Planning of value added or activities in internal areas of responsibility (profit centers) forms an essential part of overall corporate planning.

The integrated nature of corporate planning is especially noticeable in profit center planning, because there you can combine, extend, and alter plans from a number of other applications.

The principal aim of profit center planning is to provide data and key figures for the purpose of planning for responsibility areas (profit centers).

If the necessary data already exists in other applications, you can transfer it to your profit centers. Then you can add any missing plan information (revenues, costs, changes in stock, and so on) directly in Profit Center Accounting. Finally, you can carry out plan closing measures, such as revaluation, assessment, distribution, and so on.

To be able to carry out comprehensive profit center planning, it is necessary to take both managerial and technical requirements into account in the planning process.

To make it possible to control and evaluate internal responsibility areas effectively, you should limit profit center planning to values that are easily measurable and can be influenced directly by the person responsible. The profit center managers are only able to utilize the planned data and targets if they can influence the costs, revenues and stocks in their area. Since your concrete organizational structure and the scope of your organization's responsibility areas depend largely on individual factors, you need to be able to organize your profit center planning as flexibly as possible.

Comprehensive profit center planning must be supported with efficient software. The following factors play a role in how to define your software requirements:

• Planning scope

• Planning process

• Planning techniques

The planning scope refers to the levels of responsibility and the degree of detail to be planned. The planning time frame also needs to be established (annual, quarterly or monthly planning).

The planning process refers to the sequence in which you carry out the various planning activities and the planning areas to be coordinated.

The entire planning process must be effectively supported by various planning techniques. This calls for comprehensive planning functions and calculation functions.

Planning in Profit Center is described in detail in the following sections.