There are some currencies (like the defunct pesetas or the Colombian peso) that can’t be divided into decimals, because there are no coins or notes of a value smaller than an unit.
SAP stores how many decimals are used for each currency in its master tables. For example, two decimals are used for dollars, pounds or euros.
When storing an amount into the SAP standard variable for amounts, SAP uses as many decimals as it can, even when the currency doesn’t use decimals (like the Colombian pesos). It is mandatory to enter the corresponding currency together with the amount into the variable.
Let’s say that we enter 1234 pesos, and the variable uses two decimals. Then, the amount stored will be 12,34. As the amount is stored together with the currency, SAP will check which currency is used before displaying the amount. In this way, it can check how many decimals are usually used for that currency, displaying 1234 instead of the 12,34 that is internally stored.