Profit Center Reorganization Is a Snap with New Functions in Enhancement Package 5

by Janet Salmon, Solution Manager, SAP AG (August 2009)

When your organizational structure changes, are you sure your profit centers are accurate? See how features in the forthcoming enhancement package 5 allow you to reorganize your profit centers in SAP General Ledger without the cost or headache.

Categories: Financials, General Ledger, SAP ECC, SAP General Ledger (formerly the new G/L)

Key Concept

Reorganization in SAP ERP Financials is the process of determining which master data and transactional data is affected by a change in profit center and making the appropriate reassignments (master data changes) and repostings (changes to the balance sheet). The framework for this process is the reorganization plan that documents the key date for the change, the profit centers that are to be changed, and the affected objects based on the derivation function. It then links to details of all changes made with respect to this plan.

When you set up the profit center scenario in the SAP General Ledger, one of the main tasks is to configure the system to derive the correct profit centers from your materials, cost centers, orders, and projects, so that each posting is assigned to the correct profit center. That way, you can ultimately show the correct balances per profit center and segment in the SAP General Ledger.

All is well until the organizational structure changes — which, of course, it does from time to time. If a profit center has to be split, two profit centers merged, or a profit center locked, this represents a headache not just in terms of selecting the relevant master data to be changed, but also in terms of catching the affected transactional data because there are invariably thousands of open purchase orders, production orders, and projects running under the old profit center assignment. Depending on your business, it can take months or even years for these orders to run their course. Worse, since the SAP General Ledger records balance sheet postings by profit center, shifting your profit center structure also requires a series of correction postings to bring the balance sheet back into sync.

Until now, the reorganization of a company’s profit center structure was typically a consulting project, in which custom programs were written to select all the affected data and make the necessary corrections. Now enhancement package 5 includes an SAP offering for a standard process to select the affected objects and make these adjustments in an auditable fashion.

I will introduce the new function using the simple example of a profit center split in which the example company is splitting the responsibility for purchased materials (and their associated purchase orders) from the responsibility for manufactured materials (and their associated sales orders and production orders).

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