We are from S C Johnson (Consumer Products company) and are embarking on our BPC Implentation and have the following questions..hopefully Scott can answer some or all of them during the session today

Many Thanks

Ram Sharma - Business Process Manager FICO - SCJ

) General question about how hierarchies will be set up in BPC: If we have a hierarchy established in SAP ECC already, and then need to add to the hierarchy to include our non-SAP companies, how will this work?

2.) Chart of Accounts: do we need to include Cash Flow accounts in our CoA recommendation? At what point do we need to begin discussions around the design of the Cash Flow?

3.) Chart of Accounts: should we include statistical accounts in the same application as the legal consolidation/management reporting application, or is it better to have this information in a separate application?

4.) Customer Dimension: Where will the customer information be included in BPC? Will it be included as part of the Product Profitability application? Will it need to be a separate application? How will it work if we only have selected customers that we want to report on? How will the load from ECC to BPC work?

5.) Cost Center: Our current proposal is to bring all SAP companies’ cost centers to BPC. We have a cost center hierarchy in ECC today. What are the pros and cons of using the hierarchy from SAP versus establishing the hierarchy in BPC?

6.) Time dimension: What are the pros and cons of having semi-annual rollups in addition to months and quarters?

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Scott, thank you for joining us today! It looks like we have some questions waiting for you, so please feel free to jump in.

Hi Ram,

Good questions. I am going to post the replies one at a time to get the dialogue started in the forum.

Your first question:

"1) General question about how hierarchies will be set up in BPC: If we have a hierarchy established in SAP ECC already, and then need to add to the hierarchy to include our non-SAP companies, how will this work?"

The standard hierarchy data manager package will handle the loading of BW Hierarchies into BPC however you will still have to load your ECC hierarchies into BW ahead of time. You could also create a custom process chain for BPC that merged the Trigger BW Process Chain Task/Process Type and the existing Hierarchy Load Process Chain for BPC which would make the load from ECC to BPC completely seamless to the end user.

Regarding overlaying your existing hierarchies in BPC simply add your new branches to the hierarchy within BPC directly.

However if you are going to be sourcing that non-SAP company data from a different system the solution gets a bit trickier.

Next questions to be answered in a minute :)

Cheers, Scott

Question 2:

"2.) Chart of Accounts: do we need to include Cash Flow accounts in our CoA recommendation? At what point do we need to begin discussions around the design of the Cash Flow?"

Ram, design in BPC just like any planning application is about trying to think ahead to all the different needs that the customer may have and come up with some good options. I would definitely have a recommendation including Cash Flow Accounts. I would begin the discussions early and iterate often.

"3.) Chart of Accounts: should we include statistical accounts in the same application as the legal consolidation/management reporting application, or is it better to have this information in a separate application?"

Ram, I participated in a Starter Kit design for Cost and Expense Planning and we did consolidate Statistical Key Figures into the Account Dimension in order to have a consolidated reporting application. We were able to manage the separation of Cost Elements and Statistical Key Figures with separate hierarchies.