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5 Steps to Understanding Product Costing- Part 1 Cost Center Planning

Product Costing, part of the Controlling module, is used to value the internal cost of materials and production for profitability and management accounting. Product Costing is a niche skill. Due to costing’s high integration with other modules, many people avoid it due to the complexity. This 5 part blog will seek to simplify Product Costing.

The first step in understanding the basics of product costing is Cost Center Planning. The goal of cost center planning is to plan total dollars and quantities in each Cost Center in a Plant.

Prerequisites:
  • Organizational Structure is configured:
    • Company Codes
    • Plants
  • Master data is created
    • Profit Centers
    • Cost Centers
    • Primary and Secondary Cost Elements
    • Activity Types

Overview:

Cost Center dollars are planned by Activity Type and Cost Element in Transaction KP06. Variable and fixed dollar amounts can be entered. You can plan all costs in production cost centers where they will end up through allocations, or you can plan costs where they are incurred and use plan assessments and distributions to allocate. Cost Center activity quantities are planned in by Activity Type in Transaction KP26. You can also manually enter an activity rate based on last year’s actual values. Note that if you enter an activity rate instead of using the system to calculate a rate, you lose the opportunity to review actual vs. plan and see dollar and unit variances. It is a best practice to plan activity quantities based on practical installed capacity which accounts for downtime. If you plan at full capacity, plan activity rates will be underestimated.

Relatable Example:Let’s say we are using Product Costing to value our inventory in a cookie baking shop. This will help us value our cookies (finished good), frosting (semi-finished good), and baking items like eggs, milk, and sugar (raw materials). In order to calculate costs, we need to come up with rates for each activity, such as mixing baking items, oven baking, and cookie cooling. Since a rate is a dollar per unit, we can either come up with a rate based on previous year’s actual rates, or enter our total costs and total units.

Further information:

  • You can customize layouts and user profiles to your needs.
  • You can activate integrated Excel planning to see a spreadsheet instead of a fixed format.
  • You can also configure the system to upload Excel files instead of typing in values.

In the next blog, I will explain how activity rates are calculated based on the plan Cost Center dollars and quantities. If rates are manually entered, activity rates do not need to be calculated, but there is a valuable report to review them prior to proceeding.

Continuing Reading Part 2 on Activity Rate Calculation:

http://scn.sap.com/community/erp/financials/controlling/blog/2013/01/02/5-steps-to-understanding-product-costing-part-2-activity-rate-calculation

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      28 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good one...

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Very good blog.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

           Thank you for reading Fernando!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks Tanya for breaking the fortress around Product Costing..

      Author's profile photo Nishan Dev Singh
      Nishan Dev Singh

      Very nicely written, Excellent Tanya.

      Best Luck,

      Nishan Dev

      Author's profile photo Hrusikesh Dalai
      Hrusikesh Dalai

      This is an incredible and simplified resource

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      It made my life easier! Thanks a ton for such a simple article!

      Regards

      Sudha

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      I'm glad it was useful Sudha!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Very Nice Information on SAP Product Costing Madam.  Its Simple but Excellent Information.

      Mahammad Rafi

      Sap FICO Consultant

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Easy to understand and thank you for sharing.............

      Vijay.........

      Author's profile photo Pritam Gadkari
      Pritam Gadkari

      Hi Tanya,

      It is a great document to start with....I would request you to have such documents on Material Ledger / Actual costing and Month End Process....for same

      Author's profile photo narin kamuni
      narin kamuni

      It is wonderful blog to understand product costing...

      Thanks Tanya for all your efforts to keep the things simple and stright....

      Regards,

      Narin Kamuni

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tanya,

      Helpful...

      Regards,

      Thanks

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Tanya

      Very useful document

      Warm Regards,

      Satendra Singh Sikarwar

      Author's profile photo Muhammad Hussain
      Muhammad Hussain

      Very good blog!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Very Good Blog Tanya.... 🙂

      Regards,

      M.Balaji.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tanya,

      Thanks for your five star contribution to CO,

      Devendra

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you very much Devendra!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Very Helpful.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tanya,

      very useful document.

      Looking forward to read others.
      Regards,
      Enrico

      Author's profile photo Mahmoud Elnady
      Mahmoud Elnady

      Nice Document.. very helpful

      Author's profile photo CA Zunaid Hingora
      CA Zunaid Hingora

      Hi Tanya,

      Very good document. I was very new to product costing and  this note have given me complete overview of product costing.

      In your note above you have mentioned 'Note that only the first production version will be used in costing.' Except this i understood everything. If any one can throw light on this.

      Thanks so much Tanya once again.

      Author's profile photo Ayaz Mahmood        
      Ayaz Mahmood        

      very helpful Document for basic understading..

      Author's profile photo Navya K M
      Navya K M

      Hi,


      Very Nice Information on SAP Product Costing Madam.Easy to understand and thank you for sharing.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      HI

      Very useful...

      Author's profile photo Manuel Robalinho
      Manuel Robalinho

      Very good.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Easy to understand...Good job Tanya