You use this function to carry out intercompany asset transfers (between company codes). For the individual companies, an intercompany transfer represents a retirement for the one company and an acquisition for the other. From the point of view of the corporate group, however, it typically represents a transfer that balances to zero in the group asset history sheet

An intercompany asset transfer within a corporate group may be necessary for one of the following reasons:

• The physical location of the asset has changed, making it necessary to assign the asset to a new company code.
• The organizational structure of the corporate group has changed, requiring you to reassign the asset to a different company code.

It is not possible to change the organizational assignment of the asset by changing the asset master record. For each asset that you want to transfer, you have to create a new master record in the target company code, or you use an existing asset master record. The unique identity of the asset is preserved using the inventory number in the asset master record.

There are three types of intercompany asset transfer:

• It is a transfer within one client. You can post the retirement transfer and the acquisition transfer in one step (automatic intercompany transfer).

• It is a transfer between two clients (automatic intercompany transfer). For this type of transfer, you can use ALE (Application Link Enabling) functions. Using these, a retirement is posted first in the sending company code, and then an asset acquisition is posted in the target company code. For more information, see the ALE Scenarios in Asset Accounting topic.
• If you do not have access to ALE functions, you can post a manual intercompany transfer in two separate steps as a retirement and an acquisition (no automatic intercompany transfer).
  When you post manual intercompany transfers, the posting can be integrated with accounts payable and accounts receivable, which is not the case when you use the automatic intercompany transfer.

You can reverse automatic intercompany asset transfers, like other postings, using the normal reversal functions in Asset Accounting. The system then reverses the retirement document in the sending company code and the acquisition document in the target company code. If a new asset was created in the target company code, you can block the asset to any additional acquisition postings. After its retention period has expired, it can be reorganized.

For manual intercompany transfer and transfers using ALE, you have to reverse the retirement and the acquisition separately in the company code in which they took place.