Explaining Consolidation Units

A consolidation unit in group reporting is the smallest element in a consolidation group structure that can be used as a basis of complete consolidation. Consolidation units represent legal subsidiaries.

Consolidation Units can be created manually using the Define Consolidation Units app or can be uploaded using the Import Consolidation Master Data app.

If the Consolidation Unit is a non-integrated Company (spreadsheet company), their reported financial data resides in an external system and you have to use the flexible file upload in SAP S/4HANA for group reporting or use the data transfer from SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection to store the data in table ACDOCU of group reporting.

If the Consolidation Unit is an integrated Company (S/4HANA company) their reported financial data resides in the same SAP S/4HANA system as group reporting, e. i. in table ACDOCA you have to use the Release Universal Journals task in the data monitor to copy the data to table ACDOCU of group reporting.

• Scenario 1: The Group Reporting Preparation Ledger is not active. In this case the S/4HANA company and consolidation unit must have the same ID.

• Scenario 2: The Group Reporting Preparation Ledger is active. In this case a company must be assigned to the consolidation unit. A company code must be assigned to this company. 

Time and Version Dependent Attributes – Key Points

• Consolidation unit attributes can be used as a selection mechanism.

• Some consolidation unit attributes are time-dependent, others are time and version-dependent. This increases flexibility.

• Version-dependent attribute values can be shared across versions.

• Derivation of consolidation units during an accounting posting is available when the preparation ledger is activated.

• Derivation of consolidation units means that company and consolidation unit can be a one-to-many relationship:

  • One use case for consolidation unit derivation is that a company code/company can be split into multiple consolidation units to support segment reporting.
  • In this example, the requirement is to perform segment reporting with multiple consolidation units. This is in addition to the segment dimension in group reporting.

• The consolidation unit derived during the accounting posting is stored in ACDOCA.

• If a company is assigned only to a single consolidation unit, the derivation happens automatically by a SAP-delivered substitution rule.

• If a company is assigned to several consolidation units, customer-defined substitution rules are required.

• Customer-defined substitution rules may incorporate criteria such as segment, profit center, functional area, or combinations of these.

The figure gives a simple example of how to derive a consolidation unit.

• On the left, 1:1 relationship between company and consolidation unit: derivation of the consolidation unit works according to SAP delivered substitution rule.
• On the right, 1:n relationship between company and consolidation unit: if one company is assigned to several consolidation units in the same fiscal year/period:
  • the SAP delivered substitution rule will not provide any result.
  • customer defined substitution rules are required to derive the consolidation unit based on some context of the accounting posting (company code, segment, profit center, etc.).

When the Data Release task is executed in SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting, data from one company may now end up in different consolidation units, representing certain data slices (for example segments) of the company.