You can use indirect activity allocations to automatically allocate planned and actual activities.
You can specify keys to allocate activity, which is not possible when you use manual activity input in the plan or actual activity allocation. In addition, if calculating the sender activity quantities involves too much time or expense, the system can determine the activity quantity inversely based on the activity of the receivers.
Note
If you execute indirect activity allocation without completing planning for the combination cost center/activity type, you must activate the actual price indicator in the activity type master data.
A special type of indirect activity allocation for actual allocation is the plan=actual activity allocation . In contrast to other types of indirect activity allocation, the plan=actual activity allocation allows for a multiple level activity network to be determined iteratively with the operating rate as the tracing factor.
You can choose between two methods of indirect activity allocation, depending on the activity types category. These methods are determined for each segment and can be combined in one cycle.
For certain activity types you can determine the total activity quantity for each sender. These are category 3 activity types,
Manual entry, indirect allocation
.
Using indirect activity allocation, these posted activity quantities are distributed by the senders among the receivers defined in the segment according to their
allocation bases . The corresponding segment must use the sender rule
Posted quantities
. Any receiver rule can be used, with the exception of
Fixed
quantities
(see:
Sender and Receiver Rules for Periodic Repostings/Allocations
).
Example
The
Quality control
cost center uses 1000 hours of the
Testing
activity type. This cost center provides activity for the cost centers
Goods receipt
and
Finished products
. Allocations are made on the basis of the tracing factor
Number of test items
(TI). These are 4000 items for the
Goods receipt
cost center and 6000 items for
Finished products
. This corresponds to an activity input of 400 hours for
Goods receipt
and 600 hours for
Finished products
.
The price per activity unit for the
Quality control
cost center is 50 USD/hr. This results in activity output costs of 50,000 USD. The receiver cost centers are debited with the following costs based on the tracing factor TI.
Goods receipt: (50,000 USD X 4000 TI) / 10,000 TI = 20,000 USD
Finished products: (50,000 USD X 6.000 TI) / 10,000 TI = 30,000 USD
In this case, the system determines the activity quantity based:
Either on receiver tracing factors with weighting factors, which can be defined for each sender
If you use the sender rule
Inversely determined quantities
, you define the weighting factors described above by choosing
Sender values
.
Or through Fixed quantity values, which you define in segment definition.
If you use the sender rule
Fixed quantities
, you define the fixed activity quantity by choosing
Sender values
.
These activity types belong to category 2 (Indirect entry, indirect allocation).
The corresponding segment can use the following combinations of sender and receiver rules:
Sender rule |
Receiver rules |
|
Any |
|
Any |
(see: Sender and Receiver Rules for Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations ).
Example
In the example, you calculate activities for the sender using the receiver tracing factors with weighting factors, which are to be defined for the sender. The sender rules here are
inversely determined quantities
.
You can use any receiver rule.
The receiver tracing factors are:
Goods receipt: 4000 test items
Finished products: 6000 test items
You need 0.4 hour to check one item using the
Quality control
cost center. The sender rule defines a weighting factor of 0.4 for the
Test
activity type.
This results in an activity input of 1600 hours on the
Goods receipt
cost center and 2400 hours on
Finished products
.
The
Test
activity is valuated with a price of 5 USD/hr. This results in a credit to the sender of 20,000 USD and debits of 8,000 USD to
Goods receipt
and 12,000 USD to the
Finished products
cost center.
Note
If you are working with transfer prices (parallel value flows), the indirect activity allocations are carried out in the leading valuation. The plan price used for allocation thus applies to all the valuations.
For more information on transfer prices, see the SAP Library
See also:
Defining Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations
Executing Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations Online