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Component documentation Business Consolidation (SEM-BCS)  Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Purpose

You can use the SEM component Business Consolidation(Consolidation) to determine the resources of a group (or a similar enterprise or organizational unit), the claims by others to those resources, and the changes to those resources. Consolidation also provides the means for internal and external enterprise reporting.

You can consolidate on the basis of customer-defined consolidation units. Consolidation units can represent, for example, companies, plants, business areas, profit centers, and cost centers. You can also portray matrix organizations (for example, using a combination of companies and profit centers).

You can standardize the financial data reported by individual consolidation units to adhere to the accounting and valuation standards of the group. You then translate the standardized financial data from the various local currencies into the group currencies. Finally, you can eliminate the effects of group-internal relationships (for example, from interunit trade and services). Thus, you calculate the consolidated financial statements as if the group were a single entity.

You can use the analysis functions of SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) and those of SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI)to analyze and report on your consolidated financial statement data.

Integration

The Consolidation component provides functions to collect master data and individual financial statement data from data files from non-SAP systems as well as SAP systems.

All SEM components are based on the BI system. The transaction data processed by Consolidation is written to the BI system, which means that the BI system represents the primary data basis for all SEM components. This enables you to directly exchange data between individual SEM components without the need for interim steps or for special objects for exchanging data in BI. For example, you can:

●      Collect SEM-BPS planning data for use as reported financial data in consolidation

●      Use consolidated actual data as the basis for further planning in SEM-BPS

Data from transactional SAP systems (for example, FI-GL) that has been loaded into a BI system can be transferred as reported financial data to the Consolidation component.

Furthermore, you can load reported financial data from transactional SAP systems directly into SEM‑BCS without extracting them to BI storage first.

And, finally, you can automatically transfer master data and hierarchies from other SAP systems.

Features

Versions

You can use versions to execute parallel consolidations with different categories of data (for example, actual data, planning data, forecasting data), using different accounting principles (for example, US GAAP, IAS, German HGB), using different valuations, and/or for simulations.

Hierarchies

You can create hierarchies for almost all characteristics (for example, consolidation units and financial statement items), where some hierarchies have special, consolidation-specific properties.

Consolidation Charts of Accounts

You can use different charts of accounts for consolidation. For example, this allows you to generate several consolidated financial statements in parallel to accommodate different accounting principles.

Collection and Standardization of Reported Data

The following methods are available for collecting individual financial statements and other relevant data into the consolidation system:

●      Online data entry using data entry layouts in the consolidation system or using BI queries in the BI system

●      Flexible upload from a data file

●      Load from an InfoProvider (from the BI system or connected SAP systems)

●      Copy within the consolidation system

You can post manual entries, for example, to standardize the reported data to meet the accounting and valuation requirements of the group. You can make manual postings dependent on a workflow approval process.

For transferring master data and hierarchies (for example, of consolidation units or financial statement items), you can use a flexible upload to upload files or InfoObjects from the BI system or connected SAP systems.

Consolidation Tasks

Below are some of the consolidation tasks you can execute automatically:

●      Currency translation (which translates the financial data into the currency of the consolidation group) and rounding

●      Validation

●      Capitalization and valuation allowances of assets and liabilities (such as fair value surpluses)

●      Preparations for consolidation group changes

●      Interunit eliminations (for example, for payables and receivables, revenue and expense, or investment income) and reconciliations

●      Elimination of interunit profit/loss in transferred inventory

●      Elimination of interunit profit/loss in transferred assets

●      Consolidation of investments

●      Reclassification

●      Allocation

●      Balance carryforward

The automated postings are controlled by the task settings you define once beforehand in Customizing.

You can use multiperiod consolidation to execute tasks and task groups (for instance, for planning purposes) for timeframes that encompass multiple periods.

Reporting

After performing the consolidation tasks, you can use BI reports to analyze your data. SAP provides pre-defined business content (InfoCubes, queries, etc.) for this purpose.

You can use XBRL to create individual or consolidated financial statements.

You can use the restatement function to make retroactive adjustments arising from a (voluntary) change in financial reporting or to correct errors in financial reports already published.

Execution and Monitoring of the Consolidation Process

You use the consolidation monitor to execute the consolidation tasks and to monitor the entire consolidation process.

User Interface

All Consolidation functions are available in the SAP GUI. In addition, there are two Web Dynpro applications that run in a Web browser:

●      Web Dynpro-Based Consolidation Monitor for Local Accountants including all functions for data transfer and validation

●      Web Dynpro-Based Consolidation Monitor for Corporate Accountants with all consolidation functions

Constraints

The automated execution of consolidation of investments presently only covers the purchase method and the equity method, as well as the mutual stock method.

You can use manual posting or, in some cases, the reclassification function to perform the consolidation tasks that are not yet automated to meet your statutory requirements for creating consolidated financial statements. For more information on proportionate consolidation with reclassifications, see Proportionate Consolidation.

 

 

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