by Muralidharan Sethuraman, Principal FI/CO Consultant, Infosys Limited
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 10

A make-to-order (MTO) manufacturing strategy is generally implemented for a scenario in which the finished product is made and sold based on customer-selected options. From a controlling perspective for such cases, production orders are generally used as the cost object to capture and analyze the manufacturing costs. There are some special manufacturing scenarios in which you can implement the MTO strategy for repetitive controlling processes and then manage the manufacturing costs for a product by period and not by individual lot size.

by Gaurav Kumar Aggarwal, Senior Consultant, SAP FICO, Infosys Limited
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 9

Learn how to optimize the tracking of purchase price variance (PPV) in your procure-to-pay business process for better control over its monitoring. Discover the limitations of the SAP ERP Financials system and the different dimensions (e.g., cost component, vendor type, and source of supply) by which you can analyze a PPV.

by Anshul Jain, Senior Associate, PwC
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 8

Learn how to split intercompany elimination differences using SAP Enterprise Controlling Consolidation System (EC-CS) and thus accelerate the closing process.

by Birgit Starmanns, Senior Director, SAP Marketing, EPM and Finance Solutions
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 6

A company can choose between different methods for manufacturing its products, depending on the type of product, complexity of the production process, and whether the product is manufactured in response to customer demand for particular options. Different cost objects are available within product costing in SAP ERP, which complement each manufacturing process.

by Shankar Kaza, Head of the SAP Financials Practice, Mahindra Satyam
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 6

Track contractual events that occur in long-term projects with the down payment chain functionality in FI. Walk through the end-to-end configuration of the functionality supported by process steps with an example.

by Muralidharan Sethuraman, Lead FI/CO Consultant, Infosys Technologies Limited
Financials Expert - Volume 10 (2011), Update 5

See how service order functionality integrates with the controlling function to record, track, and manage both costs and revenues resulting from service functions for some of the common customer service scenarios.

by Birgit Starmanns, Senior Director, SAP
Financials Expert - Volume 9 (2010), Update 10

For a configurable product, the options chosen during the sales order process can influence both the price of the product and the cost to manufacture it. Once the product options have been selected, they are used to create a cost estimate, which the system saves on the sales order item. The cost estimate is subsequently treated as a standard cost for the valuation of the cost of goods sold of the product and the calculation of the true manufacturing variances. Creation of the cost estimate is accomplished through a combination of configuration and master data leveraging variant configuration.

by Janet Salmon, Product Owner for Managerial Accounting, SAP
Financials Expert - Volume 9 (2010), Update 10

The material ledger records the flow of goods from the initial purchase of the raw material to the final sale of the finished product. It assigns any price differences incurred during purchasing and production to the product sold — or at least it does provided that the goods flow remains within a single company code. Until SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0, a material sold to another company in the same group was treated as an externally procured material. Instead of the actual costs for the material purchased being transferred to the affiliated company, only the material price was recorded in the material ledger. Learn how to record both the legal view (in which the purchased good is treated as an external purchase for legal reporting purposes) and the group view (in which the actual costs for the purchased good are passed on to the other company and split into their cost components for group reporting purposes) and how to capture the intercompany markups in your cost component split.

by Paul Ovigele, SAP Consultant
Financials Expert - Volume 9 (2010), Update 8

Learn the configuration settings that determine which accounts are posted to when performing the various transactions on a production order (e.g., goods issue, confirmation, goods receipt, work in process, overhead, and variance calculation). Then see how to structure these accounts in their financial statements to reflect the true cost of goods sold.

by Akhilesh Mittal, Lead Consultant, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Financials Expert - Volume 9 (2010), Update 7

When a product is procured from multiple vendors, there is often a variance between the actual purchase price and the standard. This variance in purchase price should be recorded, analyzed, and monitored in detail for improved cost control. Understand how to capture the variance in the standard and actual purchase price in the SAP system.