check the entry for proper date and remarks. The remarks field is especially helpful in the event of an audit and can help clarify why an archive was a good choice.
Post Archive Journal Entry
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving - Audit Functionality
Speaking of audits if for some reason an archived transaction needs to be assessed more closely for accounting or transactional integrity all transactions can be reviewed in their proper state as of the time of the archive by restoring and reviewing the read only backup the system generates. Below we can see that the system generated backup is located in the SQL backup folder and has a special naming convention distinguishing it from other system databases. It should be noted that this database is read only and can not have anything within it changed, this insures the account integrity and that proper accounting protocal is followed to prevent tampering.
SAP Business One 8.8 Data Archiving Summary
That concludes our initial review and How-To of the archiving feature in SAP Business One 8.8, I hope you have found it useful and are looking forward to this feature as much as we are. If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us at info@orchestrateam.com or by phone at 559-477-4256
