Management Accounting in SAP S/4HANA: Overview

Keep this: job aid

Controlling orientation card

• Financial accounting reports externally; management accounting informs internal decisions.
• Cost center = responsibility; internal order = job; production order = product batch; market segment = margin; profit center = business area.
• Primary costs come from outside; secondary costs move costs between objects without changing the total.
• Cost flow: primary posting, cost center, allocations, production orders and variances, billing and margin analysis.
• One real posting per line; profit center derived statistically.
• Costs are never allocated outside the controlling area; all company codes in it share the operational chart of accounts.
• Three currencies: controlling area, object, transaction.
• Cost elements are G/L accounts; ACDOCA holds actuals, ACDOCP holds plan.
• G/L and cost center reports for the same selection must agree; differences are errors, not reconciliation items.
• Old CO tables (COSP, COSS, COEP actuals) are compatibility views on ACDOCA: reads work, writes do not.