Configuring Project Control - Finance

To run this process you need the Master Data scripts:

• BNN - Create Activity Type and Activity Type Group

• BNG : Create G/L Account and Cost Element

• BNH : Create profit center

• BNI : Create Asset

Activity types represents the activities produced by a cost center within a controlling area. Activity types are uses to plan and allocate activities recorded and measured in activity units. Activity quantities are valuated using an activity price which is maintained on the cost center.

Activity types are used as follows:

• To determine the quantity-based output of a cost center. The plan activity quantities of production and service cost centers must be reconciled with the master production schedule in logistics. This determines the required plan activity quantity, as well as the plan capacity.

• To control the activity quantities on the cost centers. This enables the measurement of the operating rate or the rate of capacity utilization of a cost center.

• In addition to manual planning of activity quantities, you can also use indirect activity allocation to plan activity quantities automatically.

• Activity type groups are also useful in planning. Since there is no multiple selection tool available for activity types, activities can be collected in activity type groups to enable planning of several activity types at one time.

A general ledger account master record contains information about the account that controls how business transactions are posted to it and how it is managed.

The general ledger in SAP provides a comprehensive and entirely up-to-date view of all assets, payables and receivables accounts, and is fully integrated with the other SAP modules.

Since all the SAP modules are integrated, some GL postings are generated automatically by the system in the background, for example the GR/IR account posting (Goods Received/Invoices Received) and inventory movement GL postings.

Some accounts are ‘open-item-managed’. They are used as a clearing account, so individual items can be cleared when, for example, incoming and outgoing payments and materials are processed.

Other accounts, for example the customer and vendor reconciliation accounts cannot be posted to directly, since they are only a reflection of the business partners in the sub-ledgers.

A profit center is an organizational unit in accounting that reflects a management-oriented structure of the organization for the purpose of internal control. Dividing your company up into profit centers allows you to determine profit for internal areas of responsibility and to delegate responsibility to decentralized units.

The master data of a profit center includes the name of the profit center, the controlling area it is assigned to, and the profit center’s period of validity, as well as information about the person responsible for the profit center, the profit center’s assignment to a node of the standard hierarchy, and data required for communication (address, telephone number and so on).

A fixed asset is an object, a right, or another item owned by an enterprise that is intended for long-term use and can be individually identified in the balance sheet. Maintaining fixed assets involves creating, changing, and displaying asset master records.

The different items of information are structured according to area of use and functions in the system to make it easier for users to create, maintain, and evaluate master data.

The following configuration apps are relevant for this scope item:

• Create Project Types for WBS Elements

• Project Coding Mask

• Maintain Budget Availability Profile

Note

Configuration Apps are the Self-Service Configuration User Interfaces (SSC UIs) in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud application Manage Your Solution → Configure Your Solution.

You can use this to create project types for project structure elements. Project types are used to group projects based on a certain category, for example:

• Capital-investment projects

• Customer projects

• Development projects

It is optional to configure this SSCUI.

This app is used to create or edit the coding mask that determines the structure of project element IDs. Based on the first character (which is the coding key) that you input, in the Project Builder app for instance, the project ID takes the structure of the coding mask defined for the corresponding coding key. If no key exists for the first character, no coding mask is applied for the project element ID.

In addition, if you lock a coding mask, it means you cannot use the mask and its corresponding coding key to create the project element IDs.

Note

It is recommended to configure this SSCUI.

The Maintain Budget Availability Profile SSCUI is used to create the Budget Availability control profile .

You can define multiple budget availability profiles and assign these profiles to objects, which are budget relevant.

For each profile, you define the tolerance limit for the budget usage rate. Then, you assign a system response to this tolerance limit, which alerts the user if the budget limit has been reached.

You can decide whether this system response should appear as a warning or as an error. If the system response is a warning, the user can continue using this budget.

For example, when a budget limit has been reached, you might want to prevent the creation of new purchase orders or requisitions.

Note

It is optional to configure this SSCUI.