FI / FICOadvanced

FICO Profit Center Accounting Part 3: Real-Time Integration with FI, CO, MM, SD and Assets

Key takeaway

Follow profit centers across processes: procurement and inventory, production, sales and COGS, asset depreciation, allocations and settlements, intercompany and transfer pricing basics — and troubleshoot missing or wrong profit centers in integrated flows.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ MM: inventory and GR/IR lines take the material's plant profit center.
✅ SD: revenue and COGS use the sales item's profit center; receivables via splitting.
✅ Assets: depreciation posts with the asset's cost center profit center.
✅ CO allocations and settlements move costs between profit centers (visible internal flows).
⚠️ Different profit centers on revenue and COGS for the same sale distort margins.

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▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 2 configured derivation. Now integration.

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▶ 1. PROCUREMENT & INVENTORY

Material/plant profit center.

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▶ 2. PRODUCTION

Orders carry profit center from material.

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▶ 3. SALES

Revenue and COGS alignment.

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▶ 4. ASSETS

Depreciation via cost center assignment.

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▶ 5. ALLOCATIONS & TROUBLESHOOTING

Cross-profit center flows; dummy analysis.

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▶ STEP BY STEP

Run procure-to-pay and order-to-cash for one material.
List profit centers per line.
Fix any mismatches.

✅ CHECKPOINT: revenue and COGS on the same profit center.

Code example

ABAP Code

===== FLOW CHECK =====GR: Dr Inventory (PC-material) | Cr GR/IR (PC-material)Goods issue for delivery: Dr COGS (PC-sales item) | Cr Inventory (PC-material)Billing: Cr Revenue (PC-sales item) | Dr Customer (split)Depreciation: Dr expense (PC of cost center) | Cr acc. depreciation (PC via asset) ===== TROUBLESHOOT =====Lines on dummy PC → identify source object → fix master data → repost where needed

Real project scenario

A retail company's store P&Ls showed odd margins; revenue used the store profit center while COGS used the warehouse's. Aligning sales item derivation so both used the store profit center produced correct margins.

Common mistakes

Revenue/COGS mismatch.
Changing material PC with stock.
Ignoring asset profit centers.
Unanalysed dummy lines.
No integrated tests.

Best practices

Align revenue and COGS.
Plan PC changes.
Check asset assignments.
Analyse dummy monthly.
End-to-end tests.

Interview angle

Questions: "How do MM and SD postings get profit centers?", "Why can margins by profit center be wrong?", "How do you handle a profit center change for a material?"
Strong answer: flows per module, alignment, assets, allocations, troubleshooting.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. Where does asset depreciation get its profit center from?

2. A material's profit center must change while stock exists. What is needed?

3. Store margins look wrong because revenue and COGS use different profit centers. What should be aligned?

Interview questions

1. Suppose you inherit an existing Profit Center Accounting solution. How would you review it before making a change?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. Profit center margins look wrong in integrated order-to-cash flows. How do you analyse integration?