What is the difference between the ‘Parking’ and the ‘Holding of Documents’?

The ‘Parking of a Document’ in SAP is one of the two preliminary postings (the other being the ‘Holding’ of documents) in the system and refers to the storing of incomplete documents in the system. These documents can later be called on for completion and posting. While ‘parking’ a document, the system does not carry out
the mandatory ‘validity checking.’ The system does not also carry out any automatic postings (such as creating tax line items) or ‘balance checks.’ As a result, the transaction figures (account balances) are not updated. This is true in the case of all financial transactions except in the area of TR-CM (Cash management) where ‘parked’ documents will update the transactions.

The parking of documents can be used to ‘park’ data relating to customers, vendors, or assets (acquisition only). When a cross-Company Code document is ‘parked,’ only one document is created in the initial Company Code; when this ‘parked’ document is posted all other documents relevant for all other Company Codes will also be
created. However, it is to be noted that substitution functionality cannot be used with document ‘parking,’ as substitution is activated only on transaction processing.

The added advantage is that a document ‘parked’ by an accounting clerk can be called on for completion by someone else. The ‘parked’ documents can be displayed individually or as a list from where the required document can be selected for completion and posting. The number of the ‘parked’ document is transferred to the
posted document. The original ‘parked’ document, if necessary, can be displayed even after it has been posted to.

During a transaction when you do not have a piece of required information, you can ‘Hold the Document’ and complete it later. As in the case of ‘parked’ documents, here also the document does not update the transaction figures.

The essential difference between these two types of preliminary postings can be summarized as follows:

Attribute‘Park’ document‘Hold’ document
View the document in
‘Account Display’?
YesNo
Changes to the
document?
Any user can access,
view, and/change the
document
No other user, except the creator,
will be able to access, view,
and/change the document
Document number?System assignedManually entered by the user
Use of data in the
document for evaluation
purposes?
PossibleNot possible

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