FICO Interview Questions

Here are list of interview Questions of FICO –

Please tell us about yourself

This is usually the first question. The interviewer introduces him/herself along with the
rest of the people on the call.
This is the most important time for you to impress the interviewer.

When they ask you to tell you about yourself, provide them information and relate it to
the current role.
E.g. Hi my name is John, thank you for taking the time to interview me. I know how busy
month end close can be or I know how busy Mondays can be etc.
At this point, I am trying to say something that will make the interviewer agree with me
or like me.
you could even throw in a small joke in there.
For e.g. Hi thanks for taking the time to interview me. I am really excited for this
especially after the Lakers won the playoffs last night.
When you say this, they might immediately say something back and it eases the tension
in the room.
Back to your introduction
Hi My name is John, I am an expert in Fixed Assets.
My most recent assignment was with Apple where we migrated to S/4 HANA.
Fixed Assets has changed a lot in S/4 HANA and I led our team to successfully migrate
1 million assets to the S/4 HANA system.

Speak about the most important thing first. I would say something like what is mentioned
above if you are interviewing for an S/4 HANA position with focus on Fixed Assets.

Give an example of a situation where standard sap did not meet your requirement and how you met the requirement?

1-The standard positive pay file would create an output which the bank did not accept.
They wanted the file to be in a different format, so we wrote a custom program that
extracted this info and sent it in the format required by the bank.
2-Standard SAP captures either the discount lost or discount gained.
We used the discount gained approach.
The business wanted a report which showed how much discount we were losing by
paying the invoices late.
3-FBL1N was not displaying the G/L account description and number in the offsetting
account field.
We used a BADI to populate this field.
4-During the time of settlement, we needed the settlement account to change based on
the cost center that was used on the G/L master.
I found a user exit which allowed us to change the account that SAP uses for Internal
order settlement.

Did you work on any interfaces?

1-We had many interfaces between SAP and the non SAP systems.
Payroll was run In ADP and this information would interface over to SAP.
We created a program that would read the file that was sent by ADP and process it.
2-Our capital purchase orders were created outside of SAP through another system.
I created a translation table for cost centers, G/L accounts, company codes etc.
This interface would pick up the file everyday from a folder and process it in SAP.
After we paid the invoices, this information had to be sent back to the source system so
they could clear the invoices.

What is blueprinting? Were you involved in the blueprinting phase?

If a company is in the blueprinting phase, then they need someone with good
documentation skills.
That person needs to be good with leading meetings and designing how things would
work.
Business blueprint- At the start of a project, you will sit down with the business and go
through their current process and then design how SAP should work.
As the SAP consultant, you will need to suggest the To-BE process when SAP is
implemented.
The legacy system might have had some shortcomings due to which the business didn’t
have the best solutions.
Your job is to go through the current process and document the way things will work
going forward.
P.S- refer to our post on what is a business blueprint( to be published soon)

Are you experienced with X software

They might ask you if you are experienced with Remedy software, zendesk, zoho etc.
These are softwares that the business uses to create ‘tickets’.

The ticket is basically documenting the issue that the business user faced.
This ticket gets assigned to a group.
E.g. there will be one group for ABAP, one for FICO etc.
Each group might have a person who assigns tickets to others based on their workload
and skill level.
Once you are assigned the ticket, you will contact the user and get more information and
resolve their issue.

What is a company code, how is it related to a controlling area

The company code is a legal entity for reporting purposes. Each company code will have
a separate EIN number for tax purposes the same way each individual has a social
security number.
E.g. Apple may have one company code for MAC and another one for the iphone. Both
these company codes are different legal entities.

Controlling Area -A controlling area is the highest entity for controlling. Controlling is
used for internal reporting. E.g. if your utility bill was 2 million and you need to know the
break down by each department, then you use the controlling module to get this break
down.
Each company code is only assigned to one controlling area whereas one
controlling area can be assigned to many company codes

You can assign a company code to a controlling area in tcode OKKP.

What is a chart of accounts, how is it related to a company code

A chart of accounts is the highest level in FI. It has various settings that it controls.

One chart of accounts can be assigned to many company codes
E.g. Your chart of accounts can be APPL for Apple

and it can be assigned to
company code 1000- MAC
company code 2000- Iphone
company code 3000- Ipad

but each company code can only be assigned to one chart of accounts.
If you go to tcode OBY6, you will see that there is only one field for assigning the chart
of accounts to the company code.

What is the use of special periods.

Special periods are used to make year end adjustments. The regular postings periods
are 12 and the special posting periods are 13,14, 15 and 16.

You can open and close special posting periods in OB52 along with the regular periods.

What does OBY6 control?

OBY6
Oby6 controls the global parameters of a company code. You can assign the company
code, posting period variant etc. in here.

What purpose does a G/L account serve?

G/L account groups break classify your G/L accounts into different groups.
E.g. You can have
1- Asset Account group
2- Bank Account group
3- Revenue Accounts

You can assign the range of G/L accounts that fall in this account group. These are
created through OBD4.

These account groups can have different settings. For e.g. The asset accounts can
have a field set to required.
Whereas the other account group might need it to be suppressed.

What is the difference between a residual payment and a partial payment

Residual payments vs partial payments

Let’s understand this with an example.
If there was an invoice for $500 and the customer paid $400
If you used the residual payment option, then the original invoice of 500 is cleared and
a new invoice is created with the remaining balance of $100
With partial payments, the original invoice is still open
There is a remaining balance of $100 in this case.

What does the field status group in a G/L master control

Field status group
A field status group controls if a certain field is optional, required or suppressed.

E.g. if you have a G/L account for stationary purchases and it has a balance of
$500,000.
None of these invoices have the text in them when the invoice is being entered.
You can assign a field status to this G/L account which makes the text required.
This way no one will forget to enter the text next time.

The field status group can be changed in OBC4 to make it required.

What is automatic account determination- Provide an example

Automatic account determination
Automatic account determination is when the G/L account is not specified by the user
and the system picks it up.
E.g. when you run depreciation, you do not enter each G/L account that the system is
posting while the posting happens.
The G/L accounts are picked up from a configuration table in AO90.
Check tcode FBKP for other automatic postings.

What is a dummy profit center

When you activate profit center accounting, you enter the profit centers in the cost
center master.

When postings are made to a cost center, they will flow to the profit center.

When we are making a posting, the system tries to determine the profit center from the
cost center, material etc.
If it can’t determine the profit center, then it uses the dummy profit center.
We should check to see why the system wasn’t able to determine the profit center and
fix the issue.

The dummy profit centre is assigned in OKE5

Give examples of issues you encounter while running the payment program, F110

F110- Payment program errors

There are various reasons for which we could be getting errors while running F110.
1- The payment method entered in the parameters screen is C, but the invoice has a
payment method G.
2- The Vendor master does not have the payment method in its master data.
3- The document is not due
4- The payment method specified is not configured in FBZP.

5. This payment method has a certain field e.g. vendor address set to mandatory, but
   the vendor address is blank.

What is the difference between open item and line item managed accounts

On the G/L master in FS00, in the control data tab, you define if the account is a line
item account or an open item account.

Line item display- This will show you all the details of the account. E.g. if the account
has a balance of $50,000 and you want to see what makes up the balance of 50k, then
you can drilldown and view these details if the account is specified as a line item display
account.
Note- In S/4 HANA, everything is set to line item display.
Open item managed- Open item managed is for accounts that will balance to 0.
E.g. if you paid a vendor $100, this hits your check clearing account and not your bank
as the money has not come out of your bank yet.

When the vendor deposits the check , the check clearing account is cleared i.e.
balances to 0 and the bank account is hit at this step.

How to your reverse a document

A document can be reversed with tcode FB08 if it is a document that was created in FI.
If the document was created outside of FI, then you need to reverse it from there.
E.g. an invoice is created in MIRO from MM. This creates a FI document, but you can’t
directly reverse the FI document.
You will need to reverse it using MR8M.

What is a reconciliation account.

Reconciliation account

A reconciliation account is a G/L account in the subledger that updates this account at
the time of posting.
E.g. if you post to a vendor account, there is a balance in the vendor account, but this is
also updated in the reconciliation account that is in the master data of a vendor

When you make a posting, you can see that a G/L account is also updated when you
post to a vendor.

How to you reverse cleared documents

FBRA- reset a cleared document

If a document needs to be reversed, you can use FB08, but if the document is already
cleared, you will need to first reset the cleared document and then reverse it.

What is a baseline date

The basline date determines the date from which the terms of payment apply.
E.g. if you purchased a phone on 1/1/2019(invoice date) and it was recorded in the
system on 1/10/2019( posting date)
and you get a 10% discount if you pay within 30 days.
From which date are the 30 days calculated?
Is it from the invoice date of 1/1/2019 or from the posting date of 1/10/2019?
The baseline date determines this

What is the difference between the subledger and the ledger?

The Ledger is your G/L accounts.

The subledger gives the details of what made up the totals for the ledger.

E.g. if you see your Total Payables for 2019, they may be $1 million.
You see the total of $1 million on the G/L level.
This 1$ million is comprised of invoices paid to 500 vendors.
The vendor postings are called the subledger postings.

Similarly, customers, assets etc. comprise the subledger.

Provide a few examples of How FI integrates with other modules?

Integration of FI with other modules
Almost everything finally ends up in FI, hence FI integrated with almost every module.
Integration with MM
E.g. when a purchase order is created in MM, it will eventually have a financial impact.
When the goods are received, our inventory balances need to go up. This G/L account
for inventory is setup in FI.
When the invoice for this purchase comes in, then there is another impact in FI as we
need to pay this vendor. A payable is created in FI.
Integration with SD
If your sales team is creating condition types to capture certain promotions, these need
to flow into FI. New G/L accounts need to be created for this and assigned to the
condition types in configuration.
Integration with Project Systems
When a project is settled, costs need to flow through to FI. We need to define which are
the valid G/L accounts that can post to a certain project profile. Which accounts should it
settle to etc.

Integration with Payroll
When we generated Payroll, these amounts need to hit the appropriate G/L accounts,
e.g. regular wages, overtime etc.

Explain the steps involved in Automatic payment program configuration

In order to start making payments, you need to setup the FBZP configuration. Below are
the steps that need to be performed

1- Specify the list of company codes that need to be paid.
2- Specify the paying company codes
3- Specify the payment methods that are valid in this country. E.g. Payment method C is
valid for U.S.
4-Payment methods in company code- You need to specify the valid payment methods
for each company code. E.g. if you want to use C check for company code 1000, it
needs to be entered here.
5- List the House banks- This will have your bank key and account number
6- This has additional steps like the ranking order and the G/Ls that each payment
method should affect when we make a payment etc.

How do you default a cost center to a G/L Account

A cost object is required when you are posting to a G/L account that has been created
as a cost element.
In certain situations, you cannot enter a cost center on a cost element as the posting is
happening in the background. E.g. if you are running FF_5 to upload a bank statement,
you do not see the screen to enter a cost center.
In such situations you need to default the cost center for the G/L account.
This can be done by either defaulting the cost center on the cost element in KA02.
This option will default the cost center at the controlling area level, but you probably have
different cost centers for each company code, hence this option isn’t the best.
To default a cost center per company code, you can enter it in OKB9.

Note- In S/4 HANA since the cost elements are now a part of the G/L, the KA02 option
doesn’t remain and OKB9 is the only option to default a cost center for a G/L.

Explain the process of setting up additional currencies in the system. Why are they needed?

Each company code is setup with one currency when you create the company code in
OX02
E.g. you created a company code 1000 Apple and the company code for this is USD.

You might then setup a company code in Mexico.
Company code 1001 Apple Mexico. The local currency for this would be MXN ( Mexican
Pesos).

All the postings would be in MXN.

But you also need to see these postings in USD. This would be setup as your group
currency.
Additional currencies are setup in OB22.
You can maintain 3 currencies in Ob22.

Explain SAP landscape structure- What is the difference between Dev, QA, Sandbox and production

The SAP landscape is as follows.

1- Production System – This is the system that is ‘live’ i.e. this is your actual system
where the business users are performing day to day transactions like purchasing goods,
selling products etc.

The SAP IT team will not have much change or create access in this system. No
configuration changes can be made in this system directly.
2- Q- Quality system- This system is one step before the production system. No
configuration is done in this system directly. All configuration is done in the Dev System
and then moved to the Q system.
3- Dev System- The Dev system is where you do any configuration. The end users
usually do not have access to this.
The Dev system can have two clients.
A- Golden client- This is where you create the configuration change. No master or
transaction data is allowed in this client.
B- Unit Test client- you can move the transport to Unit test client without releasing the
transport and first test if everything is working fine and then move it to Q.
The ABAP programs might also be created from a specific client.

Transports move from
Dev->Q->Production

What is a transport- Explain the process

When you configure anything in FICO, this is done in the Dev golden client.
When you save something, you are prompted to create a transport.

and Then enter a description

After entering this information a transport number is created.

After you have finished testing. This transport is released to Q using SE10.
The transport can automatically move to Q or you may have to request your Basis team
to move this.
In Q, you need to get the user approval and then send it to your manager/Basis and get
it moved to production.
Each company will have a different process of moving a transport to production.

What is the difference between a year dependent and a calendar dependent fiscal year?

If a company uses a calendar dependent fiscal year, then its postings months will be
January -December. I.e. January, will be the first accounting month for this company
code and December will be last month.
If it is year dependent, then a company could have April as month 1 of its accounting
period and March as month 12.
This is defined in OB29

If it is a year dependent fiscal year, then you need to specify when period 1 starts and
when it ends.

What is the difference Between an internal and an external number range?

When you create any master or transaction data, you need to assign a number range to
the object.

E.g. if you are creating a vendor under the account group “International vendors”
How does the system know which number it should be using.
You assign the account group to a number range e.g. 1
This number range has a from and a to number

If the external flag is checked, then the user needs to enter the number.
The number can be anything within that range.
If the external number is not checked, it is an internal number.
This means that the system will determine the number.
The numbers will be in sequence. E.g it will use number 3100000, then 3100001 and so
on. The user cannot provide a number.

What is a special G/L transaction type?

Special G/L transactions allow you to post to a different reconciliation account other
than the regular recon account.
You can access this through tcode FBKP.

Define the special G/L indicator and specify if it is used for customer, vendor etc.
and then specify the regular recon account and the new account the system should use
when you post to this special G/L indicator.

What are the steps in creating a payment run

A payment run F110 is used to pay multiple invoices at the same time. The invoices can
be from multiple vendors and multiple company codes.
The process is follows
1- Go to F110- Enter the payment run date and the identification.
2-Enter the parameters- Here you specify the company codes, vendors, payment
methods, the next payment date etc.
3-Create the proposal-Check any errors during the proposal creation.
4- Create the payment run-Once there are no errors, create the payment run.
5- Payment medium/check printout-After the payment document has been created,
you will need to create a check or create a payment rile to send to the bank where they
will print the checks or use the file for wire transfers and ACH payments.

What does the payment method supplement control?

The payment method supplement is used to identify certain payment types.
Think of it like a tag to classify certain invoices.
In the payment run(F110) you can either include documents that have a specific payment
method supplement or exclude certain payment method supplements from the payment
run.

Explain the entire payment cycle.

The payment cycle in SAP works like below.
1- F110-Pay the invoices
2- Mailing of checks-In case of checks we mail the checks to the vendors or we can
also mail a file that contains all the check information and the bank or a third party prints
and mails these checks for us.
3-Positive pay file-A file needs to be sent to the bank which shows them the valid list of
checks that are expected to be cashed. If a check is presented that is not in this list,
then this needs to be approved by the business before it can be cashed.
4-EBS file- The bank sends a file everyday to us which needs to be uploaded in SAP.
This will ensure that the SAP balances and the bank balances are in sync.

The process is very similar for wires and ach payments. Instead of mailing the checks,
we mail them a file which contains everything that needs to be paid.

What is dunning

Rather than manually following up with all the customers, SAP has made it easy to send
then reminder letters.
The text of the letters varies based on how overdue each customer is.

What is the difference between FCH8 and FCH9?

FCH8 is used when we want to void the check and also cancel the payment. E.g. if
wrote the check to Vendor A rather than vendor B, then you need to void the check and
cancel the payment.
FCH9 is used when you just want to cancel the check. This might be needed if the check
was lost.

What are substitutions and validations? please provide examples

Substitutions are created in GGB1. These are used to change certain values based on a
prerequisite.

E.g. you can specify that if the document type is ‘SA’, then you want to change the cost
center to 1000.
The system will then check the document type as SA and then change the value of the
cost center to 1000.
Substitutions allow us to user user-exits where we can enter our code.
E.g. if the prerequisite is met i.e. the document type is X, then it goes to exit U102.
in U102, you can write your own rules, e.g. if the G/L is between 3000 and 4000,
change the cost center to A123, if it is between 5000 and 6000, then change the cost
center to B234.
This makes the substitution a great tool to use.

What are validations

Validations are used to check if certain conditions are met if the prerequisite is fulfilled.
E.g. prerequisite- WBS element is not blank.
Then the check can be to see if the G/L accounts are in the capital G/L account range of
5000/6000.
If the G/L account is outside that range, then you get an error.

Give examples of 3 issues you faced during month end closing for Asset Accounting

During month end close, we had to retire a lot of assets. The business couldn’t do this
manually, so I had to create an LSWM.
Some of the assets retired without any revenue, while some had revenue.
Some of the assets were current year assets while the others were prior year assets.
I had used the bdc approach to create the LSMW, which caused issues as each screen
was different and I couldn’t just use one recording.
I had to create different recordings to meet the requirement and later on, I used custom
abap code to meet all the 4 requirements with one recording.

Issue 2-The period control for one of the depreciation keys wasn’t working correctly, so
the depreciation start dates were all incorrect.
I had to change the depreciation start dates using an LSMW to correct the depreciation
calculation.
Issue 3- The cost centers were blocked for posting and they had to be unblocked.

What is foreign currency revaluation in SAP?

Foreign currency revaluation is necessary to get the correct values of our accounts.
E.g. you created an invoice for 100 pesos(MXN)on 1/1/2019.
This was 60 USD at that time.
but on 1/31/2019, the value changed and the new value is 50USD.
If we do not run foreign currency revaluation(tcode F.05), then the value of our accounts
in USD are incorrect.

What is an internal order

AN internal order is used to collect costs temporarily.
E.g. you have a marketing conference, you want to collect all costs for this. You setup
an internal order to track all these costs.
Once the conference is over, you can close the internal order and settle these costs to a
cost center.

How can an asset be automatically created when you release a wBS element or an Internal order?

An Asset can be created automatically when you create an asset when the wbs or
internal order has an investment profile that creates an asset.
upon settlement or release, the AUC is automatically created.

What is an AUC(CIP asset)?

An Asset under construction(AUC) is created when a capital internal order or wbs
element starts collecting costs.
E.g. if you are building a Tesla and it takes 2 years to make it( Even though Elon Musk
says it will take 2 days to make it)
You cannot create the Car as an asset in your system as it has not been built yet.
These costs are captured in the AUC and when the final asset is created, the costs
move from the AUC to the final asset.

Explain the process of asset creation

There are many ways to create an asset.
Below is one of the common ways.
A Purchase order is created using ME21N.
The purchase order is tied to an internal order or a wbs element.
Each month these costs are settled from the Internal Order/WBS to the Asset Under
construction.
When the project is completed, a final asset is created and a final settlement is done
from the AUC to the final Asset.
The asset starts depreciation at this time.

What is meant by depreciation in Asset Accounting

Depreciation is the reduction of an asset’s value due to wear and tear.
E.g. if you purchased a car for $30k, the value of this car after 5 years may be 15k.
The car’s value has depreciated
In SAP, each asset is assigned a depreciation key which determines how the asset
should depreciate.
There are different rules on how an asset should depreciate.

What are the different components of a depreciation key

There are many steps in creating a depreciation key.
1- Base methods
2-Declining Balance method
3- Period Control

Each of these steps has many steps inside it.

What is the difference between assessments and distributions

assessments and distributions are used to move costs from one cost object to another.
E.g. if you have a cell phone cost of $1000, these might all go to your corporate cost
center A initially.
At month end, based on the actual usage, these costs might move to Cost center B, C
and D.
When you use assessments, the system uses a secondary cost element to move the
costs to B, C and D.
The original FI posting remains, so the system shows you the $1000 posting on Cost
Center A.
When you use distributions, the original G/L account for phone costs is the sender, i.e.
you will see the details of the costs going out from cost center A on the FI side.

In assessments, a secondary cost element is used. In Distributions, the original G/L is
the sending cost element.