What’s changed in profit center accounting with SAP General Ledger?
A Q&A with Financials expert Paul Ovigele

The SAP General Ledger includes some distinct changes to profit center accounting transactions. What are the key differences from the classic G/L, and how can understanding these changes help avoid errors and speed up profit center reporting?

Join Paul Ovigele in a live Q&A today, October 13,  12:30 -1:30 p.m. ET, here in the Financials forum.

Post your question for Paul on the changes to profit center accounting  that come with the new SAP General Ledger and enhancement packages –  including balance sheet calculations and transfers to profit centers,  assessments, reconciliations, and features.

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Can you discuss the various ways and options to achieve full Profit Center reporting in the General Ledger when there are a high number of CO based allocations?

Based on what I have read from SAP, the Profit Center reports should now be sourced from the General Ledger. One of the areas I am trying to understand is the impact of CO only allocations, especially when there are multiple allocations and the allocations are sourced on secondary cost elements, on Profit Center reporting in the General Ledger.  For example, the posting overhead via a cost sheet on labor costs, from CATS using activity types, then running settlement of these costs to a cost center.

 My initial thought is this would require additional general ledger accounts in the G/L for posting cross-profit center allocations in CO and still retain the nature of the original secondary cost element account. Also, this would require setting up the CO/FI auto-recon to post an entry when allocations cross profit centers. Otherwise, using a single account would not allow for proper financial reporting.

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Oct 6, 2011 -- 2:46PM, Vijay wrote:

Paul,

Will you be covering Intercompany sales, Transfer Pricing, and Profit elimination within the same Profit Centers?

Thanks & Regards

Vijay

 

 

Hi Vijay,

Do you have a specific question on this topic? Transfer Pricing functionality has not changed that much with New G/L . The accounts that you set up in transaction 0KEK for transfer pricing are automatically transferred to the New GL.

Oct 6, 2011 -- 11:45AM, Brian wrote:

Can you discuss the various ways and options to achieve full Profit Center reporting in the General Ledger when there are a high number of CO based allocations?

Based on what I have read from SAP, the Profit Center reports should now be sourced from the General Ledger. One of the areas I am trying to understand is the impact of CO only allocations, especially when there are multiple allocations and the allocations are sourced on secondary cost elements, on Profit Center reporting in the General Ledger.  For example, the posting overhead via a cost sheet on labor costs, from CATS using activity types, then running settlement of these costs to a cost center.

 My initial thought is this would require additional general ledger accounts in the G/L for posting cross-profit center allocations in CO and still retain the nature of the original secondary cost element account. Also, this would require setting up the CO/FI auto-recon to post an entry when allocations cross profit centers. Otherwise, using a single account would not allow for proper financial reporting.

Hi,
You’re right, with transaction OK17 you normally enter just one CO-FI account. You can however, break this down into different accounts per CO transaction (by clicking on the “Rules” button and flagging the “CO Transactions checkbox”). This will not get you the same granularity as the secondary cost elements but it will give you a guide as to where the posting came from.