Use of Functional Area without Fund Accounting

[Former Member]

We are a municipal government running R/3 Enterprise 472 with Public Sector. We'd like to "turn on" the account assignment element functional area, however, we do not want to implement Fund accounting. We've ticked the functional area account assignment, created a derivation rule for the functional are to be derived from the cost center master. When we try to post a journal entry, the functional area is derived but it won't populate in the functional area field. Upon posting we get an error stating that the functional are field cannot be blank/space. So it is deriving but not "sticking". Anybody out there got any clues as to what we've missed.

Thanks in advance

[Former Member]

please check whether "Cost Of Sales Accounting is Activated. the system will derive the functional area from Primary Cost element/Secondary Cost Element/Substitution.

[Former Member]

We are not using Cost of Sales Accounting and have no interest in the use of functional area as it relates to cost elements/gl accounts. In R/3 enterprise functional area was expanded to be used in relation to cost centers. This is mostly used by the public sector/government and this is the area we wish to explore. Most examples we've seen the business has also activated Fund accounting. Do you have any information on this particular use of functional area?