Q&A: FIN REVENUE RECOGNITION - With the Deadline Looming, Are You Ready?

Get answers to the following questions in this co-hosted ASUG webcast:

• This presentation focused on the use of RAR. But that has only been generally available since Mar, 2015. How many customers are actually using RAR? What about the rest (assumed to be the majority) who are using "old" functionality like basic SD Rev rec?

• In your opinion, how long should the project be for a fortune 500 company to implement RAR, the right way?

• What is software requirement to have implemented RAR in SAP ECC6 EHP6?

• Do companies seem to be also changing all of their internal and management reporting and metrics or do most companies appear to only be changing their external SEC reporting to align with the new standard?

• How does/can RAR handle revenue recognition based on estimates, when customer actuals are submitted a quarter later?

• For a mining company with sales restricted to few customers, do you think RAR is a scope?

• RAR requires a separate license, correct?

• What all criteria need to be met for the company to be required for this reporting?

Watch the prerecorded webcast by pressing play:

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Is your Contract Roll-Forward external disclosure report ready?

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When is your ASC606 US Adoption Rate?

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Q&A: What you should know about New Asset Accounting with S/4 HANA

Q: If you do not currently use the Fixed Assets module in SAP, and you are planning on moving to S/4 HANA, is it better to implement Fixed Assets before you move to S/4 or after?

A: Assuming that you are on SAP, it depends whether you have the new GL or not (as New GL is a pre-requisite for New Asset Accounting), whether you plan to have additional accounting principles, and whether you are converting to S/4 HANA on-premise or doing a Greenfield implementation, which version you are planning to move to and when. Uploading an excel file with batch processing via the LSMW is not available at the moment on-premise, but you can use a BAPI.  An asset upload is usually easier at a year end. If you are already on NewGL and planning to convert to S/4HANA at a year end, it may be easier to get the asset upload out of the way before the S/4 HANA migration.  In all cases I would get expert advice to examine all the facts before making a decision.

A: The fiscal year end of asset accounting must agree with the fiscal year end of Finance, (even if the periods differ) but how can you map a depreciation area with one fiscal year end if you have a different fiscal year end for the parallel ledger in finance?

Q: Lets say you have 0L with March year end and 2L with Dec year end. Create a new ledger e.g. NL with March year end and add to a new ledger group so the new ledger group has both 2L and NL in it and mark  NL as the representative ledger and map the depreciation area for the Dec year end to the new ledger group. This should allow you to post from asset accounting to a different year end in finance.

Q: Can you map depreciation areas to appendix or extension ledgers in finance?

A: No this cannot be done at the moment. The extension ledger posts only delta postings in finance.

Q: If you have an asset with different useful lives for example for local GAAP and IFRS, so that the total depreciation calculated to date is different, and you make a sale to a customer, how does the system post the different values to different ledgers, but the same amount to the customer?

A: The system will automatically use the technical clearing account in a similar way to an acquisition to post the different values in different ledgers.

Q: Can you set up asset accounting with Central Finance on S/4HANA?

A: FI documents from Asset Accounting that are sent to Central Finance are only replicated as FI documents and not currently as fixed assets, and some of the fixed asset information may be removed. Therefore, although in the source system, the APC and accumulated depreciation accounts are set up as reconciliation accounts, in the SAP S/4HANA Finance system, they are not and accept only finance postings.

Q: Is it beneficial to implement new asset accounting prior to upgrading to S/4 Hana?

A: Assuming that you are on SAP, it depends whether you have the new GL or not (as New GL is a pre-requisite for New Asset Accounting), whether you plan to have additional accounting principles, and whether you are converting to S/4 HANA on-premise or doing a Greenfield implementation, which version you are planning to move to and when. Uploading an excel file with batch processing via the LSMW is not available at the moment on-premise, but you can use a BAPI.  An asset upload is usually easier at a year end. If you are already on NewGL and planning to convert to S/4HANA at a year end, it may be easier to get the asset upload out of the way before the S/4 HANA migration.  In all cases I would get expert advice to examine all the facts before making a decision.

Q: For parallel ledgers with differing fiscal year variants, is the migration scenario mandatory for new primary ledger with same fiscal year variant as leading ledger?  Or, can new primary ledger be treated as a "technical ledger" only?

A: I think you can use the representative ledger box to get round this. Lets say you have 0L with March year end and 2L with Dec year end. Create a new ledger e.g. NL with March year end and add to a new ledger group so the new ledger group has both 2L and NL in it and mark  NL as the representative ledger and map the depreciation area for the Dec year end to the new ledger group. This should allow you to post from asset accounting to a different year end in finance.

Q: Each currency needs separate Dep. Area.  Can you please elaborate this from with current ECC EHP6 scenario?

A: It is the same principle as in ECC6, if you have two currencies in finance for a ledger you will need two depreciation areas, one for each currency, for that accounting principle. The main difference is that you no longer need any delta depreciation areas.

Q: How is archiving of FI_DOCUMNT impacted?

A: Not sure if this is a question about new asset accounting or asking if an S/4HANA migration affects already archived documents, or how documents are archived on S/4HANA.

Q: Where do you configure technical clearing account? In AO90 - Asset account determination, or somewhere else? Can you please specify.

A: You cannot configure the technical clearing account in AO90. It has its own section in the New Asset Accounting section under Integration with General Ledger Accounting in the IMG.

Q: I heard a new year could not be opened independently in both Finance and Asset Accounting and is done in a single t-code which is balance carry forward. The carry forward transaction to open the new year can’t be processed if the previous year hasn’t been closed. Does this mean that AJAB closing asset has to be performed before we open a new fiscal year?

A: It is correct that transaction FAGLGVTR, which is the general ledger carry forward is now used for asset accounting as well. However it only opens the new year and you can continue to post to the old year. You should not need to close the old year with AJAB before opening the new year. (In ECC6 i have seen the old year closed 10months later in one company).

Q: If LSMW doesn't work, will tools like WinShuttle or SHDB work?

A: It depends on the version of S/4HANA - I believe the Cloud version has its own tools. For on-premise you can use a BAPI, or transaction AS100 if you don't have too many items, or can split the upload into 2 or 3 uploads.I have not used either Winshuttle nor SHDB  to upload to S/4HANA, the Winshuttle website mentions Certified S/4HANA integration including the 1610 version, but I don't know about SHDB.

Q: For Depreciation areas that do not post to FI where is the data kept and what does it look like what tables do reports run against? Is it held in ADOCA and marked as statistical in some way?

A: ACDOCA contains actual data by ledger and therefore if a depreciation area is not mapped to a ledger it can't record data from it. FAAT_DOC_IT will contain statistical data.  Most of the asset reports can be run by depreciation area so you can see data in the asset module for all the depreciation areas in the same way.

Q: Can we change accounting principle on a depreciation area after the initial migration?

A: During the migration you may need to do some changes to the configuration, but if you want to point one depreciation area at a completely different ledger, It would be best to check with SAP as I am not sure of the consequences.

Q: Can we still use calculated depreciation areas in S4 still posting to ledge?

A: Yes, although as with most of my answers, you should carry out extensive testing to make sure that the results are as you expect.

Q: FYI: LSMW is still officially supported for RE and FI-AA legacy conversion. It just requires that you use the BAPI_FIXEDASSET_OVRTAKE_CREATE rather than a screen recording.  Note 2208321 has more information.

A: In the Simplification List issued for the S/4HANA 1610 release, it states: ""The LSMW (Legacy System Migration Workbench) function is still available within SAP S/4HANA, (onpremise edition) but not considered as the migration tool. LSMW might propose incorrect migration interfaces that cannot be used in SAP S/4HANA anymore. The Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) is an SAP NetWeaver tool for data migration that was first introduced with R/2 to R/3 migrations. It uses standard interfaces like BAPIs, IDocs, Direct Input and Batch Input programs and recordings. Due to this nature, the use of LSMW is restricted for migrations to SAP S/4HANA. The Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) can only be considered as a migration tool for SAP S/4HANA using workarounds and careful testing for each and every object. The use of LSMW for data load to SAP S/4HANA is not recommended and at the customer's own risk. However it then goes on to quote the OSS note 2208321 for one of the workarounds - hence the confusion.

Q: Will you still have the tax deprn available for reporting?

A: If I understand the question,  if you have a tax depreciation area set up and you keep that tax depreciation you should be able to continue to report on it after a migration.

Q: Pease could you confirm. I believe you said migration had to occur at fiscal year end and that you could not reopen the prior year once the migration was over. Our tax only books are often re-opened for the prior year.

A: I believe a New GL migration has to occur at a fiscal year end, but an S/4HANA migration,  can occur at any period end. If I mentioned a closed fiscal year could not be re-opened after migration I was referring specifically to a closed fixed asset year end at the time of migration.

Q: Does HANA still support multiple Chart of Accounts? Or are these now unified into a single CoA?

A: If you mean for example an operating chart or accounts, local chart of accounts or group chart of accounts, then they behave the same in S/4HANA. You still have the option to add a local chart of accounts to the company code in global parameters and enter the alternative account number in the GL account master data.

Q: We have to report by tax jurisdiction and have the tax jurisdiction on the asset will that still be there?

A: The tax jurisdiction field is still available in the asset master data.

Q: Is it possible to add parallel ledgers at the same time as S/4HANA migration?

A: You cannot add parallel ledgers during the migration.  I understand that adding parallel ledgers once on S/4HANA is now available since version 1610 on-premise.

Q: Could the AP invoice in the example have been posted w/ different amounts by ledger?

A: The initial AP invoice would have the same amount for each ledger, so for example the whole amount in one ledger could be capitalized and the whole amount in the other ledger could be expensed, but if you wanted to transfer part of the amount to say shipping costs you would need a subsequent journal using FB01L or AB01L posting to just the one ledger.

Q: It seems in 1605 you must add then parallel ledger in separate year.  can you do it in the same year as migration then with 1610?

A: I think it would be safer to check with SAP as I am not 100% sure of when the parallel ledgers can be added.

Q: We calculate tax depreciation each month and report it at the end of the year the the taxing authority we have a special tax depreciation area.

A: I see no reason that this would not work on S/4HANA although would need more detail to be sure what the exact question is.

Q: Can you open the new year with a pending new project adding a parallel ledger?

A: I think it would be safer to check with SAP as I am not 100% sure of when the parallel ledgers can be added.

Q: Heard that carry forward is only needed one time and will update automatically after performed if posting is made to prior year in the ledger. is this correct?

A: This is the carry forward transaction FAGLGVTR - this is how it worked in ECC6 and as far as I am aware should work the same in S/4HANA.

Watch the prerecorded webcast by pressing play:

Ask A Fixer: What you should know About New Asset Accounting with S/4 HANA

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday August 23rd, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday August 23rd, 2017 2:00 PM (CT), 3:00 PM (ET), 1:00 PM (MT), 12:00 AM (PT)

There are several changes that have been made with S/4 HANA Finance. One of the major ones is with the introduction of New Asset Accounting which provides new data structures and enhanced functionalities that allow you to manage and monitor your fixed assets. Attend this webcast and live Q&A with Oona Flanagan, ERPfixers Expert and author of the new SAP Press E-bite “Introducing New Asset Accounting in S/4 HANA”, to learn more about the following:

• Key changes introduced with New Asset Accounting
• Depreciation Areas and Ledgers - how they work now
• Integrated Asset Postings and the Universal journal
• How Depreciation runs in New Asset Accounting?
• Migrating to New Asset Accountin

SPEAKERS:

Oona Flanagan, SAP FI/CO Expert

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.

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: What You Should Know About Profitability Analysis With S/4 HANA Finance

Get answers to these questions:

• How Account-Based CO-PA is integrated with the Universal Journal

• The considerations to be taken into account when converting from Account-Based to Costing-Based CO-PA

• How to perform realtime derivation in CO-PA and reduce the need for month-end settlements

• The setup needed to break cost of goods sold into cost components using Account-based CO-PA

• How CO-PA allocations work with the Universal Journal

Watch the prerecorded webcast by pressing play:

Ask a Fixer: What You Should Know About Profitability Analysis with S/4 HANA Finance

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Thursday July 13th, 2017 12:00 PM (CT), 1:00 PM (ET), 11:00 AM (MT), 10:00 AM (PT)

End: Thursday July 13, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

There are several changes that have been made with S/4 HANA Finance. One of the major ones is with the integration of Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) with the General Ledger, which provides new data structures and enhanced functionalities that enable flexible, multidimensional reporting, and seamless reconciliation.

Attend this webcast and live Q&A with ERPfixers experts and Financials Expert authors, Ajay Maheshwari and Kavita Agarwal to learn more about the following:

• How Account-Based CO-PA is integrated with the Universal Journal

• The considerations to be taken into account when converting from Account-Based to Costing-Based CO-PA

• How to perform realtime derivation in CO-PA and reduce the need for month-end settlements

• The setup needed to break cost of goods sold into cost components using Account-based CO-PA

• How CO-PA allocations work with the Universal Journal

Speakers:

Ajay Maheshwari, SAP FI/CO and SAP S4/HANA Solution Architect

Kavita Agarwal, SAP FI/CO and SAP S4/HANA Solution Architect

Ask A Fixer: Simple BI with Business Objects Cloud

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

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

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

Growth always brings room for simplification, what if you could answer all business questions, access all data and uncover new insights that enrich your analysis experience in one single Saas tool ? E.g. Crossing sales data with web traffic, visualizing patterns for a specific product, sharing hypothetical sales scenarios with coworkers, planning and collaborating in the same tool. This is what BOBJ Cloud can do for your company.

Attend this webcast and live Q&A with BI Expert Ricardo Sada, to learn more about how BOBJ Cloud can benefit your company with:

• Analytic Capabilities
• Planning Capabilities
• Importing data from on-premise sources
• Basic Modeling
• Basic Story Creation

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, ERPfixers

Ricardo Sada, Linktech

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

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.

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:

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.

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.

Ask a Fixer: Options for Analyzing Profitability in ECC and S/4 HANA

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

Analyzing Profitability is a key task in any organization. It helps shed light on sales and profit information on various aspects of the market such as customers, geographic regions, product lines, and many more. There are several tools that can be used to analyze profitability in SAP, the most common being CO-PA (Controlling Profitability Analysis). However, many companies still resort to using spreadsheets and other manual methods (despite their plethora of issues) to accomplish this task. Is your company using the system to effectively analyze its profitability data?

Attend this live Q&A with Paul Ovigele, FICO Expert and Founder of ERPfixers, and Janet Salmon, Chief Product Owner for Management Accounting at SAP, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• Can we use costing and account based CO-PA simultaneously?
• What are the S/4 HANA implications of using CO-PA?
• Is there an easy way of ensuring that CO-PA reconciles with the general ledger?
• How do we do allocations within CO-PA?
• Is there an advantage of using CO-PA over PCA (Profit Center Accounting) for Profitability Analysis?
• What is the Top-Down Distribution in CO-PA and when should we use it?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER"?

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, Author: Reconciling SAP CO-PA to the General ledger
Janet Salmon, Author: Controlling with SAP - Practical Guide

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 go to ASUG.