SAP S/4HANA Finance Frequently Asked Questions

by Janet Salmon

Is merging of actuals & plan into ACDOCA versus ACDOCP?

Is the planning data going to go to ACDOCA or ACDOCP? 

If we copy actual to plan for each monthly forecast version, will the P table end up with 12 times the records of the A table?

Planning data will update to ACDOCP. In your copy function you would have to decide at what aggregation you updated ACDOCP (1:1 or roll-up e.g. production orders to not have quite so much data in your forecast). 

Is CO43 costing sheet processing still at month-end or real-time?

You have an option of making the overhead costing in real time if you activate the business function CO_ALLOCATIONS. You use exactly the same conditions but create an overhead behind every posting rather than cumulatively at month end  

Are assessments/distributions still at month-end or real-time?            

Either – if you are running an assessment to CO-PA and can handle the assignment via a derivation, then you can have them in real-time.  Usually, we find that you can do some characteristics immediately (you then need to find a derivation logic via the master data) and some need a classical assessment (ie when you are creating N records from one sender)  

Is WIP & variance still at month-end or real-time?               

Either – still at month end in 1610, but we are working to get them real-time.  

Are settlements still at month-end or real-time?                  

Either – If you are settling to CO-PA, you can set up a derivation to read the settlement rule or the sales order item and extend the posting line to include the CO-PA characteristics whenever you post to the order/project  

What is Prima Nota?   

Not a specific document type, but just the first document that captures the business transaction (e.g., time confirmation, material movement)  

Is Material Ledger still at month-end or real-time?              

Both, as it works now [real-time with standard cost, month-end adjustment to actual cost]. – still periodic, though we could make the period blocks shorter (e.g. week or even day). The whole point is that we have to wait for the invoices to trickle in. 

Assume we have a distribution to take business area A000 and put it 100% into business area I000: does this work in real-time? If we change the %, that can then be run through again at month-end?        

Anything that creates N lines won’t work in real-time. We can only extend the posting line to post to e.g. cost center and certain CO-PA characteristics.

This webinar covered:

- SAP’s vision of a simplified and streamlined real-time financials
- The impact that real-time financials will have on your daily business operations
- Which business transactions that have already evolved from batch to event-based processing and how they work

Birgit Oettinger is Product Owner for Management Accounting at SAP SE. In this role, she is closely involved in key innovation topics for S/4HANA Finance. Birgit has 20 years of experience in the area of SAP Financials and got her start at SAP as an FI/CO consultant focusing on product costing and integration topics. She has been responsible for a wide range of products and areas in Financials and gained deep insights into various Cloud and On-Premise solutions.

Janet Salmon is the Chief Product Owner for Management Accounting at SAP SE. Janet is known to many SAP Financials professionals for her writings on Controlling and related subjects in SAP Financials Expert. She is the author of Controlling with SAP – Practical Guide, Accelerated Financial Closing with SAP, SAP HANA for ERP Financials 2nd Edition, and First Steps in SAP S/4HANA Finance. Janet has overseen many SAP Controlling functionality product developments as a Product and Solution Manager. Most recently, she spearheaded changes to the user interfaces within Controlling and data transfer from Controlling to SAP HANA.

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