Actual Cost Component Split for Multiple Materials

Cost Component Split allows you to view a breakdown of your cost according to its building blocks such as Raw Materials, Labor, Overhead, Freight, etc. This functionality is even more powerful if you use Material Ledger’s Actual costing functionality. With Material Ledger activated, you can get a really transparent view of your actual costs across the supply chain and easily analyze the variances between standard and actual cost.

SAP provides a few reports (such as CKM3 and MLCCSPD) that show you the cost components per material. The problem with these reports is that they only show the cost components for one material at a time. This is very inconvenient when you are trying to do an analysis of all the materials in a plant or company. The only other option is to use BI/BW. The problem here is that not every company uses this application, and even those that do, still prefer the reports to be realtime and within the ECC system.

With an enhanced report provided by ERPfixers and our partners RFERP, you can see standard and actual cost components for multiple materials, as well as several different dimensions such as:

• Cost Components, by Material group, Material Type, Plant, Profit Center, Company Code, and many more.

• Comparison between Standard Cost Component and Actual Cost Component for multiple materials;

• Cost Components for multiple materials for multiple periods;

• Cost Components for different currency types/valuations;

• Beginning and Ending Inventory quantities and values for multiple dimensions;

• Released standard and actual cost components by multiple materials

• Easy reconciliation back to standard SAP reports

This is a flexible drilldown report which a user can easily “Slice and Dice” according to their requirements, without the need for extra IT help or external consulting.

Take a look at the below video to see some features of the report:

If you have any questions about pricing or further features, please email us at info@erpfixers.com.

S/4 HANA Reporting Considerations

There are a number of new reporting options which need to be considered when you migrate to S/4 HANA. 

With embedded analytics you should no longer need to wait overnight for data to be transferred to BW or a data-warehouse, no need to create permanent info-cubes. New concept in S/4 HANA is that the reporting is real-time and virtual cubes or virtual data models that can easily be created as required. Some examples - Business Objects Design Studio, Lumira, Analysis for Office and HANA Live.

BI Launch Pad, a Web application, allows access to SAP Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence documents, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards documents, etc. 

Design Studio

Produces professional, dynamic interactive dashboards, connects to rather than extracts from S/4 HANA.

• Dashboards, multidimensional, interactive data visualizations to track data against budget, previous years, drilldown to detail

• Dashboards rendered in HTML5 for web browsers, and mobile devices

• Direct connectivity to SAP BW and HANA

• Reuse queries, info cubes and HANA analytic views

• Monitor KPIs

• Prebuilt templates

• Programming capabilities (IT usually build dashboards),

• May take time to set up

• Can export reports to Excel, and dashboards to Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF or Adobe Flash

• Chart/graph components

• Simulate scenarios

Lumira

Processes data, also connects rather than extracts.

• Less IT involvement and training, more self-service – drag and drop

• Simple interface for development

• Easy to get answers from large amounts of data

• Different options (cloud, HANA, standalone)

• Integrates with current BI platform and leverages its architecture

• Good for simple ad hoc reports

• Can acquire data from other sources as well as SAP

• Visualization and storyboards

Crystal Reports

Windows based design tool to create powerful reports that can be published in the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. 

• Includes Legal reports and forms such as customer invoice and tax reports.

• Can create sophisticated colorful charts, drilldown and interactive filtering

• Covert data into formatted easy to read reports

• Schedule, secure, share in any format

Web-Intelligence

Ad-hoc analysis and reporting tool for users with or without access to the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform

• Can combine data from relational, OLAP spreadsheet or text file, using drag and drop

• Self-service, easy access

• Access, analyze and securely share interactive reports

• Online and offline access

• Dynamically create data queries, filter, sort, slice, dice, drill down

• For casual users looking for intuitive BI tool for ad hoc reporting and analysis

• Formatting, charts

SAP Business Objects Explorer

• Filter and drill for information using advanced visualizations and charts

• Interactive views

• Use with mobile devices

• Retrieve answers from corporate data by directly by filtering

• Scheduling

• Available on mobile devices

HANA Live

• Real-time reporting using HANA SQL views directly on S/4 HANA

• Attribute views, analytical views and calculation views

Business Objects Advanced Analysis 

Available for Microsoft Office (Excel/PowerPoint) and web. OLAP analysis. 

• Can simultaneously view data from different cubes and providers

• Multidimensional analysis, trend analysis

• Analysis is captured in query, similar to BEX query view, can keep BEX as well, and leverage queries and BW investments

• Live analysis embedded in to PowerPoint

• Can write back to BW-IP (Integrated planning)

• Self-service access to all BI content

• Simpler, intuitive

• Minimal training and support costs

• Data enrichment

Predictive Analytics

Predictive functionality, statistical analysis and data mining. Forecasts outcomes of alternative strategies prior to implementation and determine how to best allocate resources.

• Predictive models

• Includes Lumira functionality (data acquisition, formulas, visualization tools, metadata enrichment) with the addition of the Predict pane (2nd data analysis tab) which holds all the predictive algorithms results visualization analytics and model management tools

• Prepare, predict and share

• Data manipulation components allow analysts to modify and create data elements quickly

• Facilitates calculations and manipulations and cab add further data lookups to avoid data enrichment manipulation outside the tool

• Chart options (geographic pie charts, bar charts, time series

Considerations/Questions:

• Check prerequisites, for example does predictive analysis require Lumira?

• Check licensing, may be different if you are only reporting on SAP data or if you e.g. want to link to other non-SAP systems

• Check whether report from Sap or 3rd party (different licensing/discounts)

• Check if different licenses fi just viewing reports or developing them

• May be bundled together, shared in a concurrent pool. “BI Suite for Apps” (SAP data only) did include web intelligence, crystal reports, explorer, dashboards, advanced analysis for office as well as HANA Live, Design Studios coming under one license but may or may not still apply, then there was a separate license quote for BI Suite inclusive of non-SAP data

• What in-house skills required to build reports

• What reports/templates are supplied as standard

• Do you need something you can use for planning as well?

• Do you need/does the report have an Excel look/feel?

• Is there a reporting only option as part of the license for S/4 HANA?

• If extensive existing reporting system e.g. BW/BI/BEX – is there any benefit to upgrading to a similar system on S/4 HANA and how is it an easy task to convert existing reports in the short term, would you even use existing info-cubes as new virtual data models and different tables etc. will be more efficient built from scratch in the long term

• Many reports may be available directly in S/4 HANA (more data in finance so line item reports now cover a lot more)

• Do you want something for mobile devices?

• How do the different reports fit together (e.g. does one fit/produce data for dashboard of another)?

Forms 

 Considerations

• Will forms migrate to S/4 HANA ok or do you need to redo them

• Do you need Adobe? Special license required?

Miscellaneous

• Other product that may be interesting is Integrated Business Planning for Finance (they also do Sales one)

• Scheduling – do you have special scheduling software or use SAP standard- check what is available in S/4 HANA

• Change request (transports) software – check how any software you are using integrates with S/4 HANA

• Finance Closing cockpit – was sold as separate product, check if included now with anything else

• SLT (System Landscape Transformation Tool) useful to manage real-time data replication/mapping – was free for Sap systems but extra if non-SAP system involved

• Unlikely that any bespoke journal upload tools will work, check any 3rd party tools

• Workflow – how will that migrate or build from scratch

• In-house Cash, particularly if global, many currencies and intercompany transactions, effectively “virtual” bank accounts used, avoids bank charges and exchange differences by sharing money globally

• Bank Communications Management – automate and merge outgoing payments and automate incoming payments and bank statements

S/4 HANA Finance: Questions and Considerations

Here are some things to consider when assessing a move to S/4 HANA Finance:

HANA & S/4 HANA

HANA is the superfast powerful “in-memory” database. It organizes data differently to reduce complexity, it is faster to access, indexing, aggregating not required etc. Instead of holding totals in tables, totals are calculated on the fly (a phrase you will hear a lot – meaning recalculated as you go). 

Considerations/Questions: 

• Some customizing will still work as there will be “views” with the same name as the obsolete tables (recreated from the new table for this purpose). Your bespoke program can read from these views but if your bespoke programs were writing to tables, you cannot write to the views

• You should be told about various tools to check your bespoke customizing well before any migration. In any case, it is a good idea to review as you may now be able to replace some programs with standard functionality

• You may find a separate charge for the database, in addition to the S/4 HANA and the landscape

S/4 HANA is the SAP Business Suite that is built and optimized to run (only) on the HANA database.

You will see two different types or editions of S/4 HANA (i.e. the business suite “software”) but the combination with different landscape options can be confusing.

The names of the two different S/4 HANA editions are:

• SAP S/4 HANA Cloud (although a number of different versions exist) with quarterly releases

• SAP S/4 HANA on-premise – each release is named after the year and month – we have had 1503 (Simple Finance only), 1511 and 1610 releases (1610 the current one was released on Oct 2016 next will be 1709 i.e. Sept 2017)

The first is sold as a service and is available on a multi-tenanted public cloud (i.e. your data is secure, but you share the programs with other customers - simplified, standardized, almost no custom programming) whereas the on-premise version is available how you want it, on third party or your servers/cloud, with custom programming allowed (and when we did it more complex to license and buy/hire the different pieces)  

(Be careful because the first is called The Cloud edition, and usually what people mean when they say Cloud, but you can also have your on-premise edition in a cloud)

 Considerations/Questions:

• If you are using an Industry solution check whether it is compatible specifically with edition that you are going with

• Check any restrictions - e.g. AFS with 1511 edition did not use BP (Business Partners) although BP was mandatory for the standard solution

• Free trials are available but careful that you understand which edition you are trialing

• Check paths (if on e.g. 4.6 you may have to migrate first to higher version, then convert to S/4 HANA if not a new implementation)

Landscape

Public Cloud 

Multi-tenant, scalable, operated by service provider and not customer, and lot of simplification, pre-configuration and Fiori front end. Different versions such Enterprise Management Cloud (the main Business programs), Finance Cloud, Professional Services Cloud, Hybris Marketing Cloud and Manufacturing Cloud.

Effectively the Public Cloud has one set of programs that you are sharing with other customers. It should be very secure but it does mean that very little, if any bespoke work can be carried out.

Very different concept to standard SAP. You have access to a reduced version of the SPRO/IMG (the configuration menu) and you cannot write your own ABAP programs. You have quarterly updates and you do not have a choice about implementing them. In the past, you may have had a Development system for configuring and unit testing, a Quality/Testing system and perhaps a Training system as well as the final Production client, the public cloud structure is very different (you usually have production and one other)

Generally sold as Opex rather than Capex (operating rather than capital costs) or subscription based for the combination of software and hardware. Self-service configuration allows business users more access to set up e.g. of organizational structure, house banks

Considerations/ Questions:

• Security

• Check into different versions (mentioned above) there seem to be a lot more available now

• Licensing (subscription – user/revenue based)

• Backups

• Upgrades

• OSS notes

• If system crashes – time to reboot and get data back into memory – how the data is backed up while you work and how much time you might lose (should be minimal but they should be able to explain this)

• Service level agreements, incident support, monitoring, what is included

• Check how many systems involved (usually production plus one other).

• Check – but I think it uses only Fiori will you have enough Fiori transactions that you need as not all GUI transactions may be available in Fiori

HEC (HANA Enterprise Cloud)

Be careful when people mention Cloud as they usually mean public cloud. HEC is often referred to as on-premise rather than cloud as this is the edition of S/4 HANA that is used with it.

HEC is owned by customer or Third Party, but still scalable. One upgrade/release per year. Here you are the only one on the system (regardless of whether it is Cloud or not) so you are free to choose when the upgrades happen, what bespoke programming/customizing you want to carry out etc. Upgrade is an IT project (as opposed to private cloud upgrades which are done automatically by SAP)

Considerations/Questions:

• Licensing – It is a quite complicated, perpetual license and recurring hosting fee but a lot of licensing is based on revenue, number of objects etc.

Hybrid

Mix of two, you may have some systems in the cloud and some not.

Implementation

3 Options:

System Conversion - On-Premise Edition only

Data is directly converted with history in the existing system (but not necessarily all history–e.g. you could take last 5 years’ open items).  Figures have been quoted to me of downtime of one weekend for the physical conversion itself, but obviously depends how much data and the complexity and what other changes are taking place and you would.

You would still need many months testing and full project team in place, especially if you have many interfaces. It also assumes that you make copy your productive system to a sandbox to do the first test run, which will give you an indication. Bear in mind you will also have to convert all your development, quality, training etc. Systems. Can’t use with public Cloud

Considerations/Questions:

• Are you migrating to New GL or already on it? This has major effect on timing as New GL has to be at yearend

• Are you introducing Parallel ledgers with new GL. Discuss with SAP whether better to migrate to new GL and parallel ledgers before implementation (only since the 1610 release can you add parallel ledgers after migration but not sure if you can add them during

• Document splitting – this cannot be added (in 1610) after migration so you may have to go to new GL before the migration to S/4 HANA

• Integration to other systems - depending what you have been using in the past there may now be more efficient ways of interfacing to other systems – this should be looked into

• Have to convert whole system at once – cannot move in stages (e.g. once company code at a time)

• Check steps – usually install HANA database before conversion, some config tasks

• maintenance planner to run through tasks and timing

Greenfield Implementation

Worth considering if on SAP for years. you can use the move to S/4 HANA to move to Best Practices, re-engineer business processes and get rid of a lot of obsolete or no longer necessary bespoke work. 

Considerations/Questions:

• See migrations considerations/questions about uploading data

Central Finance/Landscape Transformation

To consolidate a lot of diverse systems very quickly, you basically map your finance data from all your SAP and non-SAP data to a Central Finance S/4 HANA system. The data is reposted, but if coming from an SAP system you can drilldown to the original data and you get all the advantages of the speed and consolidation upfront and can migrate the individual systems when you are ready.

Considerations/Questions:

• this is not a migration of historic data

• still a great deal of mapping to do if individual companies on different systems, chart of accounts etc.

• was not a separate cost for the Central Finance itself – just the way it is configured but you may need tools for the mapping

Storage

Data aging strategies (i.e. which data is held in memory, which “nearby” and any archived on different system etc. – data used more frequently should in “hot storage” and “warm storage”.

Fiori

Described as “user experience”, consists of Apps or Tiles (rather like a smartphone than menu path/transaction codes). Includes interactive apps (see figure below) where key information is available on tile itself. Uses Launchpad for home page. Available for multiple devices, desktops, tablets/phones. Based on user roles, so smaller transactions tailored for specific role (not necessarily every field available for every user) 

Worth considering and mandatory for Public Cloud version. 

Considerations/Questions:

• Check in-house knowledge required for Fiori and U5 stuff

• Check whether Fiori is mandatory (generally shouldn’t be for on-premise), but SAP will try to sell it

• Are the transactions you need covered by Fiori (most standard ones should be)

• Worth looking at what is available on Fiori that is not on the SAP GUI

• Check what transactions are available for mobile devise (I presume e.g. approving a PO might be but not sure if everything is)

• Should be trial versions available

• If using personas – check how fits in with Fiori (should be seamless but you will need to know how)

• I believe the GR/IR cockpit is neither a GUI transaction nor a Fiori App as it is not in my 1610 S/4 HANA version nor the Fiori Apps I have access to, nor the Fiori catalogue

• If the GR/IR cockpit is indeed separate functionality/program; check whether separate licensing/cost is involved and what other functionality is included.

• Not all of the thousands of SAP ECC transaction codes were available on Fiori – check whether you still need GUI access

Finance, Controlling, COPA

Effectively merged, so cost element now part of GL account (and cost category field available in GL master).  In Finance, there is a new kind of document called the Universal Journal which posts to a single table (ACDOCA) which contains a lot of data from the other modules, so instead of having to run reports from a number of tables, you can now see almost everything in Finance, for example in line items, including COPA, MM, SD etc. Leads to Single Source of Truth i.e. you don’t have different results in different modules.

Considerations/Questions: 

• Different split of the modules with a lot of new areas for Treasury

• look into Cash Management/In-House Cash/ Bank Communications etc. House-banks for example have moved to a different module which is chargeable but there is a Bank Account Management LITE version so that you can still use the standard banking if you don’t have those modules

• Account-based COPA is the default – although can implement both

• revenue recognition changes coming with IFRS 15, and the SD Revenue Recognition being replaced in by Revenue Accounting and Reporting

• revenue recognition now in Universal journal and recognized as they incur – look into further – 2 postings one for initial costs/revenue and a separate posting for revenue recognition and new Fiori transactions/apps

• COPA data now in finance

• Check - standard credit management no longer available – only FSCM (Financial Supply Chain Management) Credit Management?

• Additional currencies available (from 1610 up to 10) – do you need this functionality?

• Extension/Appendix ledgers (normal ledgers hold complete sets of books, these only hold deltas and are linked to a base ledger so that reporting gives a complete set by combining the base and extension ledger)

• Check Cost of Goods Sold - more flexibility and a number of improvements (e.g. multiple accounts based on cost component split) but check whether when COGS in profitability analysis will be supported

• Closing cockpit – separate cost?

New GL

Considerations/Questions:

• If not already on new GL, don’t necessarily need all the new functionality, but recommend to set up in the beginning if you think you may need it in the future (document splitting can be tricky)

• Document Splitting – not mandatory but previously it was not possible to implement once on S/4 HANA – have to do it before (check this – it was due to be added soon)

• Parallel ledgers cannot be added in earlier versions of on-premise – only1610 versions – check how it works on cloud.

New Asset Accounting

In addition to better reconciliation, there is no data redundancy as you no longer need delta depreciation areas, real-time postings to all ledgers etc. Some considerations are below:

Considerations/Questions:

• New Asset Accounting is the only option on Hana, although available in ECC6 from enhancement pack 7

• During a system conversion, there will be some customizing changes to do particularly for new Asset Accounting, important to understand and decide in advance whether you want to follow ledger or account approach for different accounting principles (even account approach now requires a “dummy ledger” to be configured)

• Even if Greenfield implementation, you will probably have some restructuring to do. Need to match ledgers and currencies and depreciation areas and accounting principles

• You may see a lot of information about the New depreciation calculation engine. Generally, hardly any difference between the old and new calculations unless you are changing depreciation methods/useful lives mid-year - may be worth looking into that more if that is the case

Customer Vendor Integration

Vendor and customer master data held as BP (Business Partner) - if you have a customer that is also a vendor – use same general data (address), more data fields and addresses available, concept of relationship e.g. with contact person. Still keep original customer vendor number (so historic reports ok) but may have new BP number as well. Part of migration step is to synchronize customers and vendors to BP if not already using. 

Considerations/Questions:

• May need to clean up vendors/customers if not using BP and see if any fields exist in BP that were not in old transactions. If not linked may need to decide if you want to link them, how that would be done

• Check bespoke fields in the customer/vendor masters

Material Ledger 

Material Ledger now mandatory.  Change in tables (MATDOC =main table in material ledger), lot more information in Finance.

• Some field lengths change (e.g. Material length now 40 characters) – check any other systems feeding in can deal with increased length here and elsewhere

• multiple currencies and valuations

• check transfer pricing functionality

• check capture of price variances

IDOCS 

Check whether still available and whether any changes e.g. DEBMAS and CREMAS (for customer and vendor) still available but may using the BP number as leading object

Authorizations

Considerations/Questions:

• Fiori will work differently in any case, (one transaction may be split into roles) but if not using GUI should be standardized roles available for new implementation

• There are a number of new GUI transactions that are almost identical to the old but allow for example to post to each ledger group separately so if conversion will need to add them to roles

• If converting an existing landscape, there are a number of tasks as part of the migration to convert for example the cost elements into GL accounts, but going forward you will need to review authorizations e.g. if different people have access to cost elements and GL accounts master data

Licensing and Hosting

Varies greatly between the different options and landscapes. From subscription to itemizing everything out separately. (What I am mentioning here is from 2015, and may not apply depending on which options you go for).

Considerations/Questions:

• Some programs such as MDG (Master Data Governance) are based on each object for example if you want to use MDG for 5,000 GL accounts, 50,000 vendors, 2,000 cost centers, 10,000 customers, 5,0000 vendors, 20,000 materials that would be 92,000 items, and you may therefore need to buy the next available quantity that they are sold in e.g. 100,000

• Many of the financial packages are licensed based on revenue, regardless of whether you are only using IHC (In-house cash) for your vendors, and not customers/Treasury/intercompany etc.

• Types of users (used to have developer, self-service, professional, etc.)

• Is there a separate charge for HANA database?

• Charge for Fiori?

• Maybe review existing licenses – it may be possible to save money by reorganizing the assignment of licenses - not sure if reduced licenses still apply e.g. if somebody was only approving and not running transactions and one company I worked at saved a fortune by reorganizing the perpetual licenses.

• Check what is included for reporting (used to be BI Suite which had Design studio, HANA Live, crystal reports, web intelligence, advanced office analysis, business objects etc. included but may have changed)

• FSCM separate to main accounting license, if you had ordinary credit management you may now have to get FSCM

• Netweaver/web dynpro?

Migration 

Many different paths, especially depending whether Public Cloud or not – public cloud is new implementation but there are tools (SLT) to upload data quite simply from another SAP system.

Considerations/Questions:

• If planning to migrate in stages, you would have to go with a Greenfield migration or Central Finance

• On-premise system conversion – code-checker tool to check your bespoke ABAP programs do not write to tables, and for example whether there are any Z tables etc. You may want to understand more about this tool if you have a lot of bespoke programs.

• Check whether your bespoke programs are calling other transactions/programs. Most old transactions that are obsolete call the new transaction instead but not all (e.g. display house bank FI13 gives the message “please use the Manage Banks and Manage Bank Accounts Apps) so would not work with bespoke programs calling a transaction code

• Look in to SLT (SAP Landscape Transformation) tool if legacy system is SAP.

• Legacy Workbench functionality cannot be used in many areas for example Fixed assets and Business Partners, (does not support new data structure).

Timeline

Need to factor in what modules, complexity of business, integration with other systems, number of organizations/company codes, availability of users for testing training (especially at a year-end) etc. etc. so impossible to give a timeline.

As mentioned downtime for a system conversion can be very short (e.g. weekend) and business can carry on as usual, minimum training and disruption but a lot of testing and you need to factor in the downtime for the conversion and testing of each of your systems e.g. development, quality, test, training as well as the productive system

Activate 

A new concept to replace the traditional ASAP method used by SAP in the past, more applicable to new implementations. With Activate you are given a model company system to trial, you then do the fit/gap, choose your scope and activate it, rather than preparing a Blueprint first and then trying to tailor step by step the configuration to fit it. Everything is based on Best Practices – ready configured business processes and guided configuration to activate them.   With traditional methods of migration, you may have incurred most of the costs and completed most of the build before you realize something is not working, whereas here you get to try a lot more out in the early stages.

Considerations/Questions:

• Check that it can be used with all types of implementation (previously it could only be used with one of the S/4 HANA editions but check whether works with Central Finance landscape)

• check how it integrates with Solution Manager on all (I know Activate works with on Solution Manager 7.2 and higher and a lot of documentation and testing scenarios can be utilized are easily accessible here)

• Check which business processes work with which versions of S/4 HANA – not all work with all versions

Rapid Deployment Solution

This was deployed by SAP at a multinational project I worked on – they had a number or world templates and preconfigured building blocks in order to do a new implementation in a much shorter period of time than the traditional writing of the blueprint and then creating configuration line by line. 

Considerations/Questions:

• Worth looking into

• Check where it is available, not sure if replaced completely by Activate everywhere

Reporting

Number of new options, with embedded analytics you should no longer need to wait overnight for data to be transferred to BW or a data-warehouse, no need to create permanent info-cubes. New concept in S/4 HANA is that the reporting is real-time and virtual cubes or virtual data models that can easily be created as required. Some examples - Business Objects Design Studio, Lumira, Analysis for Office, HANA Live.

SAP Maintenance Order Management

This document aims at explaining the corrective maintenance process in SAP. 

In most organizations, the maintenance department’s main functions are the following: 

• Maximizing the availability of the physical assets

• Keeping physical assets in a workable and safe state

• Reduce the operating costs caused by equipment downtime and damage

In SAP, there are 5 types of maintenance processes: 

1. Corrective maintenance: triggered by the detection of a defect

2. Preventive maintenance: work planned in advance

3. Breakdown maintenance: work that has to be executed in emergency

4. Calibration maintenance: ensures that precision instruments keep accurate measurements

5. Refurbishment maintenance: repair work done on materials subject to split valuation

This document will focus on the corrective maintenance process.

The maintenance order process follows five big steps.

The maintenance order process also has 3 types of roles involved: maintenance planner, maintenance supervisor, and maintenance technician.

We will now take a closer look at the five steps of the process:

1. Maintenance Notification

This document can be created by any of the 3 maintenance roles. The maintenance notification is triggered by the identification of a defect on a specific technical object. There are 3 types of standard maintenance notification: maintenance request, malfunction report and activity report. 

The commonly used notification type is the maintenance request:

The creator of the maintenance notification can enter the technical object, the description of the issue and the main work center responsible for the work. After creation, the maintenance notification will be verified by the maintenance planner and the work will be dispatched among the maintenance technicians.

It is also possible to directly create the maintenance order from the maintenance notification header thanks to the creation symbol next to the field “order”:

2. Maintenance Order

The maintenance order can be created in 2 ways: 

• From the maintenance notification: 

The maintenance notification will have the system status ORAS – which means “Order Assigned”.

• Directly through the transaction IW31

The maintenance order gets created with a certain order type, priority, technical object and a planning plant. 

The typical structure of the order is as follows:

 I provide you below with a high-level overview of what is the role of each tab in the maintenance order management process. 

The maintenance order header data answers at a high level to the following questions:

• Who: by displaying the “person responsible” sub-tab

• When: by displaying the “dates” sub-tab

• What: by displaying the “reference object” sub-tab

• How: by displaying the “first operation” sub-tab (details are provided in the “operations” tab)

The operations tab provide details about which operations are done, by whom , in which sequence and for which duration. 

The components tab is used whenever some materials are required for a specific operation

The costs tab is used to display the planned and actual costs

The partner tab is used to display the partners involved in the maintenance order. 

The “objects” tab is useful whenever several objects are involved in the maintenance work. It also specifies, when applicable, which maintenance notification is linked to the order. 

The “additional data” tab displays static finance-related organizational data. It has no impact on the process as such. 

The “location” tab displays the “location” of the data from both a logistics and financial viewpoint: it displays the maintenance plant as well as the account assignment data for the order costs.

The planning data tab is not relevant for the corrective maintenance process. It is used in the preventive maintenance process. It displays the maintenance plan and the task list from which the preventive maintenance order is generated. 

The “control” data contains the administrative data as well as the CO-parameters related to the order.

In case components are required for the order, the “reservation/purchase requisitions” sub-tab displays whether or not the documents are created immediately, after the release of the order or never.

3. Order Confirmation

The confirmation on the maintenance order is done through the transaction IW41. 

The confirmation is done at the operation level.

The confirmation document contains: the actual time spent on the tasks and, when applicable, the materials goods movements and measurement documents for technical objects. The “actual work” field has to be filled in to complete the confirmation. There is a flag for “final confirmation”. When it is flagged on, it means that there is no work remaining on the operation. When all the operations of an order are “final” confirmed, the order has the system status CNF.

After the confirmation is done, it is possible to display the variances between the planned and actual durations.

Several confirmations can also be done simultaneously through the transaction code IW42

4. Technical completion

When all the maintenance order operations are finally confirmed, the order can be technically completed. The technical completion of a maintenance is a handover of the work from the maintenance department to finance.

The technical completion is a standard system status only valid at the order header level. This status can also be cancelled in any maintenance order.

5. Order settlement

Settling a maintenance order means that all the actual costs incurred during order confirmation are sent to a “settlement receiver”. This settlement receiver is generally the cost center of the reference object (displayed in the header data). It can also be a specifically designated general ledger account. The settlement is done through the transaction KO88. The user needs to enter the order number, as well as fiscal year, posting and settlement periods. After that, the user decides whether or not he runs the settlement in test mode (with the test flag). The button “Execute” will run the settlement.

6. Key transaction codes

Most of the transactions used during the maintenance order management process are located within the following folders in the menu path:

Ask A Fixer: Gain better Visibility of Inventory Costs within your ERP System

Start: Thursday April 27th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Thursday April 27th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

In the standard ERP system it is difficult to find reports that give you a multidimensional view of your inventory costs. Many customers download the information to Microsoft Excel or use external reporting tools such as BI to do the analysis. There is nothing wrong with these options, but sometimes they lead to reconciliation errors (in the case of Excel) or realtime update issues (in the case of BI). With the Material Ledger Activated and by utilizing an enhanced report, there are several reporting options that will give you a more granular view of your inventory values.

Attend this live Q&A with two experts, Paul Ovigele and Rogerio Faleiros, where you can learn the following:

• How to create drilldown reports in Material Ledger
• How to view inventory costs, such as beginning and ending inventory, receipts and consumption by cost components (such as Raw Materials, Labor, Overhead, Freight, etc.) for multiple materials
• How to track inventory turnover on a periodic basis
• How to view inventory costs according to dimensions such as material group, profit center, product hierarchy, etc.
• How to view standard and actual cost components for your inventory balance sheet accounts
• How to view the released costs of multiple materials for multiple periods

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speakers:

Paul Ovigele, FI/CO Expert, Author: "100 Things You Should Know About Financial Accounting"

Rogerio Faleiros, FI/CO Expert, Author: "Configuring Controlling in SAP ERP"

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

Handling of Warehouse Materials With Special Storage Requirements

This tip is directed at those needing to control the movement and storage of materials having special warehousing requirements.  These materials fall primarily into 2 categories:

1. The materials are truly hazardous in nature as defined by globally accepted hazardous categories (flammable, explosive, corrosive, etc.).

2. The materials have some other storage requirement due to the nature of the material and/or regulatory requirements. Examples include materials requiring some level of temperature control and controlled materials such as narcotics. In these cases, it is imperative that the material be maintained in the appropriate refrigerator or freezer storage, or in the case of narcotic materials, be kept in a locked area.

The methods discussed in this tip apply to the standard SAP Warehouse Management offering contained within the SAP ERP Logistics Execution area.  While the information will already be known to experienced SAP consultants, it will hopefully be of some value to those who may be new to warehouse management in SAP.  The intention is not to revisit technical information that is well known, but to review this information with some level of detail in order to make a correct business decision.

Option 1 – Hazardous Material Management

This discussion applies to the hazardous material management options contained within SAP warehouse management.  It is intended to control placement and storage of material within a single warehouse, and should not be confused with the SAP Environment, Health, and Safety product (EHS) which, among other things, manages the shipment of dangerous materials.

In the SAP Implementation Guide, hazardous material management configuration is contained within the warehouse management area of logistics execution.  The primary configuration objects are the region code and the storage class.  The region code is simply the country in which the warehouse is located, but is important because warehouses are assigned to regions.

The storage class defines the nature of the material, i.e. the nature of the hazard or special storage requirement.  SAP’s intention is for storage classes to only represent hazardous conditions, and provides the following default list of storage classes based upon regional and global standards.  This list may vary slightly in your SAP system depending upon the enhancement pack level of your ECC6 system, but what you see should be pretty close to this.  Additional values can be added as they are defined by regulatory bodies.

As is the case in most areas of configuration, SAP allows you to create your own storage classes, and this provides the option to include materials requiring storage within a particular temperature range, narcotics, high value parts, or any other condition which may be required by a business.  This provides a high degree of flexibility but also requires some cautions which will be discussed shortly.

Without going too deeply into configuration, the setup of hazardous material management can be summarized at a high level in the following steps:

1. Decide upon the storage classes to be controlled, creating your own if necessary.

2. Decide upon the warehouse storage types for which placement of these classes of materials is to be allowed or disallowed. Hazardous material checking will need to be activated in these areas.

3. Assign the allowed storage classes for each storage type where checking has been activated.

4. Create the relevant hazardous material number for each storage class.

5. Assign the relevant hazardous material number to each material that needs to be controlled.

In deciding which storage types need to check for hazardous materials, the following rules should be followed:

1. Do not activate hazardous material checking for interim storage types. These are the virtual storage types 901-999 used by SAP for activities such as goods receipt, goods issue, posting changes, and other warehouse processes. All materials will need to pass through these storage types at one point or another, so checking for hazardous materials in these areas is pointless.

2. As a general rule of thumb, do not activate hazardous material checking in any area where all types of materials are eventually required. An example of this is some production supply areas where both standard and hazardous materials must be staged for production.

Once the relevant storage types have been agreed upon, the required configuration is straightforward and carried out in the area of configuration shown below.

Within this area of configuration, the first 3 buttons contain the main activities.

The first step is to activate hazardous material checking for each relevant storage type, which is accomplished by selecting 1 in the 5th column.  Note that the section checking referenced in option 2 does not actually prevent incorrect placement of hazardous materials in a storage section and should not be used.

The second step is to assign a region code to your warehouse.

The final step is to assign the storage classes allowed in each relevant storage type, keeping in mind that a blank entry has meaning.  If a storage type is checked for hazardous materials, and there is no entry with a blank storage class, then no non-hazardous material will be allowed in that storage type.

Once the configuration is complete, the next step is to create a hazardous material number using SAP transaction code VM01.  The actual number and description may be anything that makes sense to your business, and the region will be that assigned to your warehouse.  Within the hazardous material number, the relevant storage class is assigned as shown below.

Once the hazardous material number is created, the final step is to assign it in the relevant material master.  The hazardous material number field can be found on the plant data / storage 1 view of the material master, or on the warehouse management 1 view as shown below.

Once hazardous material numbers have been assigned to relevant materials, any attempt to place hazardous materials where they are not allowed will result in a hard error in the format “storage class XXX not allowed in storage type XXX”.

This is exactly the behavior that is desired, but I mentioned a caution earlier that needs to be discussed.  The caution is that the hazardous material number is a global field in the material master, which means that it applies across every plant in the system.  It would seem that a material that is flammable in one place would be flammable everywhere, or that material that needs to be stored in a certain way in one warehouse should be stored the same way in all warehouses.  In practice, storage requirements can vary from country to country based upon varying legal requirements, and this becomes an issue for companies having multiple warehouses.  This strategy is therefore completely effective only in the following circumstances:

1. A company has a single warehouse, and there is therefore no possible conflict between warehouses.

2. A company has multiple warehouses, and all warehouses agree upon the storage requirements for all materials.

So what if these conditions are not met?

Option 2 – Storage Section Search

Storage sections are a standard subdivision of storage types in SAP warehouse management, and can be used flexibly for many purposes.  A storage section search is commonly used to group materials based upon common characteristics, with fast moving versus slow moving parts being a common example.  One of the benefits of using storage sections in this manner is that the space set aside in the warehouse for a storage section may expand or contract as necessary just by changing the storage section on a range of bins.

Setting up a storage section search in SAP is a very straightforward activity that is well known by anybody familiar with the warehouse management application.  The decision point in this area that is relevant to materials with special storage requirement is whether the storage section search will be a “soft” check which may be overridden by warehouse staff, or if it will be a “hard” check which may not be overridden.  This option is selected when activating the storage section check for a storage type in configuration as shown below.

For the purpose of determining the placement of material in a manner that cannot be overridden by warehouse staff, the “X” option should be selected.

Again, without going too deeply into configuration, the setup of storage section searches can be summarized at a high level in the following steps:

1. Decide upon the category of materials to be controlled (i.e., flammable, corrosive, etc.). These will be represented as storage section indicators.

2. Decide upon the warehouse storage types for which placement of these categories of materials is to be allowed or disallowed. Storage section checking will need to be activated in each of these storage types.

3. Define a section search strategy for each relevant storage type based upon whether a category of material (represented by a storage section indicator) should or should not be allowed.

4. Assign the relevant section indicator to each material that needs to be controlled.

In deciding which storage types should be activated for a storage section search, the rules are similar to those for hazardous material management checking:

1. Do not activate storage section checking for interim storage types. These are the virtual storage types 901-999 used by SAP for activities such as goods receipt, goods issue, posting changes, and other warehouse processes. All materials will need to pass through these storage types at one point or another, so storage section checks in these areas are pointless.

2. As a general rule of thumb, do not activate storage section checking in any area where all types of materials are eventually required. An example of this is some production supply areas where both standard and hazardous materials must be staged for production.

As with hazardous material management, the required configuration is straightforward and carried out in the area of configuration shown below.

The 3 buttons below contain the main activities.

The first step is to define the indicators to be used based upon the categories of material to be controlled.  SAP provides the fast moving and slow moving defaults shown below, but additional indicators can be created.  For example, indicator ACD may be created to describe acids that need to be controlled.

The next step is to create a storage section search for each storage type that should be checked for a given storage section indicator.  So for a given warehouse, storage type, and storage section indicator, material will be placed in the given storage sections in the order listed in the table.

The final configuration step is the activation of the storage section search that was already discussed.  Again, the key to fully controlling placement and storage using this method is to select the “X” option for the type of check.

Once this configuration has been completed, the last step is to assign the storage section indicator in the relevant material masters.  This is done on the Warehouse Management 1 view of the material master as shown below.

Because the “X” option was selected when activating the storage section search, any attempt to place the relevant material in a storage section that is not included in the storage section search will result in an error in the general format “error occurred during storage section search”.  While not as descriptive as the hazardous material management error, it nonetheless accomplishes the intended purpose.

Conclusion

Hazardous material management is a well-established function in SAP warehouse management, and is the recommended approach for controlling placement and storage of hazardous materials in a warehouse.  Because the hazardous material management field in the material master is global information, conflicts can occur between multiple warehouses.  The judicious use of storage section searches can provide an equally robust level of control over certain classes of materials while avoiding conflict between warehouses.  In summary, the following guidelines are suggested:

1. Use hazardous material management in a single warehouse system, or in a multiple warehouse system where the classification of hazardous materials has been uniformly agreed in advance between all warehouses. As discussed, this caveat applies equally to additional uses of this functionality that may be envisioned, such as materials requiring cold storage.

2. Use storage section checks in the manner shown where known conflicts exist between warehouses in the classification of hazardous or other materials.

Q&A: Are you Optimally Utilizing Available Functionality within SAP Controlling?

Get answers to these questions:

• Which cost allocation method is better - Distribution or Assessment, when should I use one versus another?

• What are the different standard costing methods that are available for use, and under what circumstances should they be used?

• How does one go about correcting various error/ warning messages encountered during costing?

• What are the different cost objects that are available for use in SAP controlling?

• Under what circumstances should I go about automating WIP, Variance and Settlement jobs?

Watch the webcast by pressing play:

Using Program PT_BPC10 and Fixing Grouping Issues for Quotas

Time Management

How to use transaction RPTKOK00 and PT_BPC10

This document explains how to run RPTKOK00. This can be used to check for and fix database inconsistencies. An example of a database inconsistency error: an employee has accrued 2 days Compulsory Leave at the beginning of March, he books 2 days leave and then captures a number of unpaid leave days, Time evaluation is run which reduces his entitlement (because of the unpaids) from 2 days to 1.73 days for example. This causes a database inconsistency, the employee only has an entitlement of 1,73 days but has an absence record of 2 days. This can cause Payroll to not run successfully.

Program RPTKOK00 is able to pick up these issues and it will be useful to run this program before a live Payroll run.

Step 1

1. Go to transaction ZRPTKOK00

2. Click on “Further Selections”

3. Select Payroll Area and move it across.

4. Click on the green tick

Step 2

1. Enter your Payroll Area

2. Untick Check Attendance Quota (Not compulsory)

3. Click Execute

Step 3

1. This gives you a list of Employees with database inconsistency errors.

2. Select new deduction which will be able to automatically fix some of the inconsistencies. The others will need additional steps to fix (see the bottom of this document).

Step 4

1. Click Execute

Additional steps when program RPTKOK00 does not fix inconsistency.

In the example above where the employee had 2 days leave booked but an entitlement of 1.73 days, if the employee were to accrue another 2 days the following month then this program will be able to fix (recapture) the absence as there is sufficient entitlement to recapture the absence. If the entitlement is lower than the absence captured, the following steps can be followed.  

A + 0.27 quota correction can be captured for March and - 0.27 can be captured for April (Time Evaluation must be run for quota corrections to take affect). 

If your Organization permits it, Run Time evaluation to next accrual.  

Reduce the leave captured to for example 1 day and book the other 1 day as unpaid leave.

For step 1 and 2 above, you will need to run the program after the step.

Additional Example

Table T556c is set to deduct first of Family Responsibility then of Family Resp. (Unpaid).

But you have a scenario as below where quota type 31 is deducted before 30 because at the time the 3 days were captured there was not enough balance in quota type 30 (for example 4 days of sick leave was incorrectly booked as Family at the time and has now been changed to the correct absence type thereby making the balance available now).

There are two ways to fix this:

1. Lock and unlock the absence and it will deduct from the correct quota once unlocked.

2. Run program RPTBPC10 (Transaction code PT_BPC10) as below.

1. Go to transaction PT_BPC10

2. Enter the personnel no

3. Enter the period

4. Tick Correct absence quota, log output and Save New deduction (Correct attendance quota is not necessary in this scenario)

5. Click Execute

Corrections made are reflected

The absence has deducted of the correct quota now.  

Fixing Time Evaluation errors when an employee moves from a grouping that does not have the new quota type

Summary of Guide

When an Employee moves from one grouping to another and the new grouping has a quota that the previous grouping did not have, depending on the dates, Time Evaluation can throw an error because in the employees previous grouping the quota being created does not exist. This can be fixed in config by adding the quota type in table V_T559l, under quotas and setting the quota to “no generation”), alternatively the following steps can be followed to fix this manually:

1. Run Time Evaluation with the log (PT60)

2. Double Click on the quota\s that are causing the error

3. PT60 is trying to create a quota with a Validity Start Date of 01.01.2016, a period in which the employee was in a grouping that did not have Quota type 24

4. Manually Create the quota with a Validity Period that is the same as the transfer to new grouping  date (in this case 01.09.2016)

5. Enter the deduction period as per what was in the Time Evaluation log (You might need to move the start date to the same date as move to new Employee group).

6. Run Time Evaluation

FI–COPA Reconciliation

COPA is an important financial tool which can help you with the slice & dice of data based on different characteristics. Since it can give you all the details of your costs and revenue, it is therefore important to reconcile COPA with your GL’s. Controlling Profitability Analysis (COPA) has two forms supported:

• Account Based: Based on accounts and uses account-based valuation approach

• Costing Based: Groups costs and revenue into Value Fields.

So how does COPA reconcile with my GL’s?

Let’s see how to reconcile COPA-FI with SD

Sales & Cost of Sales

Sales & Distribution is tightly integrated with Financial Accounting and thus with Controlling Profitability Analysis (COPA). Numbers flow in COPA via SD pricing conditions which are linked to value fields in COPA. This can be easily viewed via transaction (KE24) and selecting the appropriate Value Fields available in the layout. 

In COPA, Sales and Cost of Sales are updated in value fields when the billing document is posted where as in Financial Accounting, Cost of Sales is posted during the Post Goods Issue (PGI). A possible issue can be if PGI is posted in a month different from the billing month. This will result in a time-lag between FI and COPA and needs to be incorporated either through Assessment Cycle or manually through KE21N.  

Cost of Sales Value in KE24, can be tallied from transaction CKM3N (Material Price Analysis) 

KE24:

Also, there is a transaction (KEAT) that performs the same function of reconciliation. This transaction displays the differences between FI, Sales Distribution and CO-PA for sales conditions such as Sales, COGS, commissions, etc. Below is the output of transaction KEAT:

The differences, if any, are highlighted in red and can be clicked to get to the delta values. These differences are mostly due to the rounding effects but these can be further drilled down to find the exact issues.

Another good way of carrying out a reconciliation is to drilldown into a line item of a CO-PA report (KE24) and compare it to the items in the corresponding general ledger account. GL’s can easily be found by clicking Integration button, selecting Display Billing Document, Environment and then Revenue Accounts. 

Assessment for GL/Periodic Cost

As we have three major areas for reconciliation beside sales and COGS we have periodic cost which transfers from FI to COPA using Assessment cycle.  (Keu5)

This shows that which value field is used for Staff Cost, in this case we have VV900. 

Then we check from which cost elements / GL account values are flowing to COPA for Staff Cost. In this case we have values from cost center group 2020 and cost element group 1301. After that we will check cost element group.

Let’s check cost element group 1301 in (KAH3).

Now check amount in FBL3N for all GL in group 1301. Subtotal on Account, Business Area, Value Date, Plant and Amount.

Let’s check amount in KE24 for Staff cost.

Oops! there is a difference in amount of around 15000 USD. It’s very easy to identify where the difference is. Let’s go back to KEU5 and there we will find the date when was my assessment executed.

Here we found that this cycle has been executed at 04.02.2016.

In FBL3N we found that an entry of 15000 USD has been entered after assessment had been executed.

So now we have to Reverse the current assessment cycle and Re-run it so this 15000 amount will also be incorporated in COPA.

PA Transfer Structure/FI-MM

This is one more important aspect for values coming to COPA from FI. We have transaction KEI2 where we can check from where values are flowing to COPA in which Value Field.

Values coming from Revenue cost element group.

Values flowing to Other Income Value field in COPA from Cost element Group “Revenue”

Similar as above, we will check amounts in COPA and FBL3N for this value field and GL Accounts.

 FI-COPA Reconciliation is one of the painful area for the business users for which we have provided few tips on how to perform reconciliation. 

Ask a Fixer: Are you Optimally Utilizing Available Functionality within SAP Controlling?

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday, March 15th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday, March 15th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

The Controlling (CO) module is the Management Accounting module of SAP. It allows you to plan, monitor and control processes and operations in order to assist management with the implementation of the organization’s strategy.

Is your SAP Controlling implementation optimized to make the most of the available functionality? Are you taking advantage of the integrated nature of the SAP system and making the most out of this module?

Attend this live Q&A with Ashish Sampat, CO expert and Espresso Tutorials author,where you can ask questions that have been puzzling you (but do not know whom to ask!):

• Which cost allocation method is better - Distribution or Assessment, when should I use one versus another?
• What are the different standard costing methods that are available for use, and under what circumstances should they be used?
• How does one go about correcting various error / warning messages encountered during costing?
• What are the different cost objects that are available for use in SAP Controlling?
• Under what circumstances should I go about automating WIP, Variance and Settlement jobs?
• Can you tell us if there are any user exits available for product costing?
• What various design options can we use to add freight and other incidental costs on procured materials?
• How can we link and analyze Movement Types (in Materials Management) to GL Account (in Financial Accounting)?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speaker:

Ashish Sampat, author of the following books:

• First Steps in SAP Controlling (CO)
• Expert tips to Unleash full Potential of SAP Controlling

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

Q&A: Ensure Greater ROI From Your Production Planning Component In SAP ECC

Q: What are some of the important reports or reporting tools available in PP component?

A: SAP ECC offers huge number of standard reports and analyses but in reality very few of them are used. Business users often don’t know these reports exist and can instantly be used for important decisions making. You can access standard analyses not just for PP, but for all of the Logistics components of SAP from the central location in the Logistics Controlling node of the SAP ECC menu via Logistics → Logistics Controlling.

Q: What is the significance of cross-modular integration of PP component with other logistics components?

A: Since SAP ECC is an integrated system, which means information and data flows from one SAP component to another. It only makes sense for different departments, business functions and business users of various SAP ECC components to work in complete cohesion for smooth transactions processing. This is known as integration.

Q: How do I differentiate a co-product from a by-product in the manufacturing process, and map these in SAP ECC?

A: Co-product is produced in addition to the main product and is often of significant financial value. By-products are low-value products. It requires some additional efforts and discussions with the product costing team to set up co-product in SAP ECC, while it is easier to treat a material as by-product in SAP ECC.

Q: How can XSteps (Execution Steps) benefit my business processes in process and discrete manufacturing?

A: XSteps (Execution Steps) not only enable automation of several business processes such as goods issuance or goods receipt of materials in discrete and process manufacturing, they are also very intuitive to set up and use for data recording purposes (such as process parameters like temperature, pressure etc).

Q: Why effective materials planning in SAP ECC is still an elusive goal for many companies?

A: When thoughts and experiences from business users, insights via analytics, decisions from stakeholders and knowing how to leverage many reports and analyses that SAP ECC offers, materials planning can bring tremendous ROI from the SAP ECC investment. There are also several SAP Add-ons to cater to additional materials planning requirements.

Q: Do you have recommendations for any Visual Electronic Kanban process that pull from ERP or SAP Kanban?

A: SAP ECC completely support Kanban including how to configure and set up master data. You can also set up the number of Kanbans (containers) as per your business needs.

Q: Are X-steps comparable or can they be usedas part of Electronic Batch Records.

A: Yes, you can use X-Steps as a part of EBR.

Q: In terms of using production demand to drive purchase requisitions for the majority of our purchasing. We are looking into ways to utilize the manual reorder point settings. Any recommendations or feedback on manual reordering based on demand.

A: You can certainly use reorder point planning (planning type VB) and set a reorder point too. Further, when this reorder point process has matured, you can take advantage of system's capabilities to suggest the reorder point for you.

Q: What do you mean by Flexible planning?

A: Flexible planning is user-defined planning wherein the business user can incorporate parameters and any formulas to improve materials planning. For example, you want to incorporate sales surge due to Winter season or due to Olympics (or Superbowl), then this is all possible using Flexible Planning.

Q: Can SAP propose new sales order delivery date in ETO business scenario when shop floor capacity is not available? How to restrict over booking of sales order based on available capacity?

A: This is certainly a limitation in SAP ECC as the system 'considers' infinite capacity while booking ETO orders. It is only when detailed scheduling takes place that the system alerts of capacity bottleneck. The solution lies in PP/DS, which will now be available in SAP S/4HANA (as a part of PP component). 

Q: How can raw material consumption through Process Orders be fed back into the material planning, either reorder point or forecast based planning?

A: I would first look into the 'Consumption data' that SAP ECC offers in the 'additional data' tab of material master plant combination. I can then use this consumption data to decide if reorder point planning makes more sense or forecasting. In fact, you can even use consumption data to forecast material's requirement.

Q: Master data does well for steady state manufacturing processes. However, there is a need in chemical industries to plan daily ramp ups as equipment is restarted and flushes following a shutdowns. What capabilities will be available for these situations?

A: Please consider using multiple 'Scrap' options available in SAP ECC. This will not only ensure better materials planning to account for the scrap/wastage during the production process but also to account for the 'additional' costs incurred due to scrap. You can incorporate scrap at the material or its component level, either in BOM or in routing/master recipe.

Q: Yes the users try the SAP standard reports first but many are lacking for the full business operation pictures - so many of the customized reports are combination reports which are time saving.

Q: I understand. Often, conducting refresher training on these reports also help. Just in case, the business users want to explore standard reports and analyses in Logistics Controlling, the node of the SAP ECC menu via Logistics → Logistics Controlling.

Q: Are there capabilities in SAP HANA MRP Heristics for developing or adhering to an economically feasible production wheel (production sequence for a manufacturing resource) over time?

A: Not yet, but judging from the pace of S/4HANA innovation, either these functionalities will become part of S/4HANA Enterprise Management or may even be offered in SAP IBP (Integrated Business Planning). 

Q: We use ECM process to set our BOM phase in and phase out and also with routing changes.

A: Excellent. You can also use ECM in other SAP ECC components such as in Quality Management or in Materials Management component.

Q: Can you provide a link to the latest documentation summarizing planning tools that will be or are available in S4 Hana ECC and IBP?

A: Please refer to the official SAP HANA website and the infinite number of available resources, such as roadmaps and simplification lists. Also, note that for cloud-based S/4HANA, the innovations are coming out every quarter, while for on-premises, it's on an annual basis. 

Q: What is the use of origin group material master for a product costing?

A: Since the PP component works effectively only when Controlling-Product Costing (CO-PC) is working well, the original group in material master serves to subdivide the material costs.

Exceptional EPM Systems Are An Exception

What makes for exceptionally good enterprise performance management (EPM) is that its multiple managerial methods are not only individually effective but also are seamlessly integrated and imbedded with analytics of all flavors.

Quite naturally, many organizations over-rate the quality of their enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM / CPM) practices and systems...

In reality they lack in being comprehensive and how integrated they are. For example, when you ask executives how well they measure and report either costs or non-financial performance measures, most proudly boast that they are very good. Again, this is inconsistent and conflicts with surveys where anonymous replies from mid-level managers candidly score them as “needs much improvement.”

Every organization cannot be above average!

What makes exceptionally good EPM systems exceptional?

Let’s not attempt to be a sociologist or psychologist and explain the incongruities between executives boasting superiority while anonymously answered surveys reveal inferiority.  Rather let’s simply describe the full vision of an effective EPM system that organizations should aspire to.

First, we need to clarify some terminology and related confusion. EPM is not solely a system or a process. It is instead the integration of multiple managerial methods – and most of them have been around for decades arguably even before there were computers. EPM is also not just a CFO initiative with a bunch of scorecard and dashboard dials. It is much broader. Its purpose is not about monitoring the dials but rather moving the dials.

What makes for exceptionally good EPM is that its multiple managerial methods are not only individually effective but also are seamlessly integrated and imbedded with analytics of all flavors. Examples of analytics are segmentation, clustering, regression, and correlation analysis.      

EPM is like musical instruments in an orchestra

I like to think of the various EPM methods as an analogy of musical instruments in an orchestra. An orchestra’s conductor does not raise their baton to the strings, woodwinds, percussion, and brass and say, “Now everyone play loud.” They seek balance and guide the symphony composer’s fluctuations in harmony, rhythm and tone. 

Here are my six main groupings of the EPM methods – its musical instrument sections:

1. Strategic planning and execution

This is where a strategy map and its associated balanced scorecard fits in. Together they serve to translate the executive team’s strategy into navigation aids necessary for the organization to fulfill its vision and mission g. The executives’ role is to set the strategic direction to answer the question “Where do we want to go?” Through use of correctly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) with targets, then the employees’ priorities, actions, projects, and processes are aligned with the executives’ formulated strategy.

2. Cost visibility and driver behavior

For commercial companies this is where profitability analysis fits in for products, standard services, channels, and customers. For public sector government organizations this is where understanding how processes consume resource expense in the delivery of services and report the costs, including the per unit cost, of their services. Activity-based costing (ABC) principles model cause-and-effect relationships based on business and cost drivers. This involves progressive, not traditional, managerial accounting such as ABC rather than broadly averaged cost factors without causal relationships.

3. Customer Management Performance

This is where powerful marketing and sales methods are applied to retain, grow, win-back, and acquire profitable, not unprofitable, customers. The tools are often referenced as customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. But the CRM data is merely a foundation. Analytical tools, supported by software, that leverage CRM data can further identify actions that will create more profit lift from customers. These actions simultaneously shift customers from not only being satisfied to being loyal supporters. 

4. Forecasting, planning, and predictive analytics

Data mining typically examines historical data “through the rear-view mirror.” This EPM group directs attention forward to look at the road through the windshield. The benefit of more accurate forecasts is to reduce uncertainty. Forecasts for the future volume and mix quantities of customer purchased products and service are core independent variables.  Based on those forecasts that so many dependent variables have relationships with, therefore process costs from the resource expenses can be calculated and managed. Examples of dependent variables are the future headcount workforce and spending levels. CFOs increasingly look to driver-based budgeting and rolling financial forecasts grounded in ABC principles using this group. 

5. Enterprise risk management (ERM)

This cannot be omitted from the main group of EPM. ERM serves as a brake to the potentially unbridled gas pedal that EPM methods are designed to step hard on. Risk mitigation projects and insurance requires spending which reduces profits and also steers expenses from resources the executive team would prefer to provide earn larger compensation bonuses.  So it takes discipline to ensure adequate attention is placed on appropriate risk management practices.

6. Process improvement

This is where lean management and Six Sigma quality initiatives fit in. Their purpose is to remove waste and streamline processes to accelerate and reduce cycle-times. They create productivity and efficiency improvements.

EPM as integrated suite of improvement methods

CFOs often view financial planning and analysis (FP&A) as synonymous with EPM. It is better to view FP&A as a subset. And although better cost management and process improvements are noble goals, an organization cannot reduce its costs forever to achieve long term prosperity.

The important message here is that EPM is not just about the CFO’s organization; but it is also the integration of all the often silo-ed functions like marketing, operations, sales, and strategy. Look again at the six main EPM groups I listed above. Imagine if the information produced and analyzed in each of them were to be seamlessly integrated. Imagine if they are each embedded with analytics – especially predictive analytics. Then powerful decision support is provided for insight, foresight, and actions. That is the full vision of EPM to which we should aim to aspire in order to achieve the best possible performance.    

Today exceptional EPM systems are an exception despite what many executives proclaim. If we all work hard and smart enough, in the future they will be standard practices. Then what would be next? Automated decision management systems relying on business rules and algorithms. But that is an article I will write about some other day.

Gary Cokins, CPIM

http://www.garycokins.com  

Gary Cokins (Cornell University BS IE/OR, 1971; Northwestern University Kellogg MBA 1974) is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) systems. He is the founder of Analytics-Based Performance Management LLC www.garycokins.com .  He began his career in industry with a Fortune 100 company in CFO and operations roles. Then 15 years in consulting with Deloitte, KPMG, and EDS (now part of HP). From 1997 until 2013 Gary was a Principal Consultant with SAS, a business analytics software vendor. His most recent books are Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics and Predictive Business Analytics.

Ask a Fixer: Ensure Greater ROI From Your Production Planning Component In SAP ECC

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

The Production Planning (PP) component allows you to plan the procurement, manufacturing and sale of your products. It also enables you to use different planning strategies such as make-to-order or make-to-stock so that you neither overproduce nor face an out-of-stock situation. Production processes such as discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing and repetitive manufacturing, as well as replenishment using Kanban are all available within the PP module. Also, the PP module offers several reports and analytics tools to enable planners to constantly optimize and fine tune their planning parameters.

Attend this live Q&A with Jawad Akhtar, PP Expert and bestselling author, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• What are some of the important reports or reporting tools available in PP component?
• What is the significance of cross-modular integration of PP component with other logistics components?
• How do I differentiate a co-product from a by-product in the manufacturing process, and map these in SAP ECC?
• How can XSteps (Execution Steps) benefit my business processes in process and discrete manufacturing?
• Why effective materials planning in SAP ECC is still an elusive goal for many companies?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speaker:

Jawad Akhtar, author of the following books:

• Production Planning and Control with SAP ERP
• Quality Management with SAP
• Materials Management with SAP ERP: Functionality and Technical Configuration
• S&OP with SAP ERP Production Planning
• Configuring Kanban in SAP ERP MM PP

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

To register, please login to your ASUG account.

3 Essentials for the BASIS Administrator

If you’re new to BASIS administration then you’ll know that this specialist role is a key one in the running of SAP systems...

You personally, may have come from the software developer side of IT or you may have been a database administrator or a systems administrator of UNIX or Windows operating systems. Whatever your background, there are many functions that you will need to be familiar with in your new role but here are three particularly important ones that you should master and remember the purpose of.

SE16N – The Data Browser

This is your fastest way to inspect a database table through the SAP application layer. You can use SE16N to browse legacy formats as well such as transparent, pool and cluster tables. Of course you probably don’t have access to SE16 (older version) or SE16N in your productive SAP system but under exceptional circumstance you can be granted approval to use this transaction. Data is displayed in a grid format and you have the option to use variants also with SE16N. Since the introduction of HANA as a database alternative to Oracle and SQLServer you can now also use the SE16H alternative. SE16S and SE16SL are also new TCodes for use with HANA databases and allow you to find any values in any tables. You can learn more about these new capabilities by checking out SAP KBA article 2002588 - CO-OM Tools: Documentation for SE16S, SE16SL, and SE16S_CUST

SE37 – The Function Builder

This is principally targeted at the developer or functional consultant who wishes to examine the functionality of a BAPI or function module. An added benefit of using SE37 is that you can use test data and save it for use with a given BAPI or function module. Even if you are not an ABAP developer, often, as a BASIS administrator you will be tasked with trying to work out why things are not quite going according to plan – using SE37 to set things like breakpoints and debug functions in the system will become an indispensable aspect of your role. This is also a transaction that you typically won’t have access to in production 

ST03N – The Workload Monitor

This is a transaction used to examine system workload and performance statistics and is principally use to verify system performance at the SAP instance level. You can also access the data associated with ST03N from the SAP collector logs using function module SWNC_GET_WORKLOAD_STATISTIC (execute this with SE37) – although the collector logs are not a 100% guarantee of all SAP events being logged, it does give you, as a BASIS administrator,  insight into users. You can determine their activity and the transactions that they are using along with the frequency of use. ST03N should also be seen together with UPL – a new piece of functionality available in any ABAP based system and which is based on the core functionality of the SAP Coverage Analyzer.  UPL stands for Usage and Procedure Logging and has full reporting capabilities with enriched information sets in the Business Warehouse of Solution Manager 7.1 SP5 and higher. UPL complements ST03N ABAP workload statistics.

PP-REM and Cost Control

Repetitive production is a special type of production that can be used in integrated production scenarios or for a specific situation. This article explains some uses and configurations regarding PP-REM.

For a long time, industries have been using PP-REM to obtain a continuous flow of production. PP-REM is highly recommended for production because it provides product stability and low complexity. This type of production is well used in automobile industries, but it can also be employed in other industry types, such as for wires and nails manufacturing.

The main goal is to reduce the cost control and simplify the completion confirmation via back-flushing process.

SAP provides a PP-REM area by means of OPP3 transaction – please check information on PP-REM configuration here. 

There are only four requirements for PP-REM implementation:

• REM Profile (OSPT / OSP2)

• Material Master Configuration ( MM01 / MM02)

• Production Version (C223 / MM02)

• Product Cost Collector ( KKF6N / KKF6M - Collective)

The main question regarding CO is the Cost Collector (KKF6N), which will allow the material to be continuously settled without a specific production order. However, before initiating the cost collector, we need to follow preceding steps:  

1. Create a BOM and a Routing (rate routing)

2. Define the standard cost estimate for current date and period (CK11N)

3. Release this standard cost estimate (CK24)

Here, there is a crucial point of discussion: WIP. Normally, it is possible to avoid WIP when using PP-REM, but this is linked to the routing configuration. If this is configured with Report Point and with a different point of confirmation (report pointing) until the final confirmation, WIP will be possible [KKAT / KKAQ – WIP Display & KKAS / KKAO – WIP Calculation]. The reason lays between one point and another, since the process will generate more work – of course, these points must be aligned with the production and there is no impact in the Cost Collector configuration (but the production manager must ensure the correct production confirmation).

Another important factor is regarding COGI. We have noticed the same problems with no row material available when confirming the Production Order, rather than with PP-DIS. It is possible to avoid COGI via SAP configuration. COGI is a big problem and we know that it must be “zero” by end of the day.

There are many reports to use in PP-REM, for instance to track the confirmation point by point using the report MF26. There are other reports as well, such as product costs [MCRK], product cost collection [KKBC_PKO], preliminary costing for cost collector [MF30] and so on.

The production confirmation occurs through the specific PP transaction (MFBF), where there are some additional functionalities, such as reversal, scrap, change of row materials used, etc.

PP-REM uses the movement type 131 to confirm production order, which differs from PP-DIS SAP that uses the movement type 101. Like this, the material movement presents different account information.

After confirming, is possible to analyze variances [KKS5 Collective / KKS6 Individual – the variances calculated with the version 0 will be evaluated to COPA.

At end of the month, it is critical to execute the order settlement [CO88 / KK87]. In this stage, the order balance can be balanced transferring the differences to FI and to the Profit Center Accounting. Additionally, it is possible to verify the contribution margin in COPA.

Below we can see some important tables behind PP-REM:

• Cost collector [AUFK]

• Reporting point quantities [CPZP]

• Reporting point documents [CEZP]

• Document log [BLPP]

PP-REM offers an easy way to integrate CO and Production and should be considered whenever possible mainly to scenarios with low complexity but keeping the information and responsibilities that you can see in other scenarios.