A transfer price is a price used to valuate the transfer of a good or service between independently operating units of a commercial organization. You can use a transfer price to valuate goods movements between profit centers. Activities cannot be valuated with transfer prices at this point.

The SAP system diffentiates three types of transfer prices that represent the respective underlying valuation view.

Transfer prices from the legal view represent valuation approaches (also sales price here) of goods or services transferred between legally independent member companies in the group. These valuation approaches are reflected in the individual financial statements of those companies.

Transfer prices according to the group view represent the costs of goods manufactured, which can be used for the allocation of goods and services within a group of companies. For these prices, group‑internal profits are eliminated from the prices of the legal view.

Transfer prices according to the profit center represent valuation approaches (management approaches) which are agreed between different areas of responsibility (profit centers) and used to determine their internal profitability and assist enterprise management.

The above graphic shows the three different valuation views:

The following concepts are also of importance for an understanding of transfer pricing in the SAP system:

The three different views of business transactions - those of the individual company, the group as a whole and the profit center - are referred to as valuation approaches or valuation views.

In the SAP system, each valuation view always uses its own currency type. The combination of currency type and valuation view is referred to as the valuation approach (see also Consistency of the Valuation Settings in Different Applications: Currency and Valuation Profile).

In a currency and valuation profile, you can specify up to three valuation approaches that you want to store in parallel in your SAP system. This ensures that these valuation approaches are updated consistently throughout all the application components concerned (see also Consistency of the Valuation Settings in Different Applications: Currency and Valuation Profile).

Except in classic Profit Center Accounting, transfer prices from the legal view must be stored in all relevant application components. Storing up to two additional valuation approaches for material inventories and goods movements in parallel is referred to as multiple valuation approaches.