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 Roles in Controlling

The single roles in Controlling are based on the CO components (Cost Center Accounting, Internal Orders, Activity-Based Costing, Production Cost Management, Product Cost Planning, and Inventory Valuation), while for cost centers and plant controlling there are additional roles designed for particular types of users.

Both regular reports and more powerful analysis reports are provided for each area within Controlling. Regular reports have a simpler design and are easier to use than analysis reports. They usually display current data (current year, current period). Regular reports enable the user to quickly spot unusual figures that need to be analyzed in more detail.

If an employee such as a cost center manager notices unusual figures in the report (such as high variances or inexplicable results), he can request an analysis from a cost management specialist. The specialist can then use the analysis reports to investigate the cause. Analysis reports enable the objects to be freely selected and are very flexible. Comparisons with previous years are possible, and drilldown techniques are supported to enable in-depth analyses.

Regular reports and analysis reports can also be classified according to the number of objects for which data is displayed: range reports normally display the data for an object group or range of objects, while detailed reports display the data of a single object or a small group of objects.

Overhead Cost Controlling

The single roles Cost Center Accounting and Activity-Based Costing have both regular reports and analysis reports. The single role Internal Orders has only regular reports. All single roles have range reports and detailed reports.

Cost Center Accounting

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • Which cost centers experienced cost overruns or underruns?

  • What costs were incurred on the cost centers? What are the variances?

These questions can be answered by the following reports:

  • Regular reports showing costs and allocations on cost centers

  • Regular reports on activity quantities

  • Regular reports on prices

Additional task areas, particularly for employees in Controlling:

  • Analysis of the costs and allocations on cost centers

  • Analysis of the activity quantities

  • Analysis of the prices

Internal Orders

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • What costs were incurred on the orders?

  • What are the variances?

  • Has the order budget been exceeded?

  • How high is the commitment? How much has been allotted up to now?

These questions can be answered by the following reports:

  • Regular reports on costs, budgets and commitments (internal orders for responsible cost center or internal orders (group): Overall Planning/Actual/Commitment, Plan/Actual, Budget/Actual/Commitment)

  • Regular reports on statistical key figures on internal orders

Activity-Based Costing

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • Which processes experienced cost overruns or underruns?

  • What costs were incurred on the processes? What are the variances?

  • How expensive is it to perform a particular business process?

The individual tasks:

  • Regular reports on costs and allocations on business processes

  • Analysis of the costs and allocations on business processes

  • Regular reports and analysis reports on business process quantities

  • Regular reports and analysis reports on business process prices

  • Regular reports and analysis reports on the statistical key figures posted on business processes.

Product Cost Controlling

Production Cost Management

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • How high were our costs last month? How close were the actual costs to the planned costs?

  • What is the overall cost trend in the current fiscal year?

  • How much scrap was incurred in production?

This topic area contains reports on the following areas:

  • Production variances

  • Plan-actual and target-actual comparisons

  • Resource consumption (materials, cost centers, activity types)

  • Value of work-in-process inventories

Product Cost Planning

This topic area covers the analysis of the planned costs of a product, including a newly developed product in the design phase and also a product being developed by a customer. In particular, you can examine the cost components and the fixed and variable costs.

  • Overview reports (all cost estimates for a material), detailed reports on individual cost estimates

  • Time series for standard cost estimates, including cost component split, price per base quantity, price per unit, level and lower level costs, fixed and variable costs

  • Detailed reports on standard cost estimates

Inventory Valuation

This role analyzes material inventory and price trends. It also analyzes the valuation of procured materials or the ending inventory of a period, including actual cost component splits.

Regular reports and analysis reports

  • Regular reports – receipts (cumulative actual costs, actual cost component split)

  • Analysis reports – receipts (actual prices – in all currencies, different procurement types, for cumulative inventory; cost components of actual prices)

  • Regular reports – periodic ending inventories (inventory valuation: top 10 inventory values, top 10 price changes last period, inventory by valuation class in current year, ending inventory: largest range of coverage of materials (previous period))

  • Analysis reports – periodic ending inventories (time series actual prices, actual prices for material in all currencies, cost components of actual prices, valuation prices and inventory values in current year)

Management Reports

These single roles contain regular reports for managers (such as cost center managers or plant managers) in Cost Center Accounting and Production Cost Management.

Management: Cost Center Reports (Regular Reports)

Regular reports provide information for cost center managers.

These reports serve as an overview; unusual variances are highlighted. If the cost center manager notices unusual figures in the report, he can request an analysis from a cost management specialist. The specialist can then use the analysis reports in the Cost Center Accounting role to investigate the cause.

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • Which cost centers experienced cost overruns or underruns?

  • What costs were incurred on the cost centers? What are the variances?

The individual tasks:

  • Reports on measures assigned to the cost centers (account assignment objects, internal orders, WBS elements)

  • Cost center reports (statistical key figures; planned costs and quantities, actual costs and quantities, target costs and quantities; prices).

Management: Plant Controlling (Regular Reports)

The regular reports in Cost Object Controlling provide periodic information and comparisons for the costs incurred in the production of a group of products or in a particular plant.

The reports provide answers to questions such as the following:

  • How high were our costs last month? How close were the actual costs to the planned costs?

  • What is the overall cost trend in the current fiscal year?

  • How much scrap was incurred in production?

These reports serve as an overview; unusual variances are highlighted. The user can branch from the report to a detailed analysis for the selected object, even all the way down to individual production orders.