Differentiate 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.