What are SAP T-Codes?

Transaction codes, or T-codes in SAP, are short alphanumeric abbreviations designed to execute specific tasks or functions within the SAP system quickly. Using these codes, users can navigate through different SAP modules and perform other tasks, such as accessing applications, configurations, or reports directly from anywhere within the SAP software system.

SAP T-codes are the entry points into different modules or functional areas within the SAP system. Users can enter a T-code in the search or command field to quickly access a function or module instead of going through complex hierarchical menus.

Primary tasks are creating sales and purchase orders, managing inventories, maintaining HR data, and generating reports. Users’ authorization and maintenance, accessing SAP dictionaries and tables, running SQL queries, or controlling transactions can also be done using transaction codes.

When a user enters a T-code, the SAP system executes predefined functions, modules, or programs. The system verifies the user’s permissions and roles to ensure they have the authorization to perform that transaction. The transaction code processes data based on logic defined in the code behind it. Then, the SAP system presents a structured interface comprised of forms, reports, tables, or wizards to the user.

SAP T-Code List of 120 Common Codes in ECC

What do Numbers Before Letters in an SAP T-Code Mean?

SAP T-codes are designed as structured naming conventions, which help users understand the purpose of these codes. Not all T-codes follow this numbering format, but many follow this pattern depending on the functions of different modules.

SAP T-codes follow the common numbering convention as follows:

Letter-based Conventions in SAP T-Codes by Function

Along with numbering conventions, SAP transaction codes follow letter-based conventions corresponding to different functions or modules. These prefixes help quickly understand the purpose of transactions. Below is a breakdown of some major SAP modules’ letter-based conventions for SAP transaction codes by each functions.

Financial Accounting

Material Management

Below are letters used for purchasing, inventory, and invoice verification-related applications, along with examples.

Sales and Distribution

Below are T-code letters for managing sales orders, billing, and deliveries.

Master Data

These T-code letters represent customer and vendor master and are used across the modules.

Essential Steps for Testing SAP T-Codes

SAP systems manage critical enterprise-wide operations, so testing T-codes is essential. Due to their complexity and criticality, SAP systems require transaction codes to perform as expected and match businesses’ requirements.

Poorly tested or untested transaction codes can lead to security breaches or data inconsistencies. Therefore, the primary goal of T-code testing is to identify potential issues, such as security vulnerabilities, functional errors, or performance issues, before they impact daily business operations.

T-code testing ensures functional accuracy, response time, validation of processed data, prevention of unauthorized access, seamless integration within SAP modules, and user acceptance.

Below are some key areas and steps that are vital for T-code testing:

Functionality Testing

Execution of functionality testing requires checking if the transaction code performs the expected transaction by validating field-level inputs, required fields, and error handling. Then, compare actual system behavior with expected behavior.

Data Validation

Test T-codes with multiple data sets to validate the integrity and consistency of the data. Test with valid, invalid, or boundary test cases to see how the T-code handles the different inputs. Test how master data, e.g., vendors, customers, or materials, are processed.

Integration Testing

Integration testing verifies that T-codes smoothly work across other SAP modules and external systems. For example, it tests the flow of data across the Financial Accounting, Human Resources, Sales and Distribution, or Materials Management modules. This test also checks the validation of interface transactions with external applications like supplier portals or banking systems.

Performance Testing

This testing ensures that the T-code matches the performance benchmarks under different system loads by assessing the response time of transaction execution for normal load and peak load and running the tests for many users simultaneously. Performance tests also identify memory leaks, database locks, or insufficient ABAP programming, which impact large data sets and consume transaction execution time.

Security Testing

Security testing evaluates whether the T-codes follow SAP security best practices and prevent unauthorized access by verifying the authorization objects assigned to T-codes, testing with several user roles to execute critical transactions, and checking for conflicts for segregation of duties. These checks ensure that proper security restrictions are enforced.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

This is the final phase of testing, during which end users validate that T-code meets the usability and operational requirements. This requires end users to test scenarios such as real-world transactions, record the behavior, and gather and provide feedback on process effectiveness, error handling, and usability.

Regression Testing

This testing is conducted after code changes or system updates to check whether they introduce new issues or break existing functionality. After configuration changes, patches, or SAP system upgrades, the test cases are executed again. The latest results are compared with the test results that were previously conducted to identify any discrepancies. Regression testing can be automated with SAP test automation tools or any third-party automation tools.

Authorization Check Process

SAP systems provide extensive authorizations administration and roles for controlling access to data and use of T-codes to:

• Provide full support in the Segregation of Duties (SOD)
• Prevent errors, conflicts of interest, and fraud.

SAP uses a role-based access control (RBAC) model to assign different roles to users to grant access permissions. These roles contain authorization objects, which provide granular control for the permitted operations, such as creating, modifying, viewing, or deleting data. Roles, transaction codes, authorization objects, and their respective fields can be managed using PFCG (Profile Generator) in the SAP system.

These roles define the job responsibilities. For example:

• A buyer role should be granted access to purchase orders T-codes (ME21N, ME22N, or ME23N)
• The Financial Controller role should be granted access to financial and accounting T-codes such as (FBL3N or FB50) or payment processing roles T-code (F110).

None of these roles should have access to the operations granted to other roles, keeping the segregation of duties. Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) solutions can detect expressive access violations.

To ensure access control is efficient and aligned with business needs, authorization roles could be customized further for a user’s job duty. To prevent conflicts, critical transactions should be monitored carefully. SAP GRC or any other tool providing similar functionality can be used to analyze and simulate SOD risks before assigning roles to end users.

How Pathlock can Facilitate SAP Testing

Pathlock is an industry-level GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) solution for securing, monitoring, and automating SAP systems. Its code scanning module continuously monitors and tests custom ABAP code to identify security, vulnerabilities, and compliance issues and helps organizations maintain compliance.

Pathlock provides automation via pre-built test cases and script-based testing, reducing manual effort in regression testing, whether code is deployed or in development. This ensures that SAP updates, upgrades, or patches do not impact business processes.

The code scanning module increases the ability of the SAP ABAP Test Cockpit (SAP ATC) with more than 150 plus out-of-the-box rule sets. Pathlock provides Segregation of Duties and role-based access testing analysis by identifying conflicts in SAP roles before testing and generating compliance reports based on those analyses.

Key Takeaways

SAP Transaction codes provide end users quick access to different functions and modules within the SAP system, such as the Finance, Sales, and Purchase modules and their key functions.

• Each T-code is typically written in Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP), a special programming language for SAP systems. It is linked to an SAP action that leads to programs, reports, or dialog boxes for different purposes, executing transactions and processing data based on predefined logic.
• Some roles contain authorization objects to ensure the segregation of duties and prevent unauthorized personnel from accessing sensitive transactions, such as payments or administrative tasks.
• SAP T-codes should be tested for effectiveness, e.g., functionality, data validation, integration, performance, security, and user acceptance. After system upgrades or patches, thorough regression testing should be followed.
• SAP T-codes use numbering (e.g., 01=Create, 02=Change, etc.) and letter convention (e.g., F=Financial, M=Material, etc.). Understanding those patterns is important to improving navigation and efficiency within SAP systems.

Frequently Asked Questions