You Can Now Do Realignments in Account-Based CO-PA with SAP S/4HANA 1610
by Ajay Maheshwari, SAP FI/CO and SAP S4/HANA Solution Architect
July 5, 2017
Learn how you can do realignment of Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) data in SAP S/4HANA 1610. Realignment of CO-PA characteristics in account-based CO-PA was not available in SAP S/4HANA due to a change in database structures. The feature is now available for use.
Learning Objectives
Reading this article, you will learn:
- How to carry out the Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) realignments in SAP S/4HANA 1610
- What conditions must be fulfilled to perform the realignments
- How the tables are updated in the process and what new tables were introduced for this purpose
- What needs to be done to make this functionality available in releases earlier than SAP S/4HANA 1610
Key Concept
As part of the unified data model and real-time integration between General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL) and Controlling (CO), SAP S/4HANA offers a new database table, ACDOCA, which unifies Financial Accounting (FI) and CO.
In SAP S/4HANA, Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) information is now stored in table ACDOCA, where account-based CO-PA is active. So any realignment of CO-PA data means that the information must be changed or updated in table ACDOCA. The existing CO-PA realignment functionality in SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) 6.0 could only update the profitability segment definition in table CE4XXXX (where XXXX = name of the operating concern).
Before dwelling on the topic, let’s briefly recap (with an example) what the realignment does.
Consider this simple scenario. Customer master 1001 is currently assigned to customer group 01. Transactional data, such as customer invoices, has been posted into CO-PA for this customer, where customer group 01 has been populated.
For certain operational reasons, the customer has been internally reassigned to a different customer group 02. The management wants to realign the historical information to the new customer group (i.e., it wants all the historical CO-PA data to be reported under the new customer group 02).
In such cases, the CO-PA realignment functionality helps to adjust the historical CO-PA data to the new customer group 02, by adjusting the profitability segment definition in table CE4XXXX.
What Are Other Use Cases for CO-PA Realignments?
CO-PA realignments can be used in any of the following cases, in addition to the one explained above:
- A new characteristic has been added to the operating concern and you wish to include this new characteristic in the profitability segment definition
- Master data was created with incomplete information─for example, a customer master created without a sales office in it
- Master data was created with incorrect information─for example, a customer master created with sales office 1000 instead of 1010
- A derivation rule in CO-PA was not created, resulting in the characteristic values not being updated in a characteristic
- A derivation rule in CO-PA is subsequently modified
SAP S/4HANA 1610 supports all the use cases mentioned above—for both costing- and account-based CO-PA.
Realignments with costing-based CO-PA work just about the same way as earlier, as costing-based CO-PA has remained untouched in SAP S/4HANA. This feature has been brought forward as is from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA.
Companies that are on SAP S/4HANA Finance 1605 can get their hands on the realignment functionality by implementing SAP Notes 2344759 and 2350123.