Controlling (CO)
Controlling provides you with information for management decision-making, showing where costs have been incurred in the organization and for what purpose .It provides the basis for associating the cost of sales with the revenue earned and for explaining the value added by production and investment activities within the organization.
As well as documenting actual costs, the main task of controlling is planning. You can determine variances by comparing actual data with plan data. These variance calculations enable you to control business flows.
Income statements such as, contribution margin accounting, are used to control the cost efficiency of individual areas of an organization, as well as the entire organization.
Integration
Controlling (CO) and Financial Accounting (FI) are independent components in the SAP systembut linked in the sense that a cost posting to Financial Accounting will result in an equivalent posting in Controlling. The account provides the link, with each posting also being associated with a CO account assignment object, such as a cost center for wages and salary costs, a project or order for material costs, or a combination of characteristics, such as product, customer, and region for sales revenues.
The relevant accounts in Financial Accounting are managed in Controlling as cost elements or revenue elements. This enables you to compare and reconcile the values from CO and FI, for example, by company code, profit center, and functional area.
In addition to collecting the actual costs, costs can be moved between account assignment objects using allocations and settlement. This can result in postings being triggered in FI to account for the shift.
Features
Cost Element Accounting (CO-OM-CEL)
Cost and Revenue Element Accounting provides you with an overview of the costs and revenues that occur in an organization.
For more information, see the SAP Library under 
Financials
Controlling
Cost Element Accounting
.
Cost Center Accounting (CO-OM-CCA)
You use Cost Center Accounting for controlling purposes within your organization. It is useful for a source-related assignment of overhead costs to the location in which they occurred.
For more information, see the SAP Library under Financials
Controlling
Cost Center Accounting
.
Internal Orders (CO-OM-OPA)
You use internal orders to collect and control according to the job that incurred them. You can assign budgets for these jobs, which the system monitors, to ensure that they are not exceeded.
For more information, see the SAP Library under Financials
Controlling
Internal Orders
.
Product Cost Controlling (CO-PC)
Product Cost Controlling calculates the costs that occur during manufacture of a product, or provision of a service. It enables you to calculate the minimum price at which a product can be profitably marketed.
For more information, see the SAP Library under Financials
Controlling
Product Cost Controlling
.
Profitability Analysis (CO-PA)
Profitability Analysis analyzes the profit or loss of an organization by individual market segments. The system allocates the corresponding costs to the revenues for each market segment.
Profitability Analysis provides a basis for decision-making, for example, for price determination, customer selection, conditioning, and for choosing the distribution channel.
For more information, see the SAP Library under Financials
Controlling
Profitability Analysis
.
Profit Center Accounting (EC-PCA)
Profit Center Accounting evaluates the profit or loss of individual, independent areas within an organization. These areas are responsible for their costs and revenues.
Profit Center Accounting is a statistical accounting component in the SAP system. This means that it takes place on a statistical basis at the same time as true accounting. In addition to costs and revenues, you can display key figures, such as, Return on investment, working capital
or cash flow
on a profit center.
For more information, see the SAP Library under Financials
EC-Enterprise Controlling
EC-Profit Center Accounting
.