Controlling (CO) Flashcards
Describe three ways of disposing an asset from a company code
- Scrapped (transaction ABAVN)
- Transferred to another company code (ABUMN)
- Sold to a customer account in the accounts receivable module (F-92)
- Sold with revenue, but the revenue is booked to a GL account (ABAON)
What are account assignment models?
AAM’s are blocks of document line items that can be used repeatedly to prevent manual re-entry
Which fields are including in the AAM layout can be configured using O7E3
In Profict Center Accounting (CO-PCA), explain the process for locking planning data
Using transaction S_ALR_87004935, you can lock plan data for a specific fiscal year
- Select version 0 and choose settings for profit center accounting
Note that the interviewer will not expect you to remember the transaction code but will expect you to refer to versions and the fact that the plan can be locked per fiscal year and independently of the actual data.
What is a value field in the CO-PA module?
Value fields are number/value related fields in profatability analysis such as quantity, sales revenue, discount value, etc.
What is a **characteristic field **in the CO-PA module?
**Characteristics **an anlaystical information fields used in CO-PA.
Typical examples include customer number, brand, distribution channel, etc.
What is the difference between **costing based (CB) **and account based (AB) CO-PA?
This is an incredibly popular quesiton for any positions with a COPA component.
Account Based - AB
- Can easily be reconciled with FI at account level through the use of cost elements
- Data is stored only by periods
- Transactions are stored in controlling area currency, company code currency, and transaction currency
- You cannot create cross controlling area evaluations or cross controlling area plans as the chart of accounts may differ
- The value posted in the stock change is posted simultaneously to COPA
Costing Based - CB
- Can only be reconciled at account group level (such as revenues, sales discounts, etc.) as values stored in value fields as opposed to accounts
- **CB **data is stored by posting periods and weeks.
- Transactions are stored in operating concern currency and company code currency
- You can create cross controlling area evaluations or cross controlling area plans
- The **cost of good sales (COGS) **are updated via material price valuations. Stock change values can be transferred to CB COPA during billing. Timing differences can occur if the goods issue and billing documents are in different posting periods.
What is an operating concern and what is its relationship with a controlling area in CO?
The operating concern is the main organizational unit in Profitability Analysis. It’s structure depends on the configuration setup of characteristics and value fields.
It is assigned to a controlling area on a one-to-many basis
One controlling area may be assigned to only one operating concern, but one operating concern may be assigned to many controlling areas.
What are statistical** internal orders?**
Statistical real internal orders are dummy cost objects used for analysis and reporting purposes. They must be posted in conjunction with a real cost object such as a cost center.
For example:
For employees, we define statistical internal orders and for departments we define cost centers. Travel expense invoices can then be booked to specific cost centers but analysis can also be done at employee level by looking at the statistical orders
Statistical internal orders cannot be settled.
Name some settlement receivers for CO Internal Orders
Typically CO Internal Order are settled to:
- Other internal orders
- Fixed assets (including assets under constructions)
- GL Accounts
- Cost Centers
What are the performances issue to be in mind when configuring Profitability analysis (COPA)?
Sometimes COPA reporting performance is severley affected by poor initial setup. Anyone involved in a full COPA project lifecycle in a retail or manufacturing environment will have come accross such issues hence the reason the interviewer is asking the question. The most important thing
Explain some of the controls setup during the configuration of the Internal Order Types in the CO module
The following settings are made during the configuration of order types (transaction KOT2_OPA)
- Number ranges assigned to the order master on creation
- Planning and budgeting profiles
- Status profiles
- Order layouts
Explain the differences betwen Assessment and Distribution cost allocation cycles in the R3 CO module
It is easiest to demonstrate this by way of an example:
Lets say we have three cost elements with the following amounts to be allocated:
A Electricity $2,000
B Water $3,000
C Canteen Costs $4,000
With **assessment cycles **the system groups all three together and summarizes the blanace of $9,000 onto a seperate cost element (e.g. D in order to allocate the costs to a receiving cost center). Hence your sender cost element is D in your CO reporitng and not A, B, C
With distributions the costs are allocated from the original cost elements. Hence your senders are A, B, C
What is the CO reconciliation ledger and when would you typically use it?
The reconciliation ledger effectively highlights differences by account accross the FI and CO modules. A report is produced by the RL program, identifying where transactions have been booked across entities in controlling that would impact the external reporting produced in the FI module.
The RL program can either post automatic corrections or you can choose to post manual corrections based on the information in the RL report.
Explain how using the freeze data option in COPA can speed up reporting performance
Often companies that use extremely large volumes of data and reports can take several minutes - even hours, to run.
The free report data option can be selected and the report run overnight. This way re-running the report online during the working data will see huge performance benefits as the system simply has to display data stored and not recalculate it ‘on-the-fly’
Questions regarding performance issues in COPA are common. You may be asked how summarization levels can increase reportin speed or alternatively asked to explain how you’ve minimized the number of characteristics with the same aim.
What are statistical key figures in CO?
**Statistical key figures (SKF) **are statistical (or information values) used in cost allocations such as assessments and distributions.
For example, we may have an SKF for head count per department. When utility costs are allocated accross various departments, we could perform percentage allocation based on the head count SKF
