FI / FICOadvanced

FICO Central Finance Part 3: Mapping and Reconciliation Controls

Key takeaway

Keep Central Finance reliable: key vs value mapping, mapping actions (keep, map, clear), master data synchronization (often with MDG), cost object mapping, and reconciliation reports comparing source and central balances and documents.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ Key mapping maps master data IDs (e.g. customer, supplier, material); value mapping maps codes (e.g. company code, payment terms).
✅ Mapping actions decide per field: keep source value, map, or clear.
✅ Master data governance (e.g. MDG) keeps mappings in sync with source changes.
✅ Reconciliation compares source vs central balances and document counts regularly.
⚠️ Mapping maintained manually without ownership degrades quickly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 2 configured replication. Now controls.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 1. KEY VS VALUE MAPPING

IDs vs codes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 2. MAPPING ACTIONS

Keep, map, clear.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 3. MASTER DATA SYNC

MDG or controlled processes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 4. COST OBJECTS

Cost center/order mapping.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 5. RECONCILIATION

Balance and document comparisons; exceptions.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ STEP BY STEP

Review mapping per entity.
Set actions per field.
Run reconciliation and analyse differences.

✅ CHECKPOINT: differences explained daily.

Code example

ABAP Code

===== MAPPING EXAMPLES =====Key mapping: source supplier 100234 → central BP 5000123Value mapping: source company code 1000 → central 1010 | payment term Z30 → N030Mapping action: profit center = map | text field = keep | obsolete field = clear ===== RECONCILIATION =====Source vs central: balances per company code/account | document counts per day

Real project scenario

A new source profit center had no mapping; its postings failed centrally for a week. Adding a master data sync rule for new profit centers and daily reconciliation ended silent gaps.

Common mistakes

Unowned mappings.
No sync for new master data.
Wrong actions.
No reconciliation.
Ignoring cost objects.

Best practices

Assign owners.
Sync via governance.
Review actions.
Daily reconciliation.
Map cost objects.

Interview angle

Questions: "Key vs value mapping?", "What are mapping actions?", "How do you reconcile source and central?"
Strong answer: mapping types, actions, sync, cost objects, reconciliation.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. A new profit center created in a source system causes central posting errors. What prevents this?

2. What is the main purpose of value mapping in a Central Finance scenario?

3. What is the main objective of the reconciliation process in a Central Finance landscape?

Interview questions

1. What are the most important design decisions, trade-offs, and best practices in Central Finance?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. Central and source balances drift apart over time. How do you design mapping and reconciliation controls?