An appropriation request is an idea or wish for carrying out a measure (such as, an investment or research and development), which has to be individually assessed and approved by one or more positions within an enterprise, primarily because of the high costs involved. Just like measures, appropriation requests represent concrete plans that are to be implemented in an enterprise.

Appropriation requests are a kind of noted item for proposed investments. They have extensive master data, in which you can enter information relevant to the investment.

In addition, appropriation requests assist in investment planning. Usually, you create an appropriation request in the year prior to the planned implementation of the investment. You enter it in the requesting organizational unit (such as the cost center). In this way, you can include the appropriation request at an early phase of the creation of the annual investment program.

Using various types of financial mathematics, you can perform preinvestment analysis directly on the appropriation request.

Once it is approved, the appropriation request enters the implementation phase, in which it is actually carried out. You use a measure for the actual implementation of the appropriation request. Depending on the functions you need for managing the measure during the implementation phase, there are several R/3 system objects you can use as measures. The objects that can currently be used as measures for appropriation requests are:

• WBS elements

• Internal orders

An appropriation request consists of a master record with basic information about the type of investment being planned, the organizational assignments, and the measure that will be used to implement the appropriation. You can create variants for each appropriation request. You use the variants to represent different alternatives for how the appropriation request can best be realized. Each variant has its own master data information about the implementation of the measure, with plan values being particularly important. An appropriation request always has at least one appropriation request variant.