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Set Up Template Allocation

In contrast to assessment, template allocation lets you allocate overhead costs (for business processes or cost centers/activity types) in a cause-and-effect manner based on the quantities used.

To do this, you must define a template containing the formulas and functions required for calculating the quantities used and thus the cost drivers. The quantities are then valuated by means of price calculation.

Dynamic template allocation functions as follows:
When carrying out the allocation, the user specifies the particular characteristic area for which the allocation should be carried out. If there are characteristic values in this area that are linked with a template via a selection strategy, this template is then used automatically. The template's settings are employed to determine the appropriate activity quantities and the appropriate business process or cost center/activity type that forward those quantities to the profitability segment. The activity quantities (valuated with prices) are then allocated to the profitability segment whose dimensions are defined in Customizing. The costs are not only allocated to the specified update characteristics. They are also allocated to all characteristics that you defined as target fields for source characteristics via a derivation rule.

To create all prerequisites for this procedure, you need to carry out the following steps in Customizing:

1. First, limit the number of record types. Doing so reduces the amounts of data to be processed, thus enhancing system performance. Moreover, this prevents duplicate allocations from occurring (for example, for an incoming sales order and again for its corresponding billing document).
2. You specify the dimensions of the profitability segment by entering update characteristics. You then make some or all of them into selection characteristics. These determine which criteria are used to select the destination objects in the template allocation.

This last step completes the definition of the profitability segment. The following steps allow you to set about using the process template:

3. You generate and maintain the template environment by changing environment functions already present or creating new ones.
4. You can use the environment functions delivered in the system or those that you created yourself to create the templates required for your allocations.
5. To ensure that the appropriate template is used for allocation, enter at this stage which characteristics and which characteristic values should be used to define the template.
6. You then specify in the PA transfer structure which value fields the process costs are posted to. This occurs via the assignment of the allocation cost elements (for business processes or cost centers/activity types) to value fields.