cost center postings (statistical) and COPA postings(real)

[Former Member]

Hi SAP Gurus,

If we post to the cost center and a profitability segment, I know that profitability segment will receive real postings and cost center will receive statistical postings.

Suppose if I make journal entry and post it to a cost center and a profitability segment, will I see these expenses ($100) in the cost center report. If yes, how do I know that postings on the cost center are statistical and postings on the profitability segment is real. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Edited by: Ravi Raj on Apr 19, 2008 5:38 PM

[Former Member]

Hiya,

I gather you wish to view expenses posted against certain GLs, by Functional Area.

A quick check should tell you if Functional Area is one of the (Fixed) Chars in COPA. Else, create a new Char that maps to Functional Area. However, in order to view a full P&L, you must also post revenues by Functional Area, and not just costs. It does not make a lot of sense to me, unless you use inter-departmental transfer costs, or so (E.g., how do you plan to segregate revenues by Marketing / Services / Production depts.?).

However, COPA is by far the neatest solution. Other options would be to use Profit Centres and/or Business Areas. I'd always advice using COPA - owing to its ease at design and flexibility in terms of reporting.

I agree you should not create GLs / CEs by Functional Area.

Cheers.

[Former Member]

The P&L is a Financial function. Cost Centres and PSGs are Controlling functions/objects.

The fact remains that you have booked a cost to a GL. Whether it flows to a Cost Centre or a PSG is controlled partly by your design and partly by which Cost Object takes dominance in the CO structure. You could create a COPA report that reflects your P&L structure and this cost will be reflected there.

This should be visible in a Functional Area report, but I can't confirm which one. You need to do some homework here...

Cheers.

[Former Member]

Thanks a lot again for the reply.

I explain the reason why I asked this question.

1. We have a GL account/cost element which have functional area assigned

2. We are posting this primary cost element to a profitability segment.

3. We want to see this expense in more one funtional area.

I guess we should not assign a functional area to this GL account if we want to see this expense in more than one FA in P&L statement.

What we thought was to make cost center mandory and GL account (without FA) is posted to cost centers (with different functional areas and profitability segment. So profitability segment will receive real posting and cost center will receive statistical posting. Cost centers are assigned to differential functional area so now we can see this expense in more than one functional area in P&L reporting.

Can we just post only Profitability segment and still acomplish what we want (seeing this expense in more than one FA in P&L statement)?

Is this a good approach or do you suggest any better solution.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Another way of checking whether statistical or not the line item in controlling document will have value type 11(statistical actual) or 10(statistical plan)

check the line item in COEP table. which wll help yu in segregatting if you are going to develope any report/program.

If helpful reward appropriately

Regards

Prabhat

Edited by: Prabhat Kumar on Apr 19, 2008 12:40 PM

[Former Member]

Thanks for the reply.

If there are statistical postings on a cost center and it has functional area "Marketing" and real postings happen to profitability segment, will the statistical postings be part P&L reporting (funtional area reporting). If Yes, where can I check this report.

[Former Member]

If you run a KSB1 report or the report S_ALR_87013611, you will see these expenses under a separate head named "Statistical" or so... At the same time, running a KE24 report will display the same expense against that PSG.

Moreover, when you try to assess / distribute the cost from the Cost Centre, your KSU5/KEU5 (or distribution equivalent) will come up with the message "No Senders selected" or so.

Cheers.

[Former Member]

Thanks for the reply.

If there are statistical postings on a cost center and it has functional area "Marketing" and real postings happen to profitability segment, will the statistical postings be part P&L reporting (funtional area reporting). If Yes, where can I check this report.

[Former Member]

Thanks for the reply.

If there are statistical postings on a cost center and it has functional area "Marketing" and real postings happen to profitability segment, will the statistical postings be part P&L reporting (funtional area reporting). If Yes, where can I check this report.