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Function documentationUnit Costing

 

Unit costing is a universal tool for planning costs and setting prices. You can use it to plan costs for various reference objects:

Some objects, such as general cost objects and production orders without quantity structure, can only be planned using unit costing. The cost estimate results are valid for the entire life of the object.

For WBS elements and internal orders, you can use unit costing in addition to other forms of planning, such as cost element planning and structure planning. The cost estimate results can be valid for the entire life of the object or for a fiscal year.

You can calculate the costs for production orders, materials, and sales orders either using unit costing or product costing. Product costing is generally used in connection with the Production Planning (PP) Module, while unit costing can be used to enter manually data relevant to costing or to transfer it from non-SAP systems.

Features

Unit costing is a type of spreadsheet that, due to its integration, can use existing master data and prices in the system, such as activity prices from Cost Center Accounting. You can use the spreadsheet to create totals, subtotals, and formulas for mathematical operations.

You can use unit costing as follows:

  • As a Spreadsheet Without Access to Data in the System

    You can carry out simple cost planning without accessing information in the system. For example, you can enter variable items, create subtotals, and enter text items. For more information, see Creation of Costing Items.

  • As a Spreadsheet with Access to Data in the System

    If you are using Materials Management (MM) and Controlling (CO), you can create costing items that can access information from these areas, such as the standard price from the material master record and the price for performing a certain activity type from activity type planning. For more information, see Master Data for Unit Costing and Creation of Costing Items.

  • As a Reference when Planning Specific Reference Objects

    If you create a unit cost estimate for a reference object, you can use a reference for this. The reference object of the cost estimate (base planning object, material, order, and so on) determines which existing objects you can copy.

    For more information, see Creating Unit Cost Estimates with Reference and Copying a Cost Estimate.

    Example Example

    You have costed a product using a cost estimate with quantity structure. You would now like to simulate the effects on the costs of using different materials. You can do this by creating a cost estimate without quantity structure, using the cost estimate with quantity structure as a reference.

    End of the example.