Paul Ovigele, Ovigele Consulting
In my previous blog, titled “Secondary Cost Element Reporting in SAP General Ledger PCA” I discussed how you could run reports in the SAP General Ledger which include secondary cost elements. These reports which range from transactions S_E38_98000088 to S_E38_98000095 are flexible drilldown reports which allow you to view all the accounting elements that are posted to in the profit center and segment characteristics. The crux of the above article was based on the reporting the secondary cost elements of actual data, for example, overhead cost allocation to production orders, actual assessments, actual activity allocation and so on. However you would also need to ensure that the data for secondary cost element planning flows into these reports as well. Examples of this data are plan assessments, manual planning of secondary costs, internal activity allocation planning, and so on.
There would therefore be a need to bring secondary cost elements into the planning part of the SAP General Ledge r. As you will notice from the reports mentioned above, a number of them are based on the comparison of plan and actual data for the specified characteristic. There are a couple of steps that are needed to bring secondary cost element planning into the SAP General Ledger:
First of all you would need to create a plan version for the ledger(s) that you want to report on. To do this, go to the configuration menu path (SPRO):Financial Accounting (New) -> General Ledger Accounting (New) -> Planning -> Plan Versions -> Define Plan versions, or totransaction GLPV. You can then click on ‘New Entries’ and enter the ledger that you are using (for example ‘0L’) in the ledger column; enter a version (for example ‘1’ in the version column); check the box “Man. plan” if you want to perform manual planning in the ledger; check the box “Integ. Plan” so that plan data from the controlling overhead management (CO-OM) and controlling profitability analysis (CO-PA) modules can be transferred to the SAP General Ledger; and enter a description for the version that you created. Note that you can create several plan versions for your ledger, depending on how many different simulations of your budget and forecasts are needed, just as you would do in the controlling modules CO versions.
You then need to activate plan data integration for secondary cost elements. To do this, go to the configuration menu path (SPRO):Financial Accounting (New) -> General Ledger Accounting (New) -> Planning -> Activate Plan Integration for Secondary Cost Elements or to transaction “FAGL_PLAN_ACT_SEC”. You will initially see a red button indicating that plan data activation for secondary cost elements is not active. Check the boxes “Activate” and “Transport Change” and hit the ‘Execute’ button. You will eventually get a message saying that “Plan data integration was activated for secondary cost elements” and the red indicator will now be green.
When you go to one of the SAP General Ledger reports such as transaction S_E38_98000088, and enter the relevant information such as currency type, ledger, controlling area, periods, etc, you would also need to enter the plan version that you created in the ‘Plan version’ field in order to execute the report.
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