ExtractFoxHow to extract a chart of accounts from SAP
SAP exposes the chart of accounts through a few transactions and a few APIs — here's the practical map for finance teams who need a clean export, not a consultant's project.
The chart of accounts (CoA) lives in the SKA1 and SKB1 tables in classic SAP ERP, and in the ACDOCA / ACDOCT structures in S/4HANA. You don't normally read the tables directly — you go through transactions or APIs that respect the access controls.
1. SAP GUI transactions
- S_ALR_87012326 — Chart of Accounts list. Run by chart of accounts code, then export from the menu (List → Export → Spreadsheet).
- FS00 — Display G/L Account Master. Single account drilldown.
- FSP3 / FSS3 — Display chart of accounts data and company-code segment data separately.
For most finance teams the S_ALR_87012326 export is the right call. Excel output, all relevant fields, no dev work.
2. SAP S/4HANA via OData / Fiori
S/4HANA exposes the CoA through the API_GLACCOUNTINCHARTOFACCOUNTS_SRV OData service. A GET against /A_GLAccountInChartOfAccounts returns every account with descriptions, blocked flags, and group assignments. Authentication is the standard SAP API Hub OAuth flow.
3. SE16N for read-only table access
If transactions are restricted but you have SE16N, query SKA1 (chart-level) and SKB1 (company-code-level) directly. This is the FI consultant's trick when the ad-hoc reports aren't enough.
4. When all you have is a printout
Common in audit and migration scenarios: someone produced a PDF of the CoA from SAP and the live system access is months away. Drop it into ExtractFox's PDF data extractor with a prompt like "extract account number, description, type, and group as a table." Faster than manually retyping a 500-row CoA.
Going to another system
SAP account types don't map directly to NetSuite or Oracle. Plan for a mapping spreadsheet between source account → target account → target type. The export is the easy 20% of the migration; mapping is the 80%.