Q: Downloading Monthly statements from SAP to Excel

Answer

Here's how to download the Monthly statements or DTRs (Detailed Transaction Reports) from SAP to Excel. The goal is to be able to do math with the numbers. The main problem is that the numbers come down as Text. The steps below convert the text to values for use in formulas.

1. Download the file as DATA ONLY.
2. Open the file in Excel.
3. Select the Amount column (or any other column that you want to use as numbers in formulas).
4. From Excel's Data menu, choose Text to Columns....
5. On the screen, make sure that the Original data type indicator is Delimited.
6. Click on Finish.
   Result: The contents of the cells are now numbers instead of text.

Two things to note:

• The numbers are formatted as left-justified. You may want to click on the Right-justified format button in the Excel toolbar.
• Credit amounts (negative numbers) don't come out right. The DTR report formats these as "4000.00-" and not "-4000.00". Since the DTR negative numbers don't look like numbers to Excel, it leaves them as text. The only thing you can do is retype the cell contents as a negative number.
  This is an extra, manual step, but it does beat retyping the whole thing.

Another solution is to become a DataWarehouse user. The Data Warehouse has a prepackaged "report" available that lets you download the same information as in the DTR but in a format that lends itself more to cut-and-pasting into Excel.