Background documentationDifferences in the Summarization Methods

 

The Information System for Cost Object Controlling provides a number of different procedures for analyzing the costs of a material or order at a summarized level. Data is summarized with the following methods:

  • Product drilldowns

  • Summarization hierarchies

The following presents short examples of the different reports for summarized analysis. These examples serve to illustrate the differences between the individual summarization methods.

Product Drilldowns

A product drilldown is an interactive tool for evaluation and presentation of data in Cost Object Controlling. The data is summarized according to predefined structures. You can expand this summarized dataset using different criteria to access the lower levels.

Example Example

You have a report that summarizes the data by the characteristics Plant and Material.

Suppose you manufacture materials M1 and M2 in plants A and B. Each material is manufactured in both plants. With product drilldown you can analyze them from different perspectives:

Which materials accounted for which production costs in plant A?

Plant A

Material M1

USD 1000

Material M2

USD 3000

What were the production costs for material M1 in the two plants?

Material M1

Plant A

USD 1000

Plant B

USD 6000
End of the example.
Summarization Hierarchies

In summarization hierarchies, the data is also summarized upwards based on a structure that you defined. In contrast to product drilldowns, you can only expand this summarized dataset from the top downwards. The summarization is by original cost element.

Example Example

Suppose you manufacture materials M1 and M2 in plants A and B. Each material is manufactured in both plants. You define an order hierarchy in the following sequence:

  1. Plant

  2. Material

You then have the following analysis options in the report:

Plant A

Material M1

USD 100

Material M2

USD 200

Plant B

Material M1

USD 300

Material M2

USD 120

In contrast to product drilldowns, it is not possible to dynamically reverse the order of the characteristics Plant and Material.

End of the example.

More Information

For detailed information on the methods, see the following sections:

Product Drilldowns

Summarization Hierarchies