2.0 Business Process

To understand the business process it's important to know the basic concept for the SAP CO module and how it's applicable in Solvay organization. 

The SAP CO module in the SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system focus on financial controlling and management accounting functions within an organization. SAP CO is designed to provide tools and capabilities to effectively manage and control costs, perform internal and external accounting, and support decision-making processes related to financial aspects of the business. SAP CO is tightly integrated with other SAP modules, such as SAP FI (Financial Accounting) and SAP MM (Materials Management), providing a cohesive and comprehensive solution for managing financial data, controlling costs, and supporting financial decision-making throughout the organization.

CO Structure in Solvay:

• PF1 & WP1 cost centers are included as long as there are included in the hierarchy ZCBS.
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• For the cost elements in both systems they are included in the new hierarchy ZSOLV (old ZRCS-FC hierarchy). See more information about the change of the group in the Process Detail section for the hierarchy.

The fixed costs report is available by GBU. 

In WP1, the GBU comes from the  Profit Center  of the cost center while in PF1 it comes from the  Business Area  of the cost center 

GBU determination in PF1

The determination of the GBU for PF1 cost centers is done with the  Business Area

Determination of the plant

The report is available by production site or headquarter. It comes from the  Profit Center department

For the GBU fixed costs we use the SAP information from the controlling part to analyze the fixed costs at GBU level. For this it's important to understand the structure behind and how the business see the costs and be able to analyze the information to perform their activities during and end of month.

Model behind for PF1 and WP1:

Curently we have the WBS, cost centers and orders objects with values coming from the purchase orders and accounting entries. Each object is linked to a cost center which we call it "Responsible Cost Center" and this cost center is linked to a GBU. 

We have the primary postings and during the closing process we have the settlements cycles (which will allocate the costs to a final cost center) and the final cost centers has the correspondent cost element for COPA line items to be present in the P&L report for PF1 and WP1 using the respective value field. 

Reporting fixed costs challenges : reconciliation SAP/BFC:

In the controlling side we have primary posting in the CO objects for the fixed costs and during the closing we have the settlement cycles to transfer/allocate the costs to a final CO object and to be in the respective lines in P&L.

3.0 Application Feature Overview

4.0 Functional Specification

4.1 General Data/Calculations 

4.2 Process Detail 

4.2.1.  Report/Process Definition 

SAP BW High Level View 

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SAP BW High Level View SAP BW High Level View

To see the data from the source systems see below how the information is organized in the BW perspective: 

Hierarchy 

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Hierarchy Hierarchy

All cost centers for this scope are stored in a unique hierarchy ZCBS.

• The cost centers for the GBU fixed costs are identified by an unique sub-folder in ZCBS hierarchy : ENTRP (some others filters are done and they are identified in the section below Restrictions). See more details for the structure for cost centers hierarchy ZCBS in the GBU cost center section.

• The cost elements for the fixed costs are identified by specific folder (ZRCS-FCZSOLV) and sub folder. See more details for the the structure of cost elements group ZRCS-FC.Refer to ZSOLV Cost Element Group ZSOLV

Restrictions 

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Restrictions Restrictions

To determine GBU Fixed Costs perimeters, there is restrictions on: 

• Cost center
• Cost element
• Miscellaneous filters 

Restriction on cost center 

As already mentioned for GBU Fixed Cost we only analyse ENTRP (1 Organisation attribute = ENTRP of the Responsible Cost center ). By default we must excluded some “2 Function”  attributes values in the reports. The users can delete these default filters.

Cost center hierarchy ZCBS : restrictions

Restriction on cost element:

In the cost element BW object the cost element hierarchy was denormalized (levels of the hierarchy are translated as attributes of cost element).

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By default we must excluded some “Fixed cost group “ZSOLV Group 4 “  attributes values in the reports. The users can delete these default filters.

Cost element hierarchy ZRCS-FC ZSOLV Group 4 : restrictions:  The below Groups are excluded from the report by default

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Miscellaneous filters:

Order Type : we exluded (investment) :

• ZPM4
• ZPM6

Project Type we exluded (investment) :

• II
• FD

Value type

• 10- Real
• 20-plan

Currency type

• 10 company code currency 

Special Case: mixed cost center 

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Special Case: mixed cost center Special Case: mixed cost center

Plant vs Responsible Plant 

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Plant vs Responsible Plant Plant vs Responsible Plant

The report is available by production site or headquarter. It comes from the  Profit Center department.

Workbook Details  

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Workbook Details Workbook Details

FC - Cost center master data (Core Query)

FC - End month - P&L reconciliation COPA (Core Query)

FC - End month - P&L select - P&L Impact (Core Query) and FC - End month - P&L select - Monthly P&L Impact (Core Query)

The workbook that is recommended to use when working on fixed costs analysis is  FC-End month - P&L reconciliation COPA (Core Query). However when working with cost centers shared with other GBUs, the workbook "FC-End month - P&L select - P&L Impact" can be more relevant. 

In this page, you will see based on an example the difference between the standard workbook FC-End month - P&L reconciliation COPA (Core Query) and the workbook "FC-End month - P&L select - P&L Impact" and in which cases it is recommended to use the workbook "FC-End month - P&L select - P&L Impact". 

Then there is the procedure to access the workbook "FC-End month - P&L select - P&L Impact" with a description of the prompt and main measures available in the workbook. 

What is the difference between the standard workbook "Reconciliation COPA" and the workbook "P&L Impact" 

Let's take an example to explain the difference between both workbooks: 

Example

The cost center  7418-6007 is used to record the administrative costs of the legal entity 7418.

In January 100 kUSD were posted on the cost center 7418-6007 with the detail below:

FC - CO Orders master data (Core Query)

5.0 Non-functional Descriptions 

5.1 Usability

as per standard.

5.2 Regulatory Compliance

as per standard.

5.3 Security

as per standard.

5.4 Performance

as per standard.

5.5 Reliability

as per standard.

5.6 Scalability

as per standard.

5.7 Compatibility

as per standard.

5.8 Availability

as per standard.

5.9 Refresh of the Data

The loads for the GBU Fixed Costs application is the following:

Closing Time:

Outside of Closing: it's one time on a daily basis.