Creating Profit Centers (Individual Processing) 

There are two places where you can create a profit center:

·         In the application menu, under Master Data ® Profit Center ® Individual Processing ® Create

·         in Customizing for Profit Center Accounting, under Master Data ® Profit Center ® Maintain Profit Centers.

Note that you can only create a dummy profit center in Customizing (see Maintaining dummy profit centers).

Process Flow

1.       Enter a name for the profit center you want to create.

If you want to copy the new profit center from an existing one, enter the name of the existing profit center in the Copy from box. You can copy the profit center from a different controlling area.

When you enter a name for a profit center, the system interprets purely numerical entries as numbers and automatically inserts leading zeros. For example, if you create a profit center 333, the system saves this as 0000000333. This has the consequence that you cannot search for this profit center using the Possible entries function by entering 3*. You can prevent this by entering at least one letter somewhere in the profit center name.

2.       On the Basic data tab page, enter the basic data for the profit center.

a.       As long as you do not activate the profit center using  (see step 7), the status of the profit center remains inactive: Create displayed No postings can be made to the profit center while it has this status. You should not activate a profit center until all required entries have been made. In the meantime, you can save the profit center inactively using .

b.       Enter the entire validity period of the profit center as the analysis period.

When you have created the profit center, you can divide it into several analysis periods - see Changing Profit Centers (Individual Processing). These can differ in the master data.

c.       Define the profit center manager and the department to which the profit center belongs.

d.       If you are not using the enterprise organization, assign the profit center to an end noce of the standard hierarchy in the hierarchy area.

The hierarchy area is always valid for the entire period of validity. It cannot therefore be used to distinguish various analysis periods.

If the enterprise organization is active in the controlling area, you must enter a hierarchy area. However, this is overwritten as soon as the profit center is assigned to another node in the enterprise organization.

Enterprise organization assignment and the standard hierarchy derived from this always have priority over manual assignments.

e.       If you are using distributed Profit Center Accounting with a decentralized scenario, the system displays a Logical system field. Here you enter the master system of the profit center. For more information, see Decentralized Profit Center Accounting.

3.       On the Indicators tab page, you can lock the profit center against all postings. This lock is only valid for the specified time period. If a posting is made to an object that is assigned to a locked profit center, the system displays an error message. The data is not posted in any application.

On this tab page you can also see whether the profit center is defined as a dummy profit center. However, you cannot change this setting.

If you use Formula Planning, assign a template to the profit center on this tab page. The system uses this to calculate plan values for the profit center when you run Formula Planning.

4.       On the company codes tab page, the system assigns a default profit center to all the company codes within the controlling area. You can exclude certain company codes for the profit center. This setting is checked when postings are made to the profit center.

With Consolidation (EC-CS), it might be necessary to enter certain company codes. If the profit center is not assigned to a company code, the system displays an error message whenever a posting is made to that profit center in EC-CS.

Note that joint venture data can only be assigned to the profit center for the company code to which it has been assigned.

5.       The history tab page contains information on previous changes to the profit centers. It is therefore of no importance to you when creating a profit center.

6.       On the other tab pages, you can enter additional information such as an address, communication data, and so on. You should only enter joint venture information if joint venture accounting (such as in the Industry-Specific Solution "IS Oil") is active in your system.

7.       When you have made all required entries, activae the profit center using . On the Basic data tab page, the status of the profit center changes from inactive to active. Data can now be posted to the profit center.