Understanding Availability Control

You can use availability control (AVC) to monitor the availability of funds in Public Sector Management (PSM). The availability control check (AVC check) compares the consumable budget with the consumed amounts (commitments and actual postings) for budget control objects (defined using AVC check levels).

The availability control only observes a released budget as a consumable budget. Unreleased budgets are not taken into account here. AVC profiles are the central definition of availability control settings.

You can separately define AVC profiles for three budgeting scenarios (PSM Budgeting Management, Grant Management Internal, Grant Management External). The AVC is triggered by each operational process that changes the AVC situation, such as budget changes (for example transfers, returns), commitment, and actual postings.

If budget consumption reaches one of the tolerance limits specified in configuration, system activities can be triggered - for example, additional postings are prevented by error messages. Take note that it is not possible to run PSM AVC in parallel with project or cost center AVC. If PSM is active, only the PSM AVC can be used to control budget consumption.

The availability control checks whether the consumed amounts for an AVC control object do not exceed the consumable budget. It also takes into account tolerance limits, which can be defined in the system.

Questions about availability control:

• What type of budget has to be checked?
• Where is the check executed?
• How are checks carried out?
• When should the budget be checked?

Answers:

• What? → Consumable budget (Plan Category, Budget Types)
• Where? → Availability Control Check Level
• How? → Tolerance profiles
• When? → Triggered by operational processes in case an appropriate AVC profile is maintained in configuration (assignment of AVC profile to company code, budgeting scenario, and fiscal year)

Any budget taking part of AVC must be posted to a GL account flagged as budget relevant in the GL master record.

The applies for plan category for AVC:

• The system uses plan categories to distinguish different sets of plan and budget data.
• To define data of a plan category as subject to AVC, the related flag needs to be set in configuration.
• Public sector budget is defined using the usage 3.
• AVC for project budget (usage 1) and cost center budget (usage 2) are not executed if PSM is active.

The following applies to budget types relevant for AVC:

• Only budget data created with budget types marked as consumable are subject to AVC.
• Budget types are defined in configuration.
• Take note that only budget types with status Released can be defined as consumable.

Definition of AVC check levels:

• You define budget control in your organization at the level of budgetable budget accounts (defined in GL account master data) in combination with the AVC check level of other account assignments.
• The combination of these check levels of the respective PSM account assignments is also known as a (budget) control object.
• The availability control check (AVC check) compares the consumable budget (from ACDOCP) with the consumed amounts (commitments and actual postings from ACDOCA) for budget control objects.
• A budget control object is not necessarily a full budgeting address. Instead, it could be an aggregated level.
• The aggregation can be achieved using the AVC relation types Not relevant and Hierarchy for specific PSM account assignments in your AVC profile.

You can specify whether a PSM account assignment element affects the AVC check and the way in which it performs this task.

Using the AVC profile, you can specify the AVC relationship type per account assignment for each budgeting scenario separately.

When you assign the AVC relation type Hierarchy for an account assignment in configuration, you must specify which global hierarchy ID should be used to define the AVC check levels for this master data.

You also do and take note of the following:

• You maintain hierarchies and AVC check levels using the SAP Fiori app, Manage Global Hierarchies.
• Take note that AVC check levels can only be maintained for hierarchies which are assigned to an AVC profile in configuration.
• When you maintain PSM master data with a hierarchical structure, you must observe the following rules: PSM master data is always the leaf node in a hierarchical structure. You can assign additional PSM master data under PSM master data, but you cannot assign hierarchy nodes.
• Hierarchy nodes and the assigned PSM master data can both be defined as an AVC check level in their function as a control object.
• Budget amounts from PSM master data from a lower hierarchy level are aggregated to the next highest AVC check level.

The following graphic illustrates four examples of AVC check levels and how this influences the budget control of underlying budget and commitment actual data.

In addition to the budget account that is used in this example, you can also organize all the other PSM master data elements as a hierarchy.

Let's look at a few examples of AVC check levels and their influence on budget control.

AVC check levels can be maintained at node or individual object level.

A WBS element is an optional field in PSM budgeting. You are free to decide if you want to do PSM budgeting, and additionally PSM AVC on projects (WBS elements) or not.

If a WBS element is active for budgeting, you can define PSM budgets on organizational (cost center) and project (WBS element and cost center) level.

If a WBS element is active for AVC, the related PSM project budget is checked in case a commitment or actuals posting includes a WBS element.

If the commitment or actuals posting does not include a WBS element, then the related organizational budget is checked.

For WBS elements it is possible to use the standard WBS element hierarchy in addition to the universal hierarchies describe above. This allows customers to avoid double maintenance of hierarchies only for AVC purposes.

In the configuration of the availability control profile, you can specify the type of hierarchy that shall be used. The following picture shows the configuration of the WBS element within the AVC profile:

Here you can specify whether

• Only the universal hierarchies shall be used
• Only the WBS hierarchies shall be used
• Or a mixed scenario shall be supported

If you use the WBS element hierarchies, then you can mark the AVC control objects directly as an AVC check level in the WBS element master record.

In addition to the single usage of a WBS hierarchy for AVC, you can also combine a WBS hierarchy with a universal hierarchy. In this type of mixed hierarchy, the sequence used to identify the respective control object starts in the WBS hierarchy, followed by the search in the universal hierarchy. If no control object is found in either hierarchy, the one-to-one AVC relationship type is used as the check level as a fallback option.

Tolerance limits are set for defining what actions are to be taken when a budget usage rate is reached.

The activity group defines the process for which you want to set the tolerance limit - for example, for a purchase order, payroll, and so on. An example of this is as follows: Activity group → Purchase requisition, tolerance settings for this activity group will be applied only for budget consumptions due to purchase requisition.

A warning or error message can be triggered if the defined tolerance limit is exceeded.

Different AVC tolerance profiles and activity groups can have different tolerance limits → flexibility.

The following figure shows you how to assign AVC Tolerance Profiles to AVC Profiles.

The following figure shows you an example of an AVC message during postings.

• In this example, an error message prevents budget overspending because of earmarked funds
• The creation of the earmarked funds document is not possible

The following figure shows you an example of the My Budget Overview app.

• The AVC is triggered by each operational process that changes the AVC situation, such as budget changes (for example transfers, returns) and commitment and actual postings.
• Only commitments and actuals posted as budget relevant (defined using the budget account or, in case of CO postings, the related CO business process) are subject to AVC.
• For the company code, fiscal year, and budgeting scenario of the operational process, a corresponding AVC profile must be assigned in configuration.
• The budgeting scenario of the operational process is determined using the used fund and grant:
  • Not Grantee Management relevant (Grant = NRG ) → Scenario Budget Management
  • Grantee Management relevant + external fund → Scenario Grantee Management (External)
  • Grantee Management relevant + internal fund → Scenario Grantee Management (Internal)

The configuration of the AVC profile assignment enables you to do the following:

• You can define per company code, year, and budgeting scenario which AVC profile should be used.
• The year of budget consumption is defined as a "from year", meaning the assignment is valid for the following years until a new assignment for the same company code/budgeting scenario is defined.
• You can leave the profile blank to deactivate AVC for a specific combination.

You can use the Manage AVC Exceptions app to overrule your general budget availability control using exceptions that are based on a different AVC tolerance profile. You can define exceptions for certain time periods, users, and account assignments.

You can use an AVC exception to give specific users exceptional authorization to exceed the budget. AVC exceptions can be used for the public sector scenarios, Budget Management, (business role SAP_BR_BUDGET_SPECIALIST) and Grantee Management (business role SAP_BR_GRANT_SPECIALIST).

A counter, Number of Uses, shows you how often a specific exception was executed. It is no longer possible to delete an exception after the first usage.

The predefined situation template in budget management helps you to inform budget specialists if the budget consumption for certain control objects has exceeded a threshold value. This threshold value can be defined separately from the warning and error message settings for the active availability control. The threshold notification provides budget specialists with the option of taking proactive measures before availability control prevents an operational user from posting any more business transactions because all of the budget has been consumed.

You can use the Manage Situation Types app to copy the settings in this template to a separate situation type and define it for your application purposes. The app is available for the role configuration expert for business processes (SAP role SAP_BR_BPC_EXPERT).