Financial Accounting (FI)

FI (Financial Accounting) is the oldest module in SAP and still its centre of gravity. It records every business transaction as a journal entry and produces the statutory financial statements — the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement — that external stakeholders rely on.

The point that matters most is that FI is not a module used only by the finance department. When purchasing posts a goods receipt in MM, inventory and a payables accrual appear in FI. When sales bills a customer in SD, a receivable and revenue appear in FI. FI is where every activity in the business eventually lands, and grasping this idea of automatic postings from other modules is what separates people who understand SAP accounting from people who only understand accounting.

These ten sections start with the organisational units and the chart of accounts that everything else rests on, move through how documents are actually posted, then cover the payables, receivables and asset sub-ledgers, and finish with period-end closing and foreign currency valuation.