This blog post can be considered valid from SAP ERP 6.0 enhancement package 3 to
SAP S/4HANA 2020 On Premise and Private Cloud.
I have already talked in this blog post about the possibility to use Funds management for Budget Availability Control.
In this blog post I want to talk about the possibility to automatically create Funds Management Master data from other Master Data (e.g Cost Centers, Wbs Elements, Cost Elements).
One of the main objections I receive to the implementation of Funds Management is the fact that business users’ work is actually augmented because of the creation of master data. Actually this is true specially if you want to relate funded programs to WBS elements (If you use Project System you may need a big number of WBS elements to monitor your project and if you want the budget availability control to be executed on each Wbe, you may need same number of Funded Programs).
TIP: when possible to represent Wbe I prefer to use Funded Programs instead of Funds cause Funded Program master data field has the same length of WBS element master data, so If I do not need the Funds for other reasons, I use the Funded program.
PERSONAL OPINION: Funds management is part of Public Sector Management solution; therefore it is mainly used for Public Sector Customers. Despite that I have used it in many private customers’ implementations and it works perfectly for their requirements as well. I have never found discrepancies between FM and CO mentioned by oss note 195122.
I am also an SAP Controlling consultant and I know CO contains functionalities to execute the budget availability control (internal order and wbs element availability control is available in ECC and S/4HANA and new cost center budget availability control in S/4HANA).
Despite that when I receive a more complicated requirement that I cannot solve in CO I may want to check whether Funds Management fulfills this requirement.
Classical requirements I usually receive are:
In these examples SAP Controlling does not give you the possibility of fulfilling the requirements so instead of adopting a custom procedure I prefer to use Funds management.
To be honest I have seen customers opting for a custom procedure, but this is highly expensive cause it will probably need a maintenance in near future. Coding block may change by adding new cases for Budget Availability Control and new processes may be implemented, so why not using SAP standard?
PERSONAL OPINION: I believe the reason for that is related to the fact that Funds Management is not well known in the SAP world and this is really a pity.
If you know a bit about Funds Management you may be aware that it is based on the fact of using new Master data (e.g. Funds Centers, Commitment items, Funded Programs, Funds) to execute the budget availability control on postings made on CO objects (Cost Centers , Cost Elements, Orders/Wbe).
So you create these new master data, you put the budget on them (directly or taking it from other sources) and you use powerful Funds management derivation rules to derive these master data (from CO and FI master data) and to check budget on them. In this scenario, for example when a user posts a purchase order or a cost in Finance, Funds management Master Data may be automatically derived from FI/CO master data.
Of course to be used, Funds Management master data must be previously created, and usually if you decide for example to check availability control of your Work Breakdown Structure’s element, you need to create an FM master data for each Wbe.
This may actually require some Business user’s effort and it is usually a big argument against FM.
That’s the reason why I am going to explain how to automatically create master data in FM using standard SAP.
First of all let me say that to allow usage of this functionality it is necessary to activate the business function PSM-F_CI_1. This is valid since SAP Enhancement Package 3 for SAP ERP 6.0 and of course it can be used in S/4HANA.
Of course this has to be done after the activation of Extension set EA-PS that is a prerequisite to general FM usage. If you want more info on how to execute EA-PS activation, please read OSS 2503381
So this is a prerequisite to use the automatic creation of FM master data functionality. If you have problem here you may check OSS note 2371294 (Please pay attention to the note’s pdf attachment to find documentation).
The transaction to create master data is FMMDAUTO.
If you have correctly executed the previous steps the User Menu should appear like this.
And if you execute it you obtain the following screen:
This program automatically creates the following master data:
Of course the program works as per execution but you can schedule it in order to obtain a periodic execution to automatically create the FM master data once the other FI/CO master data are created.
But how does this program work?
I have started from the following cost center
and by executing the creation program with the following selections:
I have obtained, after the program execution, the creation the following funds center
Please be aware that FMDERIVE normal derivation rules should be active for your case. In the example I am mentioning FMDERIVE itself should contain the derivation rule to create a Funds Center From a Cost Center.
Of course the program needs his own derivation rules to understand how to create FM master data and where to take info for mandatory (and if necessary) not mandatory fields. These derivation rules are quite similar to the Funds management Derivation rules to derive Funds Management Master Data in postings. Rules can be reached directly from the programs selection screen by pushing the
button Attribute Derivation
This is an example of derivation rules I have created for Funds Center Fields
with this detail as an example for CC responsible (taking it from the cost center master data)
TIP: The program can be used to create and to update master data so for example if the cost center responsible user is going to change you can also update the funds center responsible user.
TIP: If you are not happy with the derivation rules you can also use BadIs to enhance the possibility to create the FM master data. To do that you may want to prepare and activate the badis and to choose “enhancement” on the program derivation rules.
Badis are in customizing under the following path
In this blog post I have tried to explain how the automatic creation of FM master data could facilitate the adoption of Funds management.
This is part of my direct experience and I am really curious to hear from you.
What do you think about it?
Brought to you by the S/4HANA RIG
Gianluca Taccone
Product Expert
SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group
SAP S/4HANA 2020 On Premise and Private Cloud.
BUSINESS REQUIREMENT
I have already talked in this blog post about the possibility to use Funds management for Budget Availability Control.
In this blog post I want to talk about the possibility to automatically create Funds Management Master data from other Master Data (e.g Cost Centers, Wbs Elements, Cost Elements).
One of the main objections I receive to the implementation of Funds Management is the fact that business users’ work is actually augmented because of the creation of master data. Actually this is true specially if you want to relate funded programs to WBS elements (If you use Project System you may need a big number of WBS elements to monitor your project and if you want the budget availability control to be executed on each Wbe, you may need same number of Funded Programs).
TIP: when possible to represent Wbe I prefer to use Funded Programs instead of Funds cause Funded Program master data field has the same length of WBS element master data, so If I do not need the Funds for other reasons, I use the Funded program.
PERSONAL OPINION: Funds management is part of Public Sector Management solution; therefore it is mainly used for Public Sector Customers. Despite that I have used it in many private customers’ implementations and it works perfectly for their requirements as well. I have never found discrepancies between FM and CO mentioned by oss note 195122.
I am also an SAP Controlling consultant and I know CO contains functionalities to execute the budget availability control (internal order and wbs element availability control is available in ECC and S/4HANA and new cost center budget availability control in S/4HANA).
Despite that when I receive a more complicated requirement that I cannot solve in CO I may want to check whether Funds Management fulfills this requirement.
Classical requirements I usually receive are:
- I would like to control my expenses towards opex and capex budget independently on the controlling object, so I want to check my budget globally independently on the posting regarding Cost Centers, Orders or Wbs Elements.
- My budget belongs to departments and they are responsible to post their expenses in different objects (Cost Centers, Activities, Projects).
- I would like to check my expense budget by cost element and on the general project level (level1) not wbe by wbe.
In these examples SAP Controlling does not give you the possibility of fulfilling the requirements so instead of adopting a custom procedure I prefer to use Funds management.
To be honest I have seen customers opting for a custom procedure, but this is highly expensive cause it will probably need a maintenance in near future. Coding block may change by adding new cases for Budget Availability Control and new processes may be implemented, so why not using SAP standard?
PERSONAL OPINION: I believe the reason for that is related to the fact that Funds Management is not well known in the SAP world and this is really a pity.
If you know a bit about Funds Management you may be aware that it is based on the fact of using new Master data (e.g. Funds Centers, Commitment items, Funded Programs, Funds) to execute the budget availability control on postings made on CO objects (Cost Centers , Cost Elements, Orders/Wbe).
So you create these new master data, you put the budget on them (directly or taking it from other sources) and you use powerful Funds management derivation rules to derive these master data (from CO and FI master data) and to check budget on them. In this scenario, for example when a user posts a purchase order or a cost in Finance, Funds management Master Data may be automatically derived from FI/CO master data.
Of course to be used, Funds Management master data must be previously created, and usually if you decide for example to check availability control of your Work Breakdown Structure’s element, you need to create an FM master data for each Wbe.
This may actually require some Business user’s effort and it is usually a big argument against FM.
That’s the reason why I am going to explain how to automatically create master data in FM using standard SAP.
BUSINESS FUNCTION ACTIVATION
First of all let me say that to allow usage of this functionality it is necessary to activate the business function PSM-F_CI_1. This is valid since SAP Enhancement Package 3 for SAP ERP 6.0 and of course it can be used in S/4HANA.
Of course this has to be done after the activation of Extension set EA-PS that is a prerequisite to general FM usage. If you want more info on how to execute EA-PS activation, please read OSS 2503381
So this is a prerequisite to use the automatic creation of FM master data functionality. If you have problem here you may check OSS note 2371294 (Please pay attention to the note’s pdf attachment to find documentation).
PROGRAM FOR AUTOMATIC CREATION OF MASTER DATA
The transaction to create master data is FMMDAUTO.
If you have correctly executed the previous steps the User Menu should appear like this.
And if you execute it you obtain the following screen:
This program automatically creates the following master data:
- Funds Centers from Cost Centers or Internal Orders
- Commitment Item from G/L Account or cost elements (if you are in ECC)
- Funded Program from Internal Orders or Wbs Element
Of course the program works as per execution but you can schedule it in order to obtain a periodic execution to automatically create the FM master data once the other FI/CO master data are created.
But how does this program work?
EXAMPLE: To give you an example on how the program works,
I have started from the following cost center
and by executing the creation program with the following selections:
I have obtained, after the program execution, the creation the following funds center
DERIVATION RULES
Please be aware that FMDERIVE normal derivation rules should be active for your case. In the example I am mentioning FMDERIVE itself should contain the derivation rule to create a Funds Center From a Cost Center.
Of course the program needs his own derivation rules to understand how to create FM master data and where to take info for mandatory (and if necessary) not mandatory fields. These derivation rules are quite similar to the Funds management Derivation rules to derive Funds Management Master Data in postings. Rules can be reached directly from the programs selection screen by pushing the
button Attribute Derivation
This is an example of derivation rules I have created for Funds Center Fields
with this detail as an example for CC responsible (taking it from the cost center master data)
TIP: The program can be used to create and to update master data so for example if the cost center responsible user is going to change you can also update the funds center responsible user.
TIP: If you are not happy with the derivation rules you can also use BadIs to enhance the possibility to create the FM master data. To do that you may want to prepare and activate the badis and to choose “enhancement” on the program derivation rules.
Badis are in customizing under the following path
CONCLUSIONS
In this blog post I have tried to explain how the automatic creation of FM master data could facilitate the adoption of Funds management.
This is part of my direct experience and I am really curious to hear from you.
What do you think about it?
Brought to you by the S/4HANA RIG
Gianluca Taccone
Product Expert
SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group
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