Settlement to CO-PA

What can you settle in CO-PA? Although there are no limits here, this segment will restrict to four
options from different modules:

1. SETTLEMENT of internal orders: You can use internal orders to check the costs of internal
activities, such as development costs, costs of promotional events, etc. You post and collect these
costs on internal orders to then settle them to profitability segments after closing. As we will see in
the next section, in your settlement profile, define PSG (for profitability segment) as the account
assignment proposal and specify exactly to which characteristics, settlement is to take place.

2. You can also settle costs and revenues collected on a project to CO-PA from the module PS
(Project System).

3. Companies that act as make-to-order manufacturers use an SD sales order as a collector for
revenues and costs in order to settle the order to CO-PA after delivery and invoicing.

4. A fourth option is that you can settle production orders and product cost collectors to CO-PA
profitability segments from PP using production cost collectors. In these cases, you are usually
using variance determination in cost object controlling. You can settle production variances for
completed orders or transfer deviations from long-running production orders to CO-PA. You can
then display these items separately according to individual variance categories.

We have now illustrated four settlement methods from CO, PS, SD, and PP to CO-PA — showing
also that in CO-PA, the data from many different SAP modules is merged.

Which settlement method do we want to select for our example? For the marketing costs, we will
use internal orders that we then settle to CO-PA.

Customizing the Settlement to CO-PA for Our Example In the configuration menu for CO-PA
(ORKE), set up a Profitability Analysis (PA) transfer structure. The path is shown in Figure below.
A PA transfer structure is used to settle orders. You can make any number of PA transfer structure
assignments as required. These assignments assign cost or revenue elements to CO-PA value
fields. In the example, we have created a PA transfer structure 10 with assignment 10 (see below
figure)

In the PA transfer structure assignment, you first define a source, that is, you define which cost
elements you want to assign to CO-PA in this settlement step (see Figure below). In this example,
we only want to settle expense account 478000. In our chart of accounts this account contains the
marketing expenses. As, in this case, the account is a primary account, G/ L account 478000 must
also be created as a cost element with cost element type 1 (primary costs).

In a second step, we assign a further CO-PA value field VV380 to PA transfer structure 10. The
marketing costs are to be settled to this value field (Figure below).
You then assign the PA transfer structure to a settlement profile (see Figure below).

PA transfer structure 10 is assigned to settlement profile Z1 in our example. In this settlement

profile, you have defined that you want to settle to profitability segments and that when you create
a settlement rule, a profitability segment is proposed as settlement receiver. The marketing orders
are created in the module CO-OM-OPA as internal orders for order type Z400.
For orders, a settlement profile is transferred from the order type to the settlement rule. The internal
order type for our internal orders is created with Z400 (Figure below).
Every internal order created contains a settlement rule; you create these from the maintenance of
the master data via the SETTLEMENT RULE button (see Figure below). We have created the
orders 400217, 400218, and 400219 for our example.
 Internal order 400217 with settlement rule

The settlement rule also defines the characteristics that are specified with this settlement to CO-
PA (see Figure below).

For the posting to cost element 478000 (Marketing and sales costs), the internal orders
created also receive the account assignment. This is visible in the reports for internal
order accounting (see Figure below).
 Costs visible in CO-OM-OPA

In the settlement rules for the internal orders, account assignment is given for three
products:
 Marketing costs of EUR 10,000 for product A1 (order 400217)
 Marketing costs of EUR 50,000 for product A5 (order 400218)
 Marketing costs of EUR 30,000 for product A3 (order 400219)
At period-end closing, these internal orders are settled to CO-PA via transaction
KO88 (see Figure 5.17).
 Example selection screen for KO88

You can see the results of the settlement in CO-PA reports or in the actual CO-PA
line items (see Figure below).

Settled marketing costs in CO-PA

In the settlement rule of an internal order, the account assignment was to products
and their derivation, that is, the marketing costs are not visible on customer
characteristics but are visible on all product characteristics (see Figure below)

DRILLDOWN from kind of product to product for marketing costs

Naturally, these costs are also visible in an overall contribution margin accounting
(see Figure below).
Actual contribution margin accounting with marketing costs