---
title: "SAP S/4HANA category mapping for Administrators - Payhawk Help Center"
slug: "mapping-expense-categories-to-your-sap-chart-of-accounts"
description: "Map Payhawk expense categories to the GL accounts in your SAP S/4HANA chart of accounts, update them from SAP S/4HANA, and see how group accounts share them."
updated: 2026-10-27T15:26:29Z
published: 2026-10-27T15:26:29Z
canonical: "payhawk.com/mapping-expense-categories-to-your-sap-chart-of-accounts"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://payhawk.com/help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Mapping expense categories to your SAP S/4HANA chart of accounts

When you connect Payhawk to SAP S/4HANA®, your chart of accounts (GL accounts) is automatically pulled into Payhawk as expense categories. Later, you can manually update them at any time.

Your employees can select a category when submitting an expense, and that maps directly to the correct GL account when the expense is exported to SAP S/4HANA.

> [!TIP]
> - Payhawk pulls GL accounts from your SAP S/4HANA chart of accounts for the selected company code. Accounts that are blocked for posting in SAP S/4HANA are excluded automatically.
> - Each sync replaces the previous list, so Payhawk always reflects your current SAP S/4HANA setup.

To synchronize your expense categories from SAP S/4HANA with the corresponding Payhawk categories, follow the steps:

1. [Connect Payhawk to SAP S/4HANA](/help/connecting-payhawk-to-sap-s-4hana).
2. In the [Payhawk Web Portal](https://portal.payhawk.com), go to **Settings** > **Fields library**.
3. Click on **Category**.
4. Click on the **Update from SAP** **S/4HANA**.
5. Map your existing Payhawk categories with the corresponding SAP S/4HANA's GL accounts by hovering over the desired category, clicking on the **Edit** icon, and selecting from the drop-down list with available options. Then, click on **Save**.

Alternatively, you can delete a category by clicking on the **Delete** icon. You can also create your category by clicking on the **+ Add category** button.

![Category page in the Payhawk Fields library with the Update from SAP S/4HANA button](https://storage.googleapis.com/payhawk-cdn/Adm%3AIntegrations%3ASAP/sap_category_update_from_sap_20260821b_ai.png)

## Notes on multi-entity accounts

In a group setup:

- The parent account pulls the full chart of accounts from SAP S/4HANA.
- All child accounts share the same underlying SAP S/4HANA data.
- Each child account can have different visibility settings such as showing or hiding specific categories.