{"id":2190,"date":"2026-08-07T09:12:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/puffertech.com\/clients\/promenta\/risk-of-manual-journal-entries-in-sap\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T10:10:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:10:35","slug":"risk-of-manual-journal-entries-in-sap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/puffertech.com\/clients\/promenta\/risk-of-manual-journal-entries-in-sap\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Reduce the Risk of Manual Journal Entries in SAP"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Manual journal entries are an essential part of financial reporting. They allow finance teams to record accruals, corrections, reclassifications, provisions and other transactions that may not originate from a standard source document.<\/p>\n

However, this flexibility also makes manual journals a critical area of financial control.<\/p>\n

Unlike a payment supported by an invoice or a goods receipt connected to a purchase order, a manual journal may begin with a finance user deciding the amount, account, cost object, posting period and accounting treatment.<\/p>\n

This does not mean that every manual journal is inherently high risk. Nor does it mean that organisations should simply try to eliminate manual journals.<\/p>\n

Rather, the focus lies in what happens around the journal.<\/p>\n

How is the information validated? Who reviews and approves it? Can the preparer also post the entry? Is supporting documentation retained alongside the journal? Can the organisation demonstrate the complete history of the transaction during an audit?<\/p>\n

The risk of manual journal entries in SAP therefore depends less on the number of journals being processed and more on where the controls are applied.<\/p>\n

If controls operate only after a journal has posted, the organisation may be able to detect a problem. If the controls operate during preparation and approval, the organisation has a better opportunity to prevent the problem from reaching the ledger.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why the Risk of Manual Journal Entries in SAP Requires Preventive Controls<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Most transactions recorded in the general ledger originate from another business process.<\/p>\n

A payment is normally supported by an invoice. A goods receipt is connected to a purchase order. A customer receipt may have a remittance or transaction record.<\/p>\n

A manual journal may have no equivalent source transaction.<\/p>\n

Instead, the journal may be prepared in a spreadsheet, reviewed by another finance user, approved through email, and subsequently entered into SAP. Supporting documentation may then be retained in a shared folder or separate system.<\/p>\n

Each step may appear reasonable. However, the wider process can become fragmented.<\/p>\n

APQC identifies manual journal entries as a persistent source of errors and expense. For organisations operating SAP, the risks generally fall into five connected categories.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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1. Data Integrity and Posting-Error Risk<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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SAP journal posting errors typically arise when journal information does not comply with live master data, account determinations, cost objects, tolerances, or finance validation rules and the most common cause is validation happening too late in the process.<\/p>\n

When preparation happens in a standalone spreadsheet, some of these checks may not occur until the journal is entered or posted into SAP.<\/p>\n

Potential issues can include:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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