CO-PA Top down distribution for account based profitability based on cost element

[Former Member]

I am trying to perform a top down distribution in account based profitability analysis. I am repeatedly receiving error message KG338 No entries exist using ERP 6.0 EHP7.

I am very much concerned that my screens for Processing instructions and Selection criteria do not exactly match those in "Yes, You Can Use Top-Down Distribution with Account Based CO-PA", which appeared in Financial Expert, May, 2015, fairly recently..

I haven’t been able to find an example of an account based TTD based on cost element (rather than quantity).

The available documentation seems to focus on costing based profitability, and the one example I found in the above article used quantity as the basis for distribution, not cost element.

I have successfully posted two general ledger entries on 01/01/2017:

One journal entry is reference data using the following fields, all of which have values:
Company code
Sales organization
Customer
Material group
Product
Sales employee
Account which is 615101 Accrued commission expense
Amount

The second journal entry (to be distributed) has only the following fields populated, all the others are blank.
Company code
Sales employee
Account which is 615100 Commission adjustments
Amount

I have used document flow to verify that indeed both of these documents were posted to PSG profitability segments.

I am trying to populate sales organization, customer, material group, and product characteristics based on the characteristics for cost element 615101, but to retain the original cost element 615100..

Note that the account numbers are different.

Here are the settings I’ve made:

Initial Screen

Actual data 001/2017 to 001/2017
Reference data 001/2017 to 001/2017
Actual data (X)
Reference base Val/CO Area currency
Test run (X)

Processing instructions

Distribute
Customer
Product
Sales org
Material group

Copy (retain)
Company code
Business area
Cost element (I want retain original cost element 615100, not change it)

Summarize
All other characteristics

Selection criteria (I’ve tried all three, none of them work)

Cost element = From: 615100 To: Blank
Cost element = From: 615100 To: 615101
Cost element = From: 615101 To: Blank

Reference base selection

Source 615101
-> A little arrow, the significance of which escapes me
= The equal sign
Reference data 615100

Value fields
(X) WKGBTR Val/COArea currency

I clicked [Check] icon and no errors were found.
Next I saved these values as a variant, then [Execute]

Message: No entries exist (KG338)

The displayed logs are completely empty.

Can anyone suggest what settings should be changed so that that this top down distribution will work?