In the case of internally-processed activities and general costs activities, you can distribute the costs calculated by period.

In Project System customizing, select pricing by period in the valuation variant. You use the costing variant to assign the valuation variant to the activity.

You must define a distribution key for the activity. If you do not, the system uses the standard distribution key, SAP 020. This key distributes the planned work evenly over the activity per the earliest set of dates - that is, to the time between the earliest start date and earliest finish date for the activity.

You define the activity key for:

• Internally processed activities in the activity overview

• General costs activities in the Costs detail screen for the activity

When you cost internally-processed activities by period, the system uses the distribution key from the capacity requirement to distribute the work planned in the activity and values it at the price for the relevant period.

If no planned price has been defined for future period, you can use the strategy for the valuation variant to stipulate that the system should value the planned activity input

The distribution key used to distribute the planned work to the individual periods can be defined in the activity or the work center. When using this facility, note the following:

• If you have maintained distribution keys in both the activity and the work center, the planned work is distributed to the periods per the distribution key in the activity.

• If you have not maintained any distribution keys, the planned work is distributed evenly to all periods.

Overhead is calculated on the basis of the distribution of planned work or costs by period.

In the case of general costs activities, the planned costs are distributed in the activity by period, using the distribution key.