Navigating in Cost Center Accounting Reports

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to recall the core reports for cost center accounting

Cost Center Plan – Actual Reporting

In order to report your data, you have to make yourself familiar with the reporting interface. In this lesson we will go over basic reporting functions and check the uploaded plan data.

At the end of the period, the planned costs can be compared with the corresponding actual costs. The determined plan/actual variances can be analyzed with regard to their causes and are then the subject of further control measures within management accounting. For this we will use the Cost Centers Plan/Actual app to demonstrate a typical report.

See the following figure for a first orientation in the reporting app:

The figure explains the main sections of the reporting app Cost Centers - Plan/Actual . Highlighting the filter area on top, the input help available for fields, the navigation panel on the left and the report layout.

When you open the reporting app, you first need to enter the selections into the Filter fields such as cost center. You can either enter value by value, but press Enter after each value, before you input the next value. You can also use the Input Help and select your cost center from the Cost Center items list.

To see data in the Layout section of the reporting app, choose Go.

Note

Fields marked red with a star are mandatory fields.

The Input Help will give you a list of members for the field for which you had selected the Input Help (here cost center) and you can select one or several cost centers as filter selection.

If you open the Navigation Panel in your reporting app, you can remove/add fields from/to the layout rows or columns by using the various buttons in the panel.

The figure explains the report configuration settings which are possible from the Navigation Panel.

Once you have customized your report, you can bookmark your report with or without the filter selections either for yourself or for all cost center managers.

The same app can be used to report on the plan activity values. In addition, you can select the hierarchy you created with the Manage Global Hierarchies app. You can then expand and collapse the hierarchy nodes as needed.

The figure shows that you have to right mouse click on a field in the rows, for example Cost Center, and then to choose Select Hierarchy in order to be able to add for example a cost center hierarchy in the cost center row of the report.

To report on the other planning data you previously uploaded, different apps are used:

  • Cost rate: Manage Cost Rates Plan.
  • Statistical key figures: Where-Used List Statistical Key Figures.

Analyze Cost Plan Data

Check the Planned Activity Outputs, Inputs, and Cost Rates

See Planned Statistical Key Figure Values on Cost Centers

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