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Definition
Trading Partner is a term used in trade and commerce and is generally defined as:
One of the two or more participants in an ongoing business relationship.
Trading Partner Company Setup
Trading Partner has a similar meaning in the context of SAP Finance and Controlling, and speaks about the business relationship among company codes. Trading partner field VBUND should be captured in master data and transactional data – this is a key requirement for intercompany design.
You can use this data to consolidate financial statements and in reporting. Some of the transactions include elimination of intercompany sales, purchases, and intercompany accounts receivable and payable.
Trading Partner is defined in configuration for company field RASSC and stored in Table T880.
Transactions:
Trading Partner is maintained in intercompany customer and vendor masters, as well as GL accounts used exclusively for intercompany postings.
While there usually are dedicated vendor and customer masters for intercompany transactions, there may not always be dedicated GL accounts for intercompany transactions.
The following transactions are used for the maintenance of trading partner on master data:
Trading Partner information flows to transactions when trading partner is maintained in master data on intercompany customers, vendors, and GL accounts.
However, there may be instances where a GL account may have transactions for both intercompany as well as third-party scenarios such as interest on loans and advances. Organization can receive interest on loans from external / third parties or from intercompany entities. It may not always be possible to define separate GL accounts for each scenario. Doing so may lead to the proliferation of GL accounts.
Since trading partner is not maintained in GL accounts and does not automatically flow to transaction data, you need to enter the trading partner in transactions. Trading partner may be missed on transactions leading to inconsistencies and impact consolidations. Trading partner may be missed due to a lack of discipline among users, lack of system checks, or simply due to the quality of data sent by interfacing systems – SAP or non-SAP.
An activity type identifies activities provided by a cost center to manufacturing
orders. The secondary type general ledger account associated with an activity type identifies the activity costs on cost center and detailed reports.
A cost center is master data that identifies where the cost occurred. A responsible person assigned to the cost center analyzes and explains cost center variances at period end.
FBl3N displays G/L line items. It shows the G/L line items only for the G/L accounts that have the display line item checkbox flagged.
You use Transaction F.13 to post automatic clearing.
F. 19 analyzes the GR/IR clearing account and posts adjustments entries for outstanding amounts to adjustment accounts. It makes the offsetting entry to the account for goods delivered but not invoiced or to the account for goods invoiced but not delivered.
This report allows you to view the totals of a single or range of G/L a
One of the two or more participants in an ongoing business relationship.
A material master contains all of the information required to manage a material. Information is stored in views, and each view corresponds to a department or area of business responsibility. Views conveniently group information together for users in different departments, for example, sales and purchasing.
An origin group separately identifies materials assigned to the same cost element, allowing them to be assigned to separate cost components. The origin group can also determine the calculation base for overhead in costing sheets.
The Price control field in the Costing 2 view determines whether inventory is valuated at standard or moving average price.
The price unit is the number of units to which the price refers. You can increase the accuracy of the price by increasing the price unit. To determine the unit price, divide the price by the price unit.
Process orders are used for the production of materials or provide services in a certain quantity and on a certain date. They allow resource planning, process order management control, and account assignment and order settlement rules to be specified.
A procurement alternative represents one of a number of different ways of procuring a material. You can control the level of detail in which the procurement alternatives are represented through the controlling level. Depending on the processing category, there are single-level and multilevel procurement alternatives. For example, a purchase order is single-level procurement, while production is multilevel procurement.
A production order is used for discrete manufacturing. A BOM and routing are copied from master data to the order. A sequence of operations is supplied by the routing, which describes how to carry out work-steps.
An operation can refer to a work center at which it is to be performed. An operation contains planned activities required to carry out the operation. Costs are based on the material components and activity price multiplied by a standard value.
Product drilldown reports allow you to slice and dice data based on characteristics such as product group, material, plant, cost component, and period. Product drilldown reports are based on predefined summarization levels and are relatively simple to setup and run.
Production variance is a type of variance calculation based on the difference between net actual costs debited to the order and target costs based on the preliminary cost estimate and quantity delivered to inventory. You calculate production variance with target cost version 1. Production variances are for information only and are not relevant for settlement.
A production version determines which alternative BOM is used together with which task list/master recipe to produce a material or create a master production schedule. For one material, you can have several production versions for various validity periods and lot-size ranges.
When raw materials are valued at the standard price, a purchase price variance will post during goods receipt if the goods receipt or invoice price is different from the material standard price.
Costing-based profitability analysis enables you to evaluate market segments, which can be classified according to products, customers, orders (or any combination of these), or strategic business units, such as sales organizations or business areas concerning your company’s profit or contribution margin.
SAP Profit Center is a management-oriented organizational unit used for internal controlling purposes. Segmenting a company into profit centers allows us to analyze and delegate responsibility to decentralized units.
A purchasing info record stores all the information relevant to the procurement of a material from a vendor. It contains the Purchase Price field, which the standard cost estimate searches for when determining the purchase price.
Raw materials are always procured externally and then processed. A material master record of this type contains purchasing data but not sales.
A routing is a list of tasks containing standard activity times required to perform operations to build an assembly. Routings, together with planned activity prices, provide cost estimates with the information necessary to calculate labor and activity costs of products.
Sales and operations planning (SOP) allows you to enter a sales plan, convert it to a production plan, and transfer the plan to long-term planning.
S&OP is slowly being replaced by SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain (SAP IBP), which supports all S&OP features. S&OP is intended as a bridge or interim solution, which allows you a smooth transition from SAP ERP to on-premise SAP S/4HANA and SAP IBP. See SAP Note 2268064 for details.
SAP Fiori is a web-based interface that can be used in place of the SAP GUI. SAP Fiori apps access the Universal Journal directly, taking advantage of additional fields like the work center and operation for improved variance reporting.
Work in process (WIP) and variances are transferred to Financial Accounting, Profit Center Accounting (PCA), and Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) during settlement. Variance categories can also be transferred to value fields in CO-PA.
A settlement profile contains the parameters necessary to create a settlement rule for manufacturing orders and product cost collectors and is contained in the order type.
A settlement rule determines which portions of a sender’s costs are allocated to which receivers. A settlement rule is contained in a manufacturing order or product cost collector header data.
You need setup time to prepare equipment and machinery for the production of assemblies, and that preparation is generally the same regardless of the quantity produced. Setup time spread over a smaller production quantity increases the unit cost.
The process of recording actual costs for cost objects, such as manufacturing orders and product cost collectors in cost object controlling, is called simultaneous costing. Costs typically include goods issues, receipts to and from an order, activity confirmations, and external service costs.
Source cost elements identify costs that debit objects, such as manufacturing orders and product cost collectors.
A source list is a list of available sources of supply for a material, which indicates the periods during which procurement is possible. Usually, a source list is a list of quotations for a material from different vendors.
You can specify a preferred vendor by selecting a fixed source of supply indicator. If you do not select this indicator for any source, a cost estimate will choose the lowest cost source as the cost of the component. You can also indicate which sources are relevant to MRP.
The standard price in the Costing 2 view determines the inventory valuation price when price control is set at standard (S). The standard price is updated when a standard cost estimate is released. You normally value manufactured goods at the standard price.
You supply component parts to an external vendor who manufactures the complete assembly. The vendor has previously supplied a quotation, which is entered in a purchasing info record with a category of subcontracting.
Tracing factors determine the cost portions received by each receiver from senders during periodic allocations, such as assessments and distributions.
The efficiency and speed of the SAP HANA in-memory database allowed the introduction of the Universal Journal single line-item tables ACDOCA (actual) and ACDOCP (plan). The Universal Journal allows all postings from the previous financial and controlling components to be combined in single items. The many benefits include the development of real-time accounting. In this book, we discuss both period-end and event-based processing.
The valuation class in the Costing 2 view determines which general ledger accounts are updated as a result of inventory movement or settlement.
The valuation date determines which material and activity prices are selected when you create a cost estimate. Purchasing info records can contain different vendor-quoted prices for different dates. Different plan activity rates can be entered per fiscal period.
The valuation grouping code allows you to assign the same general ledger account assignments across several plants with Transaction OMWD to minimize your work.
The grouping code can represent one or a group of plants.
You use valuation types in the split valuation process, which enables the same material in a plant to have different valuations based on criteria such as batch. You assign valuation types to each valuation category, which specify the individual characteristics that exist for that valuation category. For example, you can valuate stocks of a material produced in-house separately from stocks of the same material purchased externally from vendors. You then select procurement type as the valuation category and internal and external as the valuation types.
The valuation variant is a costing variant component that allows different search strategies for materials, activity types, subcontracting, and external processing. For example, the search strategy for purchased and raw materials typically searches first for a price from the purchasing info record.
This valuation variant allows a choice of cost estimates to valuate scrap and WIP in a WIP at target scenario. If the structure of a routing is changed after a costing run, WIP can still be valued with the valuation variant for scrap and WIP resulting in a more accurate WIP valuation.
In the context of multiple valuation and transfer prices, you can define the following views:
– Legal valuation view
– Group valuation view
– Profit center valuation view
Operations are carried out at work centers representing; for example, machines, production lines, or employees. Work center master data contains a mandatory cost center field. A work center can only be linked to one cost center, while a cost center can be linked to many work centers.
Work in process (WIP) represents production costs of incomplete assemblies. For balance sheet accounts to accurately reflect company assets at period end, WIP costs are moved temporarily to WIP balance sheet and profit and loss accounts. WIP is canceled during period-end processing following delivery of assemblies to inventory.
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Ashish Sampat is a qualified finance and costing professional with over two decades of industry experience in the SAP Finance and Controlling space. Ashish has been an SAP consultant for most of his career with various consulting organizations and now works as an independent SAP FI/CO consultant. He has provided solutions in several areas of SAP Controlling including product costing, Material Ledger, and cost center accounting to global clients in consumer packed goods, life sciences, and industrial sectors. Born and educated in India, Ashish now lives in suburban Chicago with his wife and two kids. Ashish is the author of First Steps in SAP Controlling (CO) and Expert Tips to Unleash the Full Potential of SAP Controlling.
Comments 2
Hi Ashish
I am checking your posting because I have a TP requirement. There is block some Trading Partners for posting,
I create the next sets for doing this possible.
GS01
GL Accounts range
Doc Type sensitive to TP postinds
Set for users
and set with all TP required for be blocking
Once I did the testings after build the validation rule with error message all TPs appears as blocked. Seems like the BSEG- VBUND set is not taken into consideration because all trading partners are blocked.
How can i handle the validation rule that allow me keep blocked some TPs and the others could be available for posting?
Regards
Ulises
What will be the impact on Open Items if we try to activate Trading Partner in the middle of any accounting year?