6 pitfalls to avoid when configuring costing variants with SAP product cost planning functionality
This tip is taken from the session “Guidelines for Configuring Costing Variant Functionality to More Accurately Plan Costs for Configurable Products” presented by Johannes Le Roux, Vice President/Partner, Vortex Software Consulting, at the Financials 2010 conference in Orlando.
This tip highlights key steps and pitfalls to avoid when configuring costing variant functionality in the SAP controlling module.
1. Use the SAP variant configuration system. Doing variant configuration outside SAP causes issue with:
- Integration
- Change management
- Costing error due to incomplete structure
2. With sales order costing vs. without sales order costing:
- Make sure you know what process works for you
- When doing mass processing of configured products,
use without sales order costing setting
3. When selecting your consultants, make sure that they know the process and configuration for correct costing.
- Lack of experience can lead to bad process design
- Lots of manual processing
4. Make sure that when ETO is done you use the Project system.
- Companies using production orders cannot flow all
costs related to a product to a customer - All steps in cost and engineering process are manual
- No variance can be assigned to product
5. When selecting automatic costing with sales order using Variant Configuration (VC), a large bill of material with multiple levels can cause performance issues
- Sales order will take a long time to save
- Use CK55 to cost sales order if you have large complex BOMs
6. When running CK55:
- Make sure to create cost order before creating production order
- Monitor jobs and correct error as soon as possible
- Can cause delay in production and purchasing
- Can cause incorrect cost if not marked before executing production order
Find out how you can take advantage of additional SAP Financials education at the upcoming Financials 2010 event in Barcelona, 10-12 November 2010, or Financials 2011 US conference in Las Vegas.
