The information system for profit center accounting offers extensive standard reports that enable you to analyze actual and plan values by profit center.
However, in SAP S/4HANA Finance, profit center accounting can cause some confusion.
We first must discuss how profit center accounting evolved in SAP over time. Before the introduction of the new general ledger, profit center accounting was, technically speaking, a special purpose ledger with the code 8A. With the new general ledger, profit center accounting became integrated with the general ledger. Now, in SAP S/4HANA, this integration is complete, and all profit center postings are part of table ACDOCA, the Universal Journal. As such, profit center reporting is also part of the general ledger module and menu.
However, in the profit center application menu, SAP keeps the older reports based on the 8A ledger and library. These reports could be useful for you during a migration project for reconciling old profit center reports and are available at the application menu path Accounting > Controlling > Profit Center Accounting > Information System > Reports for Profit Center Accounting, as shown here.
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On this screen, you’ll see that these classic reports are grouped into the following major sections:
- Interactive Reporting: The interactive reports use the drilldown reporting tool and enable you to drill down in real time to various sections of the report to obtain further relevant information.
- List-Oriented Reports: List-oriented reports are designed using Report Painter and offer valuable actual/plan comparisons, similar to cost center reports.
- Line Item Reports: Line-item reports provide reporting on the lowest level, the individual line items per profit center.
- Special Functions: In this category, you can find more rarely used reports, such as average balance reports, transfer price reports, and reports related to transfers of profit center data to the executive information system.
Let’s now examine the new reports available for profit center accounting in the general ledger. First follow the application menu path Accounting > Financial Accounting > General Ledger > Information System > General Ledger Reports > Reports for Profit Center Accounting.
As shown in the next figure, standard reports are available for profit centers in the general ledger, which provide actual and plan comparison of values, key figures, and returns on investment (ROIs).
Enter Transaction S_E38_98000088 (Profit Center Group: Plan/Actual/Variance). After selecting profit centers/profit center groups, date parameters, a ledger, a currency, and a version, as shown in the first figure below, you’ll see the output screen, shown in the second figure.
This report is a drilldown-based report. On the left side, you can navigate through the various available characteristics, such as profit center, segment, cost element, and so on. On the right side, you’ll see the values for the selection in separate Plan, Actual, and Variance columns.
This report, as well as the other profit center reports in the general ledger, was developed using the drilldown reporting tool, which in previous SAP releases was heavily used in controlling. Now, in SAP S/4HANA, numerous standard drilldown reports are available for financial accounting as well, which provide valuable information on the profit center level.
You can get a good overview and access all of them using Transaction FGI0. This transaction provides a tree-like structure showing the available reports by report type, as shown in this figure.
For profit centers, the following reports from report type 002 are particularly noteworthy:
- 0SAPBSPL-03: Profit Center Grp: Plan/Actual/Variance
- 0SAPBSPL-04: Profit Center Group: Plan/Plan/Actual
- 0SAPBSPL-05: Profit Center Group: Key Figures
- 0SAPBSPL-06: Profit Center Comparison: ROI
The previous report we executed was report S_E38_98000088 (Profit Center Group: Plan/Actual/Variance), which in fact is the same as report 0SAPBSPL-03 (Profit Center Grp: Plan/Actual/Variance), already defined here. You can also execute and analyze the other reports, which can provide you with plan values from more than one version, with calculation of the ROI (based on financial statement items you specify in the selections) and the key figures.
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Configuring SAP S/4HANA Finance by Stoil Jotev.
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