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:

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 

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 and in here we have also the respective value field. Additionally for PF1 with this information for the responsible cost center and GBU associated in the final cost center this will allow to the users to perform the analysis in PCA (Profit Center Accounting). 

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

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

Hierarchy

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

• The cost centers for the fixed costs are identified by an unique sub-folder in ZCBS hierarchy : ENTRP (some others filters are done). See more details for the structure for cost centers hierarchy ZCBS.
  • For GBU fixed costs, only cost centers included in the group
    • ENTRP – Enterprise Fixed Costs follow up are displayed

• • As only Fixed Costs Cost Centers are included, the following groups  (Filtered via the 2 – Function group) are excluded:
    • ECP – Variable Costs
    • EACAR – Other Operating Expenses
    • EPSRO – Post Operating Result
    • ECPVSE – Variable Sales Expenses
    • EDISC – Discontinued
    • ESERV – Services

• The cost elements for the fixed costs are identified by specific  folder (ZRCS-FC) and sub folder. See more details for the the structure of cost elements group ZRCS-FC.

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).

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

Cost element hierarchy ZRCS-FC : restrictions:

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

Plant vs Responsible Plant

Workbook Details 

FC - Cost center master data (Core Query)

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

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

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

Related Contents

In this section we can find some links where can help to understand some concepts:

FC - Create a fixed costs report — This page explains how you can create step-by-step an accurate fixed costs report for a plant or a GBU.

FC - Cost centers master data — This page explains how you can display cost centers master data. It is a useful tool for preparing and validating master data to ensure the accuracy of fixed costs reports.

FC - Fixed costs report - P&L impact — The P&L impact fixed costs query is used when a cost center is shared with several GBUs.

5.0 Non-functional Descriptions 

5.1 Usability

5.2 Regulatory Compliance

5.3 Security

5.4 Performance

5.5 Reliability  

5.6 Scalability

5.7 Compatibility

5.8 Availability

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.