ALE/Distribution in Product Cost Planning 

Use

You can use the ALE functions in Product Cost Planning to distribute the cost component split as follows:

·        To Profitability Analysis and Sales and Distribution if they are operated in separate systems (Distribution to Profitability Analysis and Sales and Distribution)

·        In group costing, to supply information about the product costs of separate production planning systems to a central cost accounting system (Group Costing in Distributed Systems)

·        To transfer the costing results to other systems, for further costing to be carried out (Further Costing in Other Systems)

Prerequisites

To set up a distribution of business processes and functions with ALE, you must create a logical distribution model for the entire system. The model specifies which applications run on which systems and which messages exchange applications with each other. The distribution model thus describes the flow of ALE messages between logical systems. You specify which master data and transaction data is to be exchanged, and which control data should be recognized by the distributed systems. You also specify the systems to which costing data should be sent.

For further information about the procedure for preparing and creating the models for distribution, see the SAP Library under ALE - Introduction and Overview and in the Implementation Guide under Cross-Application Components  ® Distribution (ALE).

You need to maintain the corresponding master data and control data in Customizing for ALE. Customizing of the sending system must be available in the target system:

·        There is a model plant.

The plant in the sending system to which the cost component split should be distributed exists in the target system as the model plant (or also as the shadow plant). The cost component split is distributed to this plant in the target system.

·        The costing variant is available with all Customizing parameters.

·        Customizing of the cost component structures used was distributed to a Customizing master system.

The material masters must exist in the target system, with accounting and costing views. For more information, see the following sections in the SAP Library:

·        Master Data Distribution

·        Example of Master Data Distribution

Features

The costing data can be distributed to particular systems or to all the logical systems that are specified in the distribution model as recipients of costing data. If you do not make any entries for the target system, the data is distributed to all the systems specified in the distribution model as recipients of costing data.

You can access these functions by choosing Accounting ® Controlling ® Product Cost Planning ® Tools ® Material Costing ® Distribution  ® Cost Component Split.

You can select the costing data to be distributed using the material number, class (of a group of materials), plant, costing variant, costing version, costing status and validity of the cost estimate. The selected data is picked out by the system and transferred in IDocs.

You can choose whether to transfer:

·        Additive cost estimates

·        Automatic cost estimates (that is, cost estimates without quantity structure)

·        Current standard cost estimates

If you do not make any entries, no cost estimates will be distributed.

In the sending system, released standard cost estimates are not automatically released in the receiving system. Marking standard is allowed. For more information, see Updating Standard Prices.

To work with classes, assign the materials in question to a class. Choose Logistics ® Central functions ® Classification ® Allocation ® Maintain ® Objects to class.

You can also use the following ALE functions:

·        Filters:

Filters are conditions that must be met by message types and BAPIs so that they can be distributed via ALE. Here you can specify that only materials shall be sent that have been assigned to a particular class as defined in Customizing. The materials in the class can be maintained as above.

·        Reference:

You can specify that in addition to the filter objects of the message type COPCPA, filter objects from a message type of the material (such as MATMAS) are used. This means that only the material cost estimates to which the material can also be sent can be distributed.

You activate both functions in the distribution model in Customizing. For the filter function, you also assign the corresponding class to a logical system.

See also:

·        ALE Integration Technology

·        Technical Requirements for ALE Business Processes

·        Distribution of Control Data

·        Distribution of Master Data

·        Message Exchange

·        Modeling Distribution

·        Distribution Model

·        IDoc

·        Class

·        Filter