Central Process Catalog 

Definition

The central process catalog contains processes and process steps that are created centrally in the corporate group, and are directly or indirectly related either to financial reporting (to satisfy the requirements of section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) or to disclosure controls and procedures (to satisfy the requirements of section 302).

Use

The central process catalog simplifies the tasks of the individual organizational units and in so doing reduces the costs of an SOA project. The individual organizational units of the organizational hierarchy can accept the processes and their respective process steps unchanged by referencing them as they are in the central process catalog, or they can copy them and adjust them to suit that particular organizational unit. If the organizational unit references the process steps of a process, any changes made centrally to those process steps automatically apply to the organizational unit.

The central process catalog is compiled by the power user or by the person assigned to the role containing the task Edit Central Process Catalog (EDIT-CPCAT).

Structure

The central process catalog contains processes that are arranged in a process group hierarchy. Each process consists of process steps that are organized in a specific sequence.

Processes are located at the lowest level of the process group hierarchy. A process can be a subnode of any number of different process groups. Experience at corporate groups has so far shown that, to represent the processes necessary for section 404, approx. 10 process groups each with 5 to 10 processes are required.

In the central process catalog, central attributes are made for a process as well as for the process steps (such as the transaction type for a process or whether the process is industry-specific). Any additional attributes that are required need to be added subsequently by the individual organizational unit copying that process.

Besides the attributes, you specify the following assignments for a process:

·        Assignment of control objectives and risks (P-CO-R assignment)

With the P-CO-R assignment, you enter the objectives of the controls contained in the process and the risks that could prevent the control objectives from being achieved.

·        Assignment of account groups

The SOA requires companies to document processes that have a significant impact on financial statements. For this reason, you assign account groups to any process that influences them. You can choose from all account groups that were defined as significant for the corporate group in the account group hierarchy.

A process step can be defined in the central process catalog as a control. In such cases, you specify general control attributes as well as the central attributes for the process step (see Documenting Controls Centrally).

All objects defined in the central process catalog and all assignments are time-dependent.

Integration

You can define values for the transaction type in Customizing for MIC under Edit Attribute Values.