Is it possible within SAP4Hana to spread costs from the data of a PO in the future.

[Expert]

I know its possible to book a provision on your recieved or due POs. But often we are talking licences,maintenance fees or prepaid services.I can assume other companies probably have the same kind of POs.Is there a possibility to handle this kind of POs? Without contacting somebody from Finance and spread the costs manually. Or is the feature coming in the near future?

[Expert · Accepted solution]

Hi Kiara,

Your request is too broad, but let me try to explain a couple of alternatives as options that could potentially help with your questions:

A Purchase Order (PO) by definition and design does not post any Actual Financial document. The posting is performed at the time of the Goods Receipt (for products) or Service provided (for services).

That said, you have the following options that could help to support the requirement:

1) ‎@Regular purchase order could record a Commitment (Scope Item https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/2I3). When you create the Purchase Order it will record the commitment versus a Cost Center that you could review with the App “Commitments by Cost Center”, with this info you can post the provision related to the relevant PO’s and Cost Centers. In addition to this, if you create the Purchase Order with the “final” Cost Centers at the required detail level the Finance department would not have to spread the costs manually (e.g. entering multiple Cost Centers at the lowest level vs. 1 high level Cost Center). Please note that the Scope Item is excluded from default activation.

2) ‎@“Manage Recurring Journal Entries” App (you can find the details on how to use it in Scope Item https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/J58 ). This App allows the creation of entries that will help to record the financial entry for concepts like Licenses or Pre-Paid Services over the life of the service. Please consider that the same app would allow the posting of multiple concepts, therefore in a single document you could post the provision and/or the actual cost.

I hope this helps, if not please feel free to add more info to your question and I’m sure the community will continue helping in your thread.

Ernesto Cepeda

[Expert]

This is a re-posted Q&A of an earlier question on this community