Effective project controlling in SAP
Preliminary calculation in SAP
Offer or preliminary calculation for a customer project in mechanical and plant engineering is a complex process which takes a lot of know-how and experience. The SAP ERP system is frequently not used for this because the SAP product calculation requires a quantity structure which does not exist at the time of offer preparation. In light of the high level of effort for the generation of offers and the low hit rate, the offer process generally takes place outside SAP. The calculation is done either by human experts or expert systems. SAP is only used once the contract has been won.
Benefits of preliminary calculation in the SAP system
For effective project controlling, however, availability of the detailed preliminary calculation in the ERP system is essential. On the one hand, everyone involved in the project needs to know “their” budget if they should take responsibility for it. On the other hand, no detailed target/actual comparison is possible without a detailed preliminary calculation.
Acquisition of your data from various upstream systems
We build solutions in order to automatically acquire preliminary calculation data from various upstream systems (from Excel through to expert systems) in SAP ERP and/or SAP Business Warehouse and thus make it usable for project controlling. We also show you how to handle amendments, claims and additions such that you always have full transparency and use the right yardstick for measuring the success of the project.
Concurrent calculation in SAP BW
A concurrent calculation is essential for complex, long-term customer projects in mechanical and plant engineering. Depending on the risk classification of the project, project controlling must regularly generate an up-to-date estimate of the expected project costs in order to identify risks in good time and maintain a compliant balance sheet for the project. Since the task is difficult enough, you should provide your project controlling with an effective tool for concurrent calculation.
The PIKON solution
PIKON offers solutions on the basis of SAP Business Warehouse. There, the person responsible for concurrent calculation is presented with all relevant project data in a clear form and can record the missing costs in an Excel-based tool. Convenience functions such as copying, projection or automatic distribution of planning data on the time axis are possible. The concurrent calculation recorded is automatically written back into the ERP system and historically recorded in Business Warehouse so that the individual planning states can be accessed again at any time. Our solutions can be implemented in both SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA and with BW/4HANA.
Standardisation
Cross project controlling?
How do you compare customer projects which are, by definition, unique? When the solution created within the context of a customer project is unique, has never been built before and will never be built again, then cross-project controlling seems impossible. But that is not the case because at least the project structure plan can be standardised.
Best practice project structure
We have developed a best practice project structure which initially defines a project along its financial life cycle and then divides it along a component structure. In addition, we use SAP Customizing and additional developments to automatically generate a project structure and automatically configure it based on the offer structure and/or technical parameters as required. This saves a significant amount of time and prevents errors in data entry.
Claim Management in SAP
When complex customer projects are implemented in mechanical and plant engineering, professional claim management is essential. If the customer submits change request or does not (fully) fulfil their obligation to cooperate, then this and its effects on deadlines and costs must be cleanly documented and claims must be submitted where applicable.
SAP claims and reports as a flexible tool
From experience, this is often done in an unstructured manner and outside the SAP system. Here, SAP offers a high-performance and flexible tool for just this purpose with claims and reports. We show you how you can use SAP to create both customer and supplier claims, outgoing and incoming claims, track them using a workflow and assess them with suitable reporting.
Automatic transfer price calculation in SAP PS
Internal transfer prices
Internal transfer prices are a tried and tested means of managing profit centres within legal entities. In mechanical and plant engineering too, transfer prices are used in order to manage production and sales or product and project business separately, for example.
PIKON solution for automation
The calculation and entry of transfer prices appears laborious, which is why many customers shy away from effective solutions. This is where our automation solutions come in: we can calculate transfer prices in SAP or acquire them from upstream systems and automatically enter them. We also make the necessary settings in profit centre accounting for you.
Article
Parallelität von Projekt- und Produktgeschäft (only available in German)
- Differences between project and product business
- Challenges for controlling
- Practical approaches
By Jörg Hofmann, published in Controller Magazin July/August 2018
Accounting project valuation in SAP PS
Complex project valuation
Our customers in mechanical and plant engineering have highly automated and modernised their production to some extent. It is all the more surprising that, at the same time, project accounting is still done manually and in Excel. This is a complex process because the realisation of revenues in customer projects is not trivial, for example, especially when accounting must be done in parallel in accordance with local regulations and IFRS. The formation, addition, use and triggering of project reserves for anticipated losses, contractual penalties or missing cost is complex and time-consuming and is often only done during the course of the annual accounts.
Automation using SAP
Here, SAP offers a powerful tool in performance calculation which automatically carries out all of these steps on a monthly basis and, where necessary, in parallel in accordance with multiple accounting principles. We show your sceptical accounting department why SAP is superior to Excel, document the concept and coordinate it with your auditor.
PIKON add-on
And if the SAP standard is not sufficient on its own, then we add to it: our solution allows for automatic entry of project reserves with transfer posting so that you can generate a statement of changes in provisions in SAP.
Project reporting in SAP BW
For effective project controlling, you need reports tailored to the target audience. Data from numerous SAP objects (projects, customer orders, production orders, service orders, claims, equipment) and from numerous modules (FI, CE, SD, PS, CS) often need to be combined for this. Business Warehouse is perfect for this. We have put together best practices, such as data models and reports for project controlling in SAP BW, for you.
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