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WBS best settlement option

Former Member
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Hi experts;

     I am new as SAP CO consultant at constructions company.

I have an issue about Projects settlement in another words, meaning the WBS under the projects.

I have some inquires regarding such issue, and I found a thread on the forum including a close answer to one of my questions ( http://scn.sap.com/thread/922373 )

and here is a part of explanation for the core of the issue:

* we start our projects based on contracts with our clients like a university for ministry of Education or a hospital for ministry of Health.

* we create the project on SAP PS as WBS under it another levels of WBSs, for instance:

          Project C-100200

                    WBS C-100200.01  Overhead

                    WBS C-100200.02  Materials

                    WBS C-100200.03  Labors

                    WBS C-100200.04  Billing

under there are Networks assigned to WBS specially for Materials.

* We start to allocate direct cost through the PR-->PO--> Goods Rec.--> Goods Issue on the Materials WBS under the Project.

* Labor costs comes over the WBS Labors from the HR.

WBSs for both the Overhead and Billing are posted directly from FI over their relevant WBSs (regarding the Billing it is recorded based on a service entry sheet and we are planning to implement Bill of Services scenario soon)

Questions are:

1. According to above scenario, what is the best settlement scenario for the WBSs, to be settled to CO-PA (PSG) or Sales Order (However yet I cannot settle over SO because we yet don't have Bill of Service scenario) or Profit Center or which cost object? My PS colleague recommends to be settled to a Profit Center, is it really the best option? I believe it is better not to be settled over Profit Center to keep Profit Center for Grouping i.e. group of Health Projects, Group of Education projects .....so on.

So my expert colleagues, what is your recommendation please and why?

N.B.  settlement to AUS is rejected because Projects are not owned by us so I cannot define them as an Asset to be sold latter.

2. From Business side, I can not yet understand what is the need or the benefit from doing settlement for the costs and revenues recorded over a project. As far I know that best gain from settlement over CO-PA or SO or whatever the cost object is to be able to have an independent Income Statement for my Profit Segment, So if I can get that (I mean an Income Statement for each project) from normal post to the WBSs through some standard reports such as CJI3 or S_ALR_87013531 which will give us the Total Costs and Total Revenues on the level of each project which is equivalent to same result from the Income Statement which is net Profit or Loss at the end. So why we do need to do settlement?

Kind regards;

Thanks in advance and your support and help are highly appreciated;

Ahmad Mahmud;

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

kamalkumar_biswas2
Active Contributor
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Hi Ahmad

  I agree with you...and I want to share my views as below:

  1. I will prefer CO-PA in case of manufacturing industry where marginal cost is one of the important area to calculate profitability. Also in some business (Retails) where CO-PA is used to generate product/division wise profitability...so through settlement cost can be flown to COPA.

2. In your scenario where WBS elements is capturing costs and revenues and report is basically required at project level...I agree with you that COPA reports are not required to burden the system

3. Where to settle your costs from sender to receiver depends on how do you want to create your business reports...So. in my opinion, it is not correct that PC will be the best..are you going to make analysis on PC segment basis...then again you have to define every project as a Segment which only a duplicate phenomenon where you getting your desired result at Project level 

  Let's see the other opinion also.

Former Member
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Hi Kamal;

     Hope u r doing well.

Thank you very much for your good clear analysis, actually what you are suggesting is making a good sense where really as far I realized that CO-PA is basically used with Production or Retail industries.

In case of constructions, I guess it is will be pretty good to be settled over SO rather than Profit Center where it will be just a matter of double work as u have said.

But finally I didn't find an opinion or explanation for the main reason behind the settlement process by itself from business view or system view. where really that issue matters so much to me because I like to understand every detail for what I am doing in depth based on a good logic rather than just performing steps without understand why I am doing them.

so if you can kindly give me an explanation for why we do the settlement process (from either business need or system need) in that case I will be highly appreciating that for you.

Again thank you very much for your positive opinion and support

Best regards Kamal;

kamalkumar_biswas2
Active Contributor
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Hi Ahmad

Thanks for your discussion...

1. Settlement as I told , is only required when business wants to flow data from any cost object to other object for using it as an data to be accumulated with other data to be used for subsequent process example..

  1. IO settlement to CCtr/GL a/c etc ..the costs booked in IO is going to CCtr/GL a/c for specific purpose..

      IO is an intermediate cost object and settled to final object...like CCtr / Gl a/c etc

      So, here settlement is required

  2. But if cost of WBS element in PS is considered, already booked in FI and also in cost object WBS so settlement is only for reporting purposes either to PC/COPA etc...so it is not required is we can make our required reports at project level through WBS elements within PS module.

   So in nutshell , it depends on business process & requirements

Former Member
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His Kamal ;

It was good and clear explanation from your side.

Thank you very much and hope to have further discussion with you where it is really interesting and useful.


Kind regards ;


Ahmad Mahmud;

Answers (0)