Use
You can use this function to directly post primary postings to market segments (profitability segments).
Prerequisites
Before you can transfer direct postings from FI to Profitability Analysis in realtime, the controlling area you are working in must be activated. You do this in Customizing.
Features
The individual steps shown in the graphic above are described below:
You can assign revenue, sales deductions and costs directly from Financial Accounting (FI) to profitability segments (such as customers and products) in CO-PA when you use the Post document function.
This lets you post sales deductions or actual costs that are first accrued at the end of the period for the purposes of estimating profits - such as annual rebates or freight costs - to the appropriate profitability segments at a later point in time. This makes it possible to compare your anticipated costs with the final actual costs. Both of these can be displayed in profitability reports.
You can post the actual costs to the original profitability segment (sales order or combination of product and customer), or - if a detailed assignment is not necessary or no longer possible - to any higher level in Profitability Analysis (actual freight posted to the division).
If your system allows dual postings to both a profitability segment and a cost center or statistical order, the real posting always goes to the profitability segment. The other object is posted only for statistical purposes.
Double postings can make sense if, for example, you want to post expenses for a marketing campaign to a profitability segment that represents a certain product group and sales region, and at the same time need to see the data in the relevant sales cost center for statistical purposes.
Direct posting also lets you post direct costs or revenue to profitability segments. These might include such things as license fees for retail goods or costs and revenue for services.
You assign the values to a profitability segment directly with the posting transaction in Financial Accounting. For each posting line to be posted to a profitability segment, you can use to call up the dialog box Assignment to a Profitability Segment (the assignment screen).
The assignment screen contains the CO-PA characteristics from which you can choose to specify the profitability segment. During Customizing, you can create a characteristics group to appear in this dialog box and assign the group to the business transaction RFBU (G/L account postings). The characteristic group defines which characteristics are displayed for selection.To simplify the selection of similar, frequently entered combinations of characteristics, you can create entry aids. For more information, see the section
Entry Aids for Assignments to Profitability Segments.
The system automatically derives additional characteristic values (see also
You can only assign a posting to a profitability segment if the relevant G/L account is assigned to a field status group that allows postings to profitability segments (see Financial Accounting in Customizing).
When the FI document is posted, the system creates a line item in CO-PA and updates the segment level for each posting line assigned to a profitability segment. The values and quantities posted are transferred to the corresponding value and quantity fields in Profitability Analysis.
For direct postings in FI, all assignments of values and quantities to the value fields in costing-based CO-PA are defined using the PA transfer structure "FI", which you maintain in Customizing. In account-based CO-PA, the data is posted in the same G/L account as in FI.
For example, when you post an amount to an account in the cost element group BAB-ERLO (such as account 810000) in FI, this amount appears as revenue in the value field ERLOS in costing-based CO-PA.
The line item created in CO-PA can be displayed in the application menu under Information system