Real-Time Integration of Controlling with Financial Accounting

During allocations in Controlling, most of the postings created do not affect Financial Accounting. These postings do not update any G/L account transaction figures; they are postings within Controlling. If, however, an allocation in Controlling leads to a change in the functional area or any other characteristic (such as Profit Center or Segment) that is relevant for evaluations in Financial Accounting, a shift occurs between the affected items in the profit and loss statement. For this reason, this information has to be transferred to Financial Accounting. This reconciliation between Controlling and Financial Accounting takes place by means of real-time integration.

As a result of real-time integration, all Controlling documents that are relevant for General Ledger Accounting are transferred from Controlling to General Ledger Accounting in real time. This means that Financial Accounting is always reconciled with Controlling.

A document is created in Financial Accounting for each posting in Controlling. This means that the detailed information contained in the CO documents is always available in reports in New General Ledger Accounting. This information can be sorted by the following, for example:

Functional area
Cost center
Internal order

Integration

Real-time integration replaces the reconciliation postings from the reconciliation ledger. Consequently, you do not need a reconciliation ledger.

If, however, you do not set the Reconciliation Ledger Active indicator in Customizing for the controlling area, you cannot use the reports belonging to report groups 5A* (5AA1-5AW1). You set this indicator in Customizing for Controlling under Start of the navigation path General Controlling Next navigation step Organization Maintain Controlling Area End of the navigation path . The reconciliation ledger serves as the data source for reports belonging to the report groups 5A*. You find these reports in the SAP Easy Access menu under Accounting Controlling Cost Element Accounting Information System Next navigation step Reports for Cost and Revenue Element Accounting End of the navigation path .

Replacement reports are available as follows:

You find the reports in the SAP Easy Access menu under Accounting Controlling Cost Element Accounting Information System Reports for Cost and Revenue Element Accounting (New) .
You can create additional reports in report group 5A21. You can assign the report group to any drilldown report of New General Ledger Accounting using the report-report interface.
From the report Financial Statements Actual/Actual Comparison, you can call up the report Cost Elements: Breakdown by Company Code. You find the report Financial Statement: Actual/Actual Comparison in the SAP Easy Access menu under Accounting Financial Accounting General Ledger Information System General Ledger Reports (New) Balance Sheet/Profit and Loss Statement/Cash Flow General Actual/Actual Comparisons .

You can define account determination for each controlling area. You do this in Customizing for Financial Accounting (New) under Start of the navigation path Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) Next navigation step Ledgers Real-Time Integration of Controlling with Financial Accounting Account Determination for Real-Time Integration End of the navigation path . In this way, you use the same account determination as for the reconciliation ledger (transaction OK17). You can then use the reconciliation ledger reports to compare FI balances with CO balances.

Prerequisites

If you use real-time integration in at least one company code, you need to have activated company code validation for the related controlling area. You do this in Customizing for Controlling under Start of the navigation path General Controlling Next navigation step Organization Maintain Controlling Area Activate Components/Control Indicators End of the navigation path . Otherwise, the reconciliation between Financial Accounting and Controlling at company code level is not possible.

In Customizing for Financial Accounting (New), you have processed the Customizing activities under Start of the navigation path Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) Next navigation step Ledgers Real-Time Integration of Controlling with Financial Accounting End of the navigation path .

Recommendation

Activate real-time integration for all company codes between which you want to make CO-internal allocations.

In the Customizing activity Define Variants for Real-Time Integration, do not include all CO line items in the transfer. If the same line items are to be transferred as through the reconciliation posting from the reconciliation ledger, select the following line items:

End of the recommendation.

Cross-Company Code
Cross-Business Area
Cross-Functional Area
Cross-Fund (if you use Public Sector Management)
Cross-Grant (if you use Public Sector Management)

Features

Value flows within Controlling that are relevant for General Ledger Accounting – such as assessments, distributions, confirmations, and CO-internal settlements – are transferred immediately. The FI documents are posted with the COFI business Transaction. They contain the number of the CO document. This means that you can call up the CO document from the FI document, and vice versa.

Activities

If a document could not be transferred because the posting period was blocked in Financial Accounting or no account was found, for example, the document is included in a postprocessing worklist. You need to check this worklist regularly and process any documents in it. From the SAP Easy Access menu, choose Start of the navigation path Accounting Next navigation step Financial Accounting General Ledger Corrections Post CO Documents to FI End of the navigation path .

Example

An internal order for business area 0001 is settled to a cost center of business area 0002. The document from this allocation is transferred in real time to Financial Accounting.