Reconcile SAP CO-PA with General Ledger

By Paul Ovigele

The original purpose of Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) is to enable businesses to produce market segment profitability reports based on sales data. It is particularly useful for  Finance and Sales users as it allows you to perform profitability analysis according to several dimensions (customer, product, country, salesperson etc.) and its real-time functionality helps with quick and effective decision making.

However, one pitfall of the costing-based CO-PA module is the inability to automatically reconcile CO-PA with the General Ledger.

This week we are starting a new blog series on the most common SAP Controlling pitfalls and how to avoid them. SAP Controlling 2013 speaker Tanya Duncan is up first.

In my opinion, the most common Controlling pitfall is choosing design alternatives without understanding the ramifications. Controlling is an interesting and, in my opinion, more fun module compared to Finance and other SAP modules. It is more flexible in how you achieve requirements, but it also requires attention to building a robust, sustainable design.  

This week we are profiling Controlling 2013 speaker Andrea Middleton, Director of Controlling and Planning at ABB, Inc. 

How did you get your start with SAP and SAP Controlling? 

I started working with SAP in 1992 when I joined ABB.  I joined one month after go live. Needless to say, things were quite up in the air with the knowledgebase on how to not only use SAP, but to report out of it. 

This week's Controlling 2013 speaker profile is of Anurag Barua,  Senior Director of Analytics at GyanSys Inc.

How did you get your start with SAP and SAP Controlling? 

I was lucky enough to start my SAP career at SAP Labs & SAP Public Sector & Education 15 years ago.

Learn more about Controlling 2013 speaker Eric Chinchilla, IT Director of Global Finance Strategy & Execution at Johnson & Johnson.

This week we are profiling Controlling 2013 speaker Jörg Siebert, SAP FI/CO Specialist and Co-founder of Espresso Tutorials.

How did you get your start with SAP and SAP Controlling? 

When I started my first real job in 1993, I worked for a small software company in Mannheim, Germany.  At that point of time, I had my first contact with business software.  Later on in 1999 when I joined Ernst & Young, the SAP world of Finance and Controlling became my main focus. From 2001 through 2011, I worked for SAP in Walldorf pushing forward with the newest inventions in Finance and Controlling.

Controlling 2013 speaker Julien Delvat was recently named an SAP Mentor for his work with the SAP Controlling Community. Congratulations Julien!

Updating Quantity Fields in CO-PA

By Paul Ovigele

Table of Contents

1. Assigning Quantity fields from Sales Documents

2. Assigning Quantity Fields from Manufacturing Orders

3. Assigning Quantity Fields from FI Documents 

When you are using SAP Controlling Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) you know that mapping objects to value fields is the key to ensuring that the reports are complete and accurate. The normal scenario is to assign amount fields such as sales conditions, general ledger accounts and production variances.

However, it is also important to map quantity fields such as sales and production quantities to value fields (which are set up with a “quantity” attribute in transaction KEA6). Most sales and contribution margin reports contain these quantity values (for example Net Weight of products sold) in order provide the appropriate context for the reported revenue and cost of sales figures.

There are three main areas where you can make assignments to quantity fields in CO-PA.

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This week we are profiling Martin Munzel, SAP CO/PS Specialist and co-founder of Espresso Tutorials. Learn more about Martin and his view on what is most important to his customers. 

SAP Purchasing Info Record Usage in Costing Variants

By Tanya Duncan

Table of Contents

1. Costing Variant Configuration

2. Valuation Variant Configuration

3. Assign Purchasing Conditions to Delivery Costs

4. Create Origin Groups

5. Map Origin Groups to Cost Components

6. Check purchase info records and purchasing conditions

7. Glossary

I recently used some interesting configuration in the valuation variant to value externally and intercompany purchased materials.  My client has unique challenges because they are vertically integrated.

 They produce almost every raw material that goes in to their finished goods including packaging and the machinery to produce finished goods. The amount of intercompany purchases is massive and we needed a sustainable way to value purchased items and reference the purchasing conditions for intercompany markups and other charges like freight and shipping labor.

This configuration is a multi-step process, but it’s fairly simple when you have all the pieces configured correctly.