Using Program PT_BPC10 and Fixing Grouping Issues for Quotas

Time Management

How to use transaction RPTKOK00 and PT_BPC10

This document explains how to run RPTKOK00. This can be used to check for and fix database inconsistencies. An example of a database inconsistency error: an employee has accrued 2 days Compulsory Leave at the beginning of March, he books 2 days leave and then captures a number of unpaid leave days, Time evaluation is run which reduces his entitlement (because of the unpaids) from 2 days to 1.73 days for example. This causes a database inconsistency, the employee only has an entitlement of 1,73 days but has an absence record of 2 days. This can cause Payroll to not run successfully.

Program RPTKOK00 is able to pick up these issues and it will be useful to run this program before a live Payroll run.

Step 1

1. Go to transaction ZRPTKOK00

2. Click on “Further Selections”

3. Select Payroll Area and move it across.

4. Click on the green tick

Step 2

1. Enter your Payroll Area

2. Untick Check Attendance Quota (Not compulsory)

3. Click Execute

Step 3

1. This gives you a list of Employees with database inconsistency errors.

2. Select new deduction which will be able to automatically fix some of the inconsistencies. The others will need additional steps to fix (see the bottom of this document).

Step 4

1. Click Execute

Additional steps when program RPTKOK00 does not fix inconsistency.

In the example above where the employee had 2 days leave booked but an entitlement of 1.73 days, if the employee were to accrue another 2 days the following month then this program will be able to fix (recapture) the absence as there is sufficient entitlement to recapture the absence. If the entitlement is lower than the absence captured, the following steps can be followed.  

A + 0.27 quota correction can be captured for March and - 0.27 can be captured for April (Time Evaluation must be run for quota corrections to take affect). 

If your Organization permits it, Run Time evaluation to next accrual.  

Reduce the leave captured to for example 1 day and book the other 1 day as unpaid leave.

For step 1 and 2 above, you will need to run the program after the step.

Additional Example

Table T556c is set to deduct first of Family Responsibility then of Family Resp. (Unpaid).

But you have a scenario as below where quota type 31 is deducted before 30 because at the time the 3 days were captured there was not enough balance in quota type 30 (for example 4 days of sick leave was incorrectly booked as Family at the time and has now been changed to the correct absence type thereby making the balance available now).

There are two ways to fix this:

1. Lock and unlock the absence and it will deduct from the correct quota once unlocked.

2. Run program RPTBPC10 (Transaction code PT_BPC10) as below.

1. Go to transaction PT_BPC10

2. Enter the personnel no

3. Enter the period

4. Tick Correct absence quota, log output and Save New deduction (Correct attendance quota is not necessary in this scenario)

5. Click Execute

Corrections made are reflected

The absence has deducted of the correct quota now.  

Fixing Time Evaluation errors when an employee moves from a grouping that does not have the new quota type

Summary of Guide

When an Employee moves from one grouping to another and the new grouping has a quota that the previous grouping did not have, depending on the dates, Time Evaluation can throw an error because in the employees previous grouping the quota being created does not exist. This can be fixed in config by adding the quota type in table V_T559l, under quotas and setting the quota to “no generation”), alternatively the following steps can be followed to fix this manually:

1. Run Time Evaluation with the log (PT60)

2. Double Click on the quota\s that are causing the error

3. PT60 is trying to create a quota with a Validity Start Date of 01.01.2016, a period in which the employee was in a grouping that did not have Quota type 24

4. Manually Create the quota with a Validity Period that is the same as the transfer to new grouping  date (in this case 01.09.2016)

5. Enter the deduction period as per what was in the Time Evaluation log (You might need to move the start date to the same date as move to new Employee group).

6. Run Time Evaluation

FI–COPA Reconciliation

COPA is an important financial tool which can help you with the slice & dice of data based on different characteristics. Since it can give you all the details of your costs and revenue, it is therefore important to reconcile COPA with your GL’s. Controlling Profitability Analysis (COPA) has two forms supported:

• Account Based: Based on accounts and uses account-based valuation approach

• Costing Based: Groups costs and revenue into Value Fields.

So how does COPA reconcile with my GL’s?

Let’s see how to reconcile COPA-FI with SD

Sales & Cost of Sales

Sales & Distribution is tightly integrated with Financial Accounting and thus with Controlling Profitability Analysis (COPA). Numbers flow in COPA via SD pricing conditions which are linked to value fields in COPA. This can be easily viewed via transaction (KE24) and selecting the appropriate Value Fields available in the layout. 

In COPA, Sales and Cost of Sales are updated in value fields when the billing document is posted where as in Financial Accounting, Cost of Sales is posted during the Post Goods Issue (PGI). A possible issue can be if PGI is posted in a month different from the billing month. This will result in a time-lag between FI and COPA and needs to be incorporated either through Assessment Cycle or manually through KE21N.  

Cost of Sales Value in KE24, can be tallied from transaction CKM3N (Material Price Analysis) 

KE24:

Also, there is a transaction (KEAT) that performs the same function of reconciliation. This transaction displays the differences between FI, Sales Distribution and CO-PA for sales conditions such as Sales, COGS, commissions, etc. Below is the output of transaction KEAT:

The differences, if any, are highlighted in red and can be clicked to get to the delta values. These differences are mostly due to the rounding effects but these can be further drilled down to find the exact issues.

Another good way of carrying out a reconciliation is to drilldown into a line item of a CO-PA report (KE24) and compare it to the items in the corresponding general ledger account. GL’s can easily be found by clicking Integration button, selecting Display Billing Document, Environment and then Revenue Accounts. 

Assessment for GL/Periodic Cost

As we have three major areas for reconciliation beside sales and COGS we have periodic cost which transfers from FI to COPA using Assessment cycle.  (Keu5)

This shows that which value field is used for Staff Cost, in this case we have VV900. 

Then we check from which cost elements / GL account values are flowing to COPA for Staff Cost. In this case we have values from cost center group 2020 and cost element group 1301. After that we will check cost element group.

Let’s check cost element group 1301 in (KAH3).

Now check amount in FBL3N for all GL in group 1301. Subtotal on Account, Business Area, Value Date, Plant and Amount.

Let’s check amount in KE24 for Staff cost.

Oops! there is a difference in amount of around 15000 USD. It’s very easy to identify where the difference is. Let’s go back to KEU5 and there we will find the date when was my assessment executed.

Here we found that this cycle has been executed at 04.02.2016.

In FBL3N we found that an entry of 15000 USD has been entered after assessment had been executed.

So now we have to Reverse the current assessment cycle and Re-run it so this 15000 amount will also be incorporated in COPA.

PA Transfer Structure/FI-MM

This is one more important aspect for values coming to COPA from FI. We have transaction KEI2 where we can check from where values are flowing to COPA in which Value Field.

Values coming from Revenue cost element group.

Values flowing to Other Income Value field in COPA from Cost element Group “Revenue”

Similar as above, we will check amounts in COPA and FBL3N for this value field and GL Accounts.

 FI-COPA Reconciliation is one of the painful area for the business users for which we have provided few tips on how to perform reconciliation. 

Ask a Fixer: Are you Optimally Utilizing Available Functionality within SAP Controlling?

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday, March 15th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday, March 15th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

The Controlling (CO) module is the Management Accounting module of SAP. It allows you to plan, monitor and control processes and operations in order to assist management with the implementation of the organization’s strategy.

Is your SAP Controlling implementation optimized to make the most of the available functionality? Are you taking advantage of the integrated nature of the SAP system and making the most out of this module?

Attend this live Q&A with Ashish Sampat, CO expert and Espresso Tutorials author,where you can ask questions that have been puzzling you (but do not know whom to ask!):

• Which cost allocation method is better - Distribution or Assessment, when should I use one versus another?
• What are the different standard costing methods that are available for use, and under what circumstances should they be used?
• How does one go about correcting various error / warning messages encountered during costing?
• What are the different cost objects that are available for use in SAP Controlling?
• Under what circumstances should I go about automating WIP, Variance and Settlement jobs?
• Can you tell us if there are any user exits available for product costing?
• What various design options can we use to add freight and other incidental costs on procured materials?
• How can we link and analyze Movement Types (in Materials Management) to GL Account (in Financial Accounting)?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speaker:

Ashish Sampat, author of the following books:

• First Steps in SAP Controlling (CO)
• Expert tips to Unleash full Potential of SAP Controlling

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

Q&A: Ensure Greater ROI From Your Production Planning Component In SAP ECC

Q: What are some of the important reports or reporting tools available in PP component?

A: SAP ECC offers huge number of standard reports and analyses but in reality very few of them are used. Business users often don’t know these reports exist and can instantly be used for important decisions making. You can access standard analyses not just for PP, but for all of the Logistics components of SAP from the central location in the Logistics Controlling node of the SAP ECC menu via Logistics → Logistics Controlling.

Q: What is the significance of cross-modular integration of PP component with other logistics components?

A: Since SAP ECC is an integrated system, which means information and data flows from one SAP component to another. It only makes sense for different departments, business functions and business users of various SAP ECC components to work in complete cohesion for smooth transactions processing. This is known as integration.

Q: How do I differentiate a co-product from a by-product in the manufacturing process, and map these in SAP ECC?

A: Co-product is produced in addition to the main product and is often of significant financial value. By-products are low-value products. It requires some additional efforts and discussions with the product costing team to set up co-product in SAP ECC, while it is easier to treat a material as by-product in SAP ECC.

Q: How can XSteps (Execution Steps) benefit my business processes in process and discrete manufacturing?

A: XSteps (Execution Steps) not only enable automation of several business processes such as goods issuance or goods receipt of materials in discrete and process manufacturing, they are also very intuitive to set up and use for data recording purposes (such as process parameters like temperature, pressure etc).

Q: Why effective materials planning in SAP ECC is still an elusive goal for many companies?

A: When thoughts and experiences from business users, insights via analytics, decisions from stakeholders and knowing how to leverage many reports and analyses that SAP ECC offers, materials planning can bring tremendous ROI from the SAP ECC investment. There are also several SAP Add-ons to cater to additional materials planning requirements.

Q: Do you have recommendations for any Visual Electronic Kanban process that pull from ERP or SAP Kanban?

A: SAP ECC completely support Kanban including how to configure and set up master data. You can also set up the number of Kanbans (containers) as per your business needs.

Q: Are X-steps comparable or can they be usedas part of Electronic Batch Records.

A: Yes, you can use X-Steps as a part of EBR.

Q: In terms of using production demand to drive purchase requisitions for the majority of our purchasing. We are looking into ways to utilize the manual reorder point settings. Any recommendations or feedback on manual reordering based on demand.

A: You can certainly use reorder point planning (planning type VB) and set a reorder point too. Further, when this reorder point process has matured, you can take advantage of system's capabilities to suggest the reorder point for you.

Q: What do you mean by Flexible planning?

A: Flexible planning is user-defined planning wherein the business user can incorporate parameters and any formulas to improve materials planning. For example, you want to incorporate sales surge due to Winter season or due to Olympics (or Superbowl), then this is all possible using Flexible Planning.

Q: Can SAP propose new sales order delivery date in ETO business scenario when shop floor capacity is not available? How to restrict over booking of sales order based on available capacity?

A: This is certainly a limitation in SAP ECC as the system 'considers' infinite capacity while booking ETO orders. It is only when detailed scheduling takes place that the system alerts of capacity bottleneck. The solution lies in PP/DS, which will now be available in SAP S/4HANA (as a part of PP component). 

Q: How can raw material consumption through Process Orders be fed back into the material planning, either reorder point or forecast based planning?

A: I would first look into the 'Consumption data' that SAP ECC offers in the 'additional data' tab of material master plant combination. I can then use this consumption data to decide if reorder point planning makes more sense or forecasting. In fact, you can even use consumption data to forecast material's requirement.

Q: Master data does well for steady state manufacturing processes. However, there is a need in chemical industries to plan daily ramp ups as equipment is restarted and flushes following a shutdowns. What capabilities will be available for these situations?

A: Please consider using multiple 'Scrap' options available in SAP ECC. This will not only ensure better materials planning to account for the scrap/wastage during the production process but also to account for the 'additional' costs incurred due to scrap. You can incorporate scrap at the material or its component level, either in BOM or in routing/master recipe.

Q: Yes the users try the SAP standard reports first but many are lacking for the full business operation pictures - so many of the customized reports are combination reports which are time saving.

Q: I understand. Often, conducting refresher training on these reports also help. Just in case, the business users want to explore standard reports and analyses in Logistics Controlling, the node of the SAP ECC menu via Logistics → Logistics Controlling.

Q: Are there capabilities in SAP HANA MRP Heristics for developing or adhering to an economically feasible production wheel (production sequence for a manufacturing resource) over time?

A: Not yet, but judging from the pace of S/4HANA innovation, either these functionalities will become part of S/4HANA Enterprise Management or may even be offered in SAP IBP (Integrated Business Planning). 

Q: We use ECM process to set our BOM phase in and phase out and also with routing changes.

A: Excellent. You can also use ECM in other SAP ECC components such as in Quality Management or in Materials Management component.

Q: Can you provide a link to the latest documentation summarizing planning tools that will be or are available in S4 Hana ECC and IBP?

A: Please refer to the official SAP HANA website and the infinite number of available resources, such as roadmaps and simplification lists. Also, note that for cloud-based S/4HANA, the innovations are coming out every quarter, while for on-premises, it's on an annual basis. 

Q: What is the use of origin group material master for a product costing?

A: Since the PP component works effectively only when Controlling-Product Costing (CO-PC) is working well, the original group in material master serves to subdivide the material costs.

Exceptional EPM Systems Are An Exception

What makes for exceptionally good enterprise performance management (EPM) is that its multiple managerial methods are not only individually effective but also are seamlessly integrated and imbedded with analytics of all flavors.

Quite naturally, many organizations over-rate the quality of their enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM / CPM) practices and systems...

In reality they lack in being comprehensive and how integrated they are. For example, when you ask executives how well they measure and report either costs or non-financial performance measures, most proudly boast that they are very good. Again, this is inconsistent and conflicts with surveys where anonymous replies from mid-level managers candidly score them as “needs much improvement.”

Every organization cannot be above average!

What makes exceptionally good EPM systems exceptional?

Let’s not attempt to be a sociologist or psychologist and explain the incongruities between executives boasting superiority while anonymously answered surveys reveal inferiority.  Rather let’s simply describe the full vision of an effective EPM system that organizations should aspire to.

First, we need to clarify some terminology and related confusion. EPM is not solely a system or a process. It is instead the integration of multiple managerial methods – and most of them have been around for decades arguably even before there were computers. EPM is also not just a CFO initiative with a bunch of scorecard and dashboard dials. It is much broader. Its purpose is not about monitoring the dials but rather moving the dials.

What makes for exceptionally good EPM is that its multiple managerial methods are not only individually effective but also are seamlessly integrated and imbedded with analytics of all flavors. Examples of analytics are segmentation, clustering, regression, and correlation analysis.      

EPM is like musical instruments in an orchestra

I like to think of the various EPM methods as an analogy of musical instruments in an orchestra. An orchestra’s conductor does not raise their baton to the strings, woodwinds, percussion, and brass and say, “Now everyone play loud.” They seek balance and guide the symphony composer’s fluctuations in harmony, rhythm and tone. 

Here are my six main groupings of the EPM methods – its musical instrument sections:

1. Strategic planning and execution

This is where a strategy map and its associated balanced scorecard fits in. Together they serve to translate the executive team’s strategy into navigation aids necessary for the organization to fulfill its vision and mission g. The executives’ role is to set the strategic direction to answer the question “Where do we want to go?” Through use of correctly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) with targets, then the employees’ priorities, actions, projects, and processes are aligned with the executives’ formulated strategy.

2. Cost visibility and driver behavior

For commercial companies this is where profitability analysis fits in for products, standard services, channels, and customers. For public sector government organizations this is where understanding how processes consume resource expense in the delivery of services and report the costs, including the per unit cost, of their services. Activity-based costing (ABC) principles model cause-and-effect relationships based on business and cost drivers. This involves progressive, not traditional, managerial accounting such as ABC rather than broadly averaged cost factors without causal relationships.

3. Customer Management Performance

This is where powerful marketing and sales methods are applied to retain, grow, win-back, and acquire profitable, not unprofitable, customers. The tools are often referenced as customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. But the CRM data is merely a foundation. Analytical tools, supported by software, that leverage CRM data can further identify actions that will create more profit lift from customers. These actions simultaneously shift customers from not only being satisfied to being loyal supporters. 

4. Forecasting, planning, and predictive analytics

Data mining typically examines historical data “through the rear-view mirror.” This EPM group directs attention forward to look at the road through the windshield. The benefit of more accurate forecasts is to reduce uncertainty. Forecasts for the future volume and mix quantities of customer purchased products and service are core independent variables.  Based on those forecasts that so many dependent variables have relationships with, therefore process costs from the resource expenses can be calculated and managed. Examples of dependent variables are the future headcount workforce and spending levels. CFOs increasingly look to driver-based budgeting and rolling financial forecasts grounded in ABC principles using this group. 

5. Enterprise risk management (ERM)

This cannot be omitted from the main group of EPM. ERM serves as a brake to the potentially unbridled gas pedal that EPM methods are designed to step hard on. Risk mitigation projects and insurance requires spending which reduces profits and also steers expenses from resources the executive team would prefer to provide earn larger compensation bonuses.  So it takes discipline to ensure adequate attention is placed on appropriate risk management practices.

6. Process improvement

This is where lean management and Six Sigma quality initiatives fit in. Their purpose is to remove waste and streamline processes to accelerate and reduce cycle-times. They create productivity and efficiency improvements.

EPM as integrated suite of improvement methods

CFOs often view financial planning and analysis (FP&A) as synonymous with EPM. It is better to view FP&A as a subset. And although better cost management and process improvements are noble goals, an organization cannot reduce its costs forever to achieve long term prosperity.

The important message here is that EPM is not just about the CFO’s organization; but it is also the integration of all the often silo-ed functions like marketing, operations, sales, and strategy. Look again at the six main EPM groups I listed above. Imagine if the information produced and analyzed in each of them were to be seamlessly integrated. Imagine if they are each embedded with analytics – especially predictive analytics. Then powerful decision support is provided for insight, foresight, and actions. That is the full vision of EPM to which we should aim to aspire in order to achieve the best possible performance.    

Today exceptional EPM systems are an exception despite what many executives proclaim. If we all work hard and smart enough, in the future they will be standard practices. Then what would be next? Automated decision management systems relying on business rules and algorithms. But that is an article I will write about some other day.

Gary Cokins, CPIM

http://www.garycokins.com  

Gary Cokins (Cornell University BS IE/OR, 1971; Northwestern University Kellogg MBA 1974) is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) systems. He is the founder of Analytics-Based Performance Management LLC www.garycokins.com .  He began his career in industry with a Fortune 100 company in CFO and operations roles. Then 15 years in consulting with Deloitte, KPMG, and EDS (now part of HP). From 1997 until 2013 Gary was a Principal Consultant with SAS, a business analytics software vendor. His most recent books are Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics and Predictive Business Analytics.

Ask a Fixer: Ensure Greater ROI From Your Production Planning Component In SAP ECC

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

The Production Planning (PP) component allows you to plan the procurement, manufacturing and sale of your products. It also enables you to use different planning strategies such as make-to-order or make-to-stock so that you neither overproduce nor face an out-of-stock situation. Production processes such as discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing and repetitive manufacturing, as well as replenishment using Kanban are all available within the PP module. Also, the PP module offers several reports and analytics tools to enable planners to constantly optimize and fine tune their planning parameters.

Attend this live Q&A with Jawad Akhtar, PP Expert and bestselling author, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• What are some of the important reports or reporting tools available in PP component?
• What is the significance of cross-modular integration of PP component with other logistics components?
• How do I differentiate a co-product from a by-product in the manufacturing process, and map these in SAP ECC?
• How can XSteps (Execution Steps) benefit my business processes in process and discrete manufacturing?
• Why effective materials planning in SAP ECC is still an elusive goal for many companies?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speaker:

Jawad Akhtar, author of the following books:

• Production Planning and Control with SAP ERP
• Quality Management with SAP
• Materials Management with SAP ERP: Functionality and Technical Configuration
• S&OP with SAP ERP Production Planning
• Configuring Kanban in SAP ERP MM PP

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

To register, please login to your ASUG account.

3 Essentials for the BASIS Administrator

If you’re new to BASIS administration then you’ll know that this specialist role is a key one in the running of SAP systems...

You personally, may have come from the software developer side of IT or you may have been a database administrator or a systems administrator of UNIX or Windows operating systems. Whatever your background, there are many functions that you will need to be familiar with in your new role but here are three particularly important ones that you should master and remember the purpose of.

SE16N – The Data Browser

This is your fastest way to inspect a database table through the SAP application layer. You can use SE16N to browse legacy formats as well such as transparent, pool and cluster tables. Of course you probably don’t have access to SE16 (older version) or SE16N in your productive SAP system but under exceptional circumstance you can be granted approval to use this transaction. Data is displayed in a grid format and you have the option to use variants also with SE16N. Since the introduction of HANA as a database alternative to Oracle and SQLServer you can now also use the SE16H alternative. SE16S and SE16SL are also new TCodes for use with HANA databases and allow you to find any values in any tables. You can learn more about these new capabilities by checking out SAP KBA article 2002588 - CO-OM Tools: Documentation for SE16S, SE16SL, and SE16S_CUST

SE37 – The Function Builder

This is principally targeted at the developer or functional consultant who wishes to examine the functionality of a BAPI or function module. An added benefit of using SE37 is that you can use test data and save it for use with a given BAPI or function module. Even if you are not an ABAP developer, often, as a BASIS administrator you will be tasked with trying to work out why things are not quite going according to plan – using SE37 to set things like breakpoints and debug functions in the system will become an indispensable aspect of your role. This is also a transaction that you typically won’t have access to in production 

ST03N – The Workload Monitor

This is a transaction used to examine system workload and performance statistics and is principally use to verify system performance at the SAP instance level. You can also access the data associated with ST03N from the SAP collector logs using function module SWNC_GET_WORKLOAD_STATISTIC (execute this with SE37) – although the collector logs are not a 100% guarantee of all SAP events being logged, it does give you, as a BASIS administrator,  insight into users. You can determine their activity and the transactions that they are using along with the frequency of use. ST03N should also be seen together with UPL – a new piece of functionality available in any ABAP based system and which is based on the core functionality of the SAP Coverage Analyzer.  UPL stands for Usage and Procedure Logging and has full reporting capabilities with enriched information sets in the Business Warehouse of Solution Manager 7.1 SP5 and higher. UPL complements ST03N ABAP workload statistics.

PP-REM and Cost Control

Repetitive production is a special type of production that can be used in integrated production scenarios or for a specific situation. This article explains some uses and configurations regarding PP-REM.

For a long time, industries have been using PP-REM to obtain a continuous flow of production. PP-REM is highly recommended for production because it provides product stability and low complexity. This type of production is well used in automobile industries, but it can also be employed in other industry types, such as for wires and nails manufacturing.

The main goal is to reduce the cost control and simplify the completion confirmation via back-flushing process.

SAP provides a PP-REM area by means of OPP3 transaction – please check information on PP-REM configuration here. 

There are only four requirements for PP-REM implementation:

• REM Profile (OSPT / OSP2)

• Material Master Configuration ( MM01 / MM02)

• Production Version (C223 / MM02)

• Product Cost Collector ( KKF6N / KKF6M - Collective)

The main question regarding CO is the Cost Collector (KKF6N), which will allow the material to be continuously settled without a specific production order. However, before initiating the cost collector, we need to follow preceding steps:  

1. Create a BOM and a Routing (rate routing)

2. Define the standard cost estimate for current date and period (CK11N)

3. Release this standard cost estimate (CK24)

Here, there is a crucial point of discussion: WIP. Normally, it is possible to avoid WIP when using PP-REM, but this is linked to the routing configuration. If this is configured with Report Point and with a different point of confirmation (report pointing) until the final confirmation, WIP will be possible [KKAT / KKAQ – WIP Display & KKAS / KKAO – WIP Calculation]. The reason lays between one point and another, since the process will generate more work – of course, these points must be aligned with the production and there is no impact in the Cost Collector configuration (but the production manager must ensure the correct production confirmation).

Another important factor is regarding COGI. We have noticed the same problems with no row material available when confirming the Production Order, rather than with PP-DIS. It is possible to avoid COGI via SAP configuration. COGI is a big problem and we know that it must be “zero” by end of the day.

There are many reports to use in PP-REM, for instance to track the confirmation point by point using the report MF26. There are other reports as well, such as product costs [MCRK], product cost collection [KKBC_PKO], preliminary costing for cost collector [MF30] and so on.

The production confirmation occurs through the specific PP transaction (MFBF), where there are some additional functionalities, such as reversal, scrap, change of row materials used, etc.

PP-REM uses the movement type 131 to confirm production order, which differs from PP-DIS SAP that uses the movement type 101. Like this, the material movement presents different account information.

After confirming, is possible to analyze variances [KKS5 Collective / KKS6 Individual – the variances calculated with the version 0 will be evaluated to COPA.

At end of the month, it is critical to execute the order settlement [CO88 / KK87]. In this stage, the order balance can be balanced transferring the differences to FI and to the Profit Center Accounting. Additionally, it is possible to verify the contribution margin in COPA.

Below we can see some important tables behind PP-REM:

• Cost collector [AUFK]

• Reporting point quantities [CPZP]

• Reporting point documents [CEZP]

• Document log [BLPP]

PP-REM offers an easy way to integrate CO and Production and should be considered whenever possible mainly to scenarios with low complexity but keeping the information and responsibilities that you can see in other scenarios.

Ask a Fixer: Options for Analyzing Profitability in ECC and S/4 HANA

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

Analyzing Profitability is a key task in any organization. It helps shed light on sales and profit information on various aspects of the market such as customers, geographic regions, product lines, and many more. There are several tools that can be used to analyze profitability in SAP, the most common being CO-PA (Controlling Profitability Analysis). However, many companies still resort to using spreadsheets and other manual methods (despite their plethora of issues) to accomplish this task. Is your company using the system to effectively analyze its profitability data?

Attend this live Q&A with Paul Ovigele, FICO Expert and Founder of ERPfixers, and Janet Salmon, Chief Product Owner for Management Accounting at SAP, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• Can we use costing and account based CO-PA simultaneously?
• What are the S/4 HANA implications of using CO-PA?
• Is there an easy way of ensuring that CO-PA reconciles with the general ledger?
• How do we do allocations within CO-PA?
• Is there an advantage of using CO-PA over PCA (Profit Center Accounting) for Profitability Analysis?
• What is the Top-Down Distribution in CO-PA and when should we use it?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER"?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speakers:
Paul Ovigele, Author: Reconciling SAP CO-PA to the General ledger
Janet Salmon, Author: Controlling with SAP - Practical Guide

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

To register, please go to ASUG.