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SAP Controlling: An Overview and Key Considerations
What Is SAP Controlling?
The SAP Controlling (CO) module provides information to help managers track costs by calculating, analyzing, and planning all enterprise-wide or business-unit overhead spending. The SAP Controlling module operates as the core internal cost accounting solution for SAP customers. In contrast, the SAP Financial Accounting (FI) module is restricted by specific legal requirements, so SAP customers can’t use it for cost accounting.
SAP Controlling: An Overview and Key Considerations
What Is SAP Controlling?
The SAP Controlling (CO) module provides information to help managers track costs by calculating, analyzing, and planning all enterprise-wide or business-unit overhead spending. The SAP Controlling module operates as the core internal cost accounting solution for SAP customers. In contrast, the SAP Financial Accounting (FI) module is restricted by specific legal requirements, so SAP customers can’t use it for cost accounting.
When organizations activate cost center accounting in the SAP Controlling module, SAP Controlling users can make decisions about cost inputs and areas of responsibility with greater clarity. For finance and accounting managers, SAP Controlling offers a variety of components or sub-modules to enable diverse controlling requirements and provide additional functionality.
A list of key SAP Controlling (CO) sub-modules and components include:
- Cost Element Accounting
- Cost Center Accounting
- Internal Order
- Product Costing
- Cost Object Controlling
- Profitability Analysis
- Profit Center Accounting
Key Considerations for SAPinsiders
Reduce financial errors with robust reporting features in SAP Controlling. Controllers should understand how various processes in an accounting system work together to create value for their company. They need a thorough knowledge of what each step entails to identify any errors and address them before the problems grow. Reports that generate controlling activity should be informative and detail any actual/plan variance.
Leverage SAP S/4HANA to enhance SAP Controlling functionality. Organizations can benefit from more robust SAP Controlling functionality in SAP S/4HANA for efficient processing of business activities and financial information from source systems to enhance the performance of operational reporting and dashboards for finance and accounting managers.
Utilize SAP Controlling in Fiori to streamline access to comprehensive reporting and drilldowns. Whether you’re using an older report or the new reports in SAP Controlling with Fiori Apps, they all relate to the Universal Journal. Across various finance use-cases, reporting that previously required custom reports generation can now be viewed with SAP Fiori App, resulting in a user-friendly access point for all information available to the Universal Journal.
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Understanding Universal Allocations in SAP S/4HANAMay 12, 2021 — Cost Allocation within the Overhead Cost Controlling module enables business users to periodically allocate posted amounts and quantities from sender cost objects to receiver cost objects based on a cycle structure. Some challenges exist with the current ECC functionality such as the ability of users to easily understand their allocation processes and the ability to simulate the results from allocations. Also, several other modules such as General Ledger, Profit Center Account, and Profitability Analysis also contain allocation functionality, but it is difficult to keep track of all the allocations, as they are not stored in the same area of the system. In SAP S/4HANA 1809, Universal Allocations were introduced to handle most of these issues as well as provide new functionality.
Attend this comprehensive session to:
- Learn the challenges of current CO Allocations
- Discover the features of Universal Allocations
- Explore which Fiori Apps are used for Universal Allocations
- Learn about managing and executing Universal Allocations
- Find out how to manage Global Accounting Hierarchies
1 minute read
Important considerations to prepare for the mandatory transition to Material Ledger in SAP S/4HANAOct 20, 2020 — Material Ledger is SAP’s subledger for inventory valuation as well as actual costing. In the SAP ECC system, it has been an optional functionality, but now with SAP S/4HANA, it is mandatory. Are you ready for the transition to Material Ledger? What do you need to know about the new functionality and its effects on your current setup? Attendees of this session will:
•Understand the difference between using Material Ledger for actual costing and parallel valuation
•Discover the improvements that have been made to the actual costing closing cockpit
•View the improved reporting that exists for Material Ledger within SAP S/4HANA
•Find out what needs to be considered when migrating to Material Ledger in SAP S/4HANA
1 minute read
Make Sense of the CO Cost Settlement Process: Live Q&A on Navigating Cost Settlement in SAP SystemsMay 1, 2016 — Cost settlement plays a critical role in business operations in SAP environments. It determines whether orders – such as production orders, sales orders, and internal orders – are settled in full as part of period-end processing. This process, which takes place in the controlling (CO) component of the SAP system, can appear to be highly […]
37 minute read
Live from SAPinsider Studio: Rohana Gunawardena on SAP COApr 4, 2016 — Rohana Gunawardena, Director, SAP Practice, QS&S, joins SAPinsider Studio at the SAPinsider FIN 2016 event in Las Vegas to discuss the SAP CO philosophy and using CO beyond cost center accounting, such as internal orders, as well as what SAP S/4HANA means for SAP CO. This is an edited version of the transcript: Ken Murphy, […]
5 minute read
How to Select the Most Suitable Active Budget Availability Control Solution for Your OrganizationFeb 25, 2016 — Learn about the different tools available in an SAP system to implement active budget availability control and how to select the most appropriate tool for your organization based on its financial, cash flow, and budget control objectives. Key Concept Organizations of nearly all types and sizes hold a budget. The budget is a monetary depiction […]
16 minute read