SAP S/4HANA Cloud object dedicated to margin analysis (controlling)

[Former Member]

Hi,

I am Nicolas Bismuth, project director for a new S/4H Cloud implementation in the logistic industry.

The project team does not have any certainty of the S/4H Cloud process to track the margin of a contract.

We can see that two controlling SAP objects are available in SAP S/4H Cloud (the classic "WBS" and the "customer project") but we did not really understand what SAP wants to put forward to meet this type of need.

Does SAP recommend the use of the "Customer project" to follow margin for the type of contracts that we follow in logistic industry?

If not, what does SAP recommend to track margin in S/4H Cloud?

Thank you for your help!

Best regards

Nicolas Bismuth

[g_gregory · Accepted solution]

Customer Project is probably the most appropriate. The WBS (or Project Financial Control) has limitations on billing elements which may not suit. However, I'm intrigued by your comment ccsmith , how would you see the universal journal working with multiple projects for 1 customer?

[former_member94298 · Accepted solution]

I am thinking a bit along the lines that in the same way as you have multiple sales orders for a customer in a 'sale from stock' scenario, and you then do a lot of the analysis of margin at a customer level against the finance line items via COPA, could you not do similar - and just pull through the detail into ACDOCA for reporting. If additional fields are required for drawing together different WBS elements, you always have the option to add fields to the coding block via extensibility.

(caveat - I haven't used WBS in S4HC for a good few releases - so such an approach might need a bit more in depth thought - but may be a useful start?)

[former_member94298]

Can you not also do this sort of analysis via the universal journal - so potentially using attributes such as customer (or an extension in the coding block)as the basis for margin reporting, rather than using a more traditional approach of capturing everything against a cost object. This is one of the most powerful features of S/4 to me. There are a few gaps in the logic currently delivered - but depending on how detailed your margin analysis needs to be, this is certainly an approach I would consider instead.