Journal entry posting fails with validation rule error when attempting to close financial periods with intercompany transactions

Journal entries are failing to post during period close with a cryptic validation rule error: “Cost center assignment invalid for GL account 400100.” This started happening after we migrated to S/4HANA 1809 from ECC. The error only occurs for specific combinations of GL accounts and cost centers that worked fine in our legacy system.

The posting fails with:


Transaction: FB50 (G/L Account Posting)
Message: Validation 0001 - Field assignment error
GL Account: 400100 (Revenue - Services)
Cost Center: CC-MKT-001 (Marketing)

I’ve verified that the cost center is active and assigned to the correct controlling area. The GL account master data shows it requires cost center assignment. I suspect there’s either a master data validation issue we’re not seeing, or the authorization checks have changed in S/4HANA. Our period close is delayed by 2 days because we can’t post about 200 journal entries with this configuration.

This smells like a master data governance problem. GL account 400100 is revenue, which shouldn’t normally require cost center assignment - that’s an expense account requirement. Check FS00 for account 400100 and verify the field status group. Someone might have incorrectly configured it as a primary cost element when it should be a revenue element. Also verify in transaction KA03 whether 400100 exists as a cost element in controlling and what category it’s assigned to.

The cost center assignment validation has definitely changed in S/4HANA. Revenue accounts shouldn’t take cost centers directly - they should derive profit centers instead. Check your account determination configuration in transaction VKOA for revenue accounts. The system is probably expecting a profit center derivation from the sales organization or business area, not a direct cost center assignment. You might need to post these entries differently or reconfigure your validation rules to match S/4HANA logic.

Your configuration issue stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how S/4HANA handles revenue accounting versus ECC. Let me address all the validation dimensions systematically.

Master Data Validation: GL account 400100 is incorrectly configured as a primary cost element (category 11). Revenue accounts should be configured as follows:


// Transaction KA02 - Change Cost Element
Cost Element: 400100
Category: 01 (Primary Cost/Revenue)
Attribute: Revenue (not Expense)
Cost Center Required: No
Profit Center Required: Yes

The key difference from ECC: S/4HANA enforces strict separation between cost center accounting (expenses) and profit center accounting (revenue). Revenue GL accounts should derive profit centers automatically, not accept cost centers directly.

Validation Rule Review: Your validation 0001 needs modification to align with S/4HANA logic. In transaction OB28:

  1. Check the prerequisite: Probably checking if GL account requires cost center (field BSEG-KOSTL)
  2. Modify the check step to exclude revenue account ranges:

Prerequisite:
  BSEG-HKONT BETWEEN '400000' AND '499999' (revenue range)
Check:
  BSEG-KOSTL = SPACE (cost center must be empty for revenue)
  AND BSEG-PRCTR <> SPACE (profit center must be filled)

This ensures revenue accounts use profit center logic while expense accounts continue requiring cost centers.

Authorization Checks: The authorization failure is likely object K_CSKS (Cost Center Master). In S/4HANA, posting to revenue accounts with cost center assignment triggers this check because the system treats it as an invalid cross-object assignment.

Run transaction SU53 after the posting failure, then grant the missing authorization:


Object: F_BKPF_KOA
Activity: 01 (Create)
Account Assignment: P (Profit Center)
Controlling Area: Your CO area

Do NOT grant K_CSKS for revenue postings - this perpetuates the misconfiguration.

Cost Center Assignment Solution: If you genuinely need cost center tracking on revenue for internal reporting, implement this using a different mechanism:

  1. Option A - Statistical Postings: Configure account 400100 to accept statistical cost center assignments in FS00 field status group. This allows cost center for reporting without violating validation rules.

  2. Option B - Profit Center Derivation: Map your marketing cost center CC-MKT-001 to profit center PC-MKT-001 in transaction 1KEK. Configure automatic profit center derivation from cost center in SPRO > Controlling > Profit Center Accounting > Master Data > Settings for Actual Data > Define Dummy Profit Center.

  3. Option C - Segment Reporting: Use the new S/4HANA segment dimension instead of cost centers for revenue tracking. Configure segment derivation rules in transaction FAGL_SEGM to map from your organizational structure.

Recommended Fix for Your 200 Journal Entries: Immediate workaround to unblock period close:

  1. In transaction OB28, temporarily deactivate validation 0001 for company code/fiscal year
  2. Post your 200 entries successfully
  3. Run transaction FAGLF101 (Document Change) to add profit centers to the posted documents
  4. Reactivate validation 0001 with the corrected logic above

Long-term solution:

  1. Reconfigure GL account 400100 cost element category to revenue
  2. Remove cost center requirement from field status group
  3. Add profit center requirement instead
  4. Update validation rule to enforce profit center on revenue accounts
  5. Create derivation rules to auto-populate profit center from cost center when needed

This aligns your configuration with S/4HANA best practices and eliminates the validation error while maintaining the tracking capability you need for internal reporting.

S/4HANA introduced stricter authorization checks for cross-organizational postings. Check transaction SU53 immediately after the posting failure to see which authorization object is rejecting the transaction. My guess is F_BKPF_KOA (Document Header: Account Assignment) or K_CSKS (Cost Center Master Maintenance). The user might have authorization for the GL account posting but not for assigning that specific cost center to revenue accounts.

I checked FS00 and the account is configured as a primary cost element (category 11), which does explain why it’s demanding cost center assignment. But we need to post revenue to this account with marketing cost center tracking for internal reporting. Should we change it to a secondary cost element, or is there a way to configure the validation rule to allow this specific combination?