calculated costs

The costs calculated for a sales order by results analysis using a base for the order's progress toward completion.

For example, if this base is revenue, the calculated costs are the actual costs multiplied by the planned revenue and divided by the planned costs.

If this base is the quantity produced, the calculated costs are the actual quantity multiplied by the planned costs per quantity unit.

The methods described above for determining the calculated costs are used as a basis for the realization of profit on orders whose planned revenue is greater than their planned cost. If the calculated costs are determined without profit realization, the calculated costs are always equal to the actual revenue. This is because without profit realization, the ratio of planned revenue to planned costs is assumed to be 1.

Results analysis compares the calculated costs with the actual costs, and calculates either of the following:

• Revenue in excess of billings (actual costs greater than calculated costs)
• Reserves for unrealized costs (actual costs less than calculated costs)

calculated revenue

The revenue corresponding to the actual costs incurred for an order and calculated by results analysis.

It is calculated by multiplying the actual costs by the planned revenue and dividing by the planned costs.

calculation base

A group of cost elements to which overhead is to be applied.

In Customizing, you assign single cost elements or a range of cost elements, or single origins or a range of origins, to the calculation bases.

calculation method

A part of the depreciation key.

The calculation methods are used to set the parameters of the depreciation calculation program. There are the following calculation methods at present:

• Base methods
• Declining-balance methods
• Maximum amount methods
• Multi-level methods
• Period control methods

All calculation methods are chart of depreciation dependent, except for base methods.

calculation procedure for tax on sales and purchases

The rules on how to calculate tax on sales and purchases.

They encompass several levels, determineing the partial amounts that are to be calculated for each individual type of tax on sales and purchases, and define the sequence of these levels.

calculation type

A rule that specifies if the condition rate is defined as an absolute amount, as an amount referring to a quantity, weight or volume, or as a percentage value, for conditions in pricing.

calendar for invoice dates

A calendar that determines the dates on which to invoice the customer.

If the customer requests a collective invoice, for example, you can define the invoice dates in a calendar in the system. During billing the system proposes the corresponding date from the calendar.

callup point

A specific place in an R/3 application component (FI, MM, CO) that specifies the exact location where a validation or substitution occurs.

A callup point is identified by a four-digit number and an application area.

cancellation document

A sales document created to cancel a billing document.

Data from the billing document is copied to this document. The system transfers an offsetting posting to accounting.

cancellation procedure

A set of rules used for determining a cancellation date.

A number of cancellation rules are assigned to the set.

In CRM, you can also determine which canceling party can use each of these rules.

CAP goods classification

The official External Trade (ET) rules classification of EC market-regulated goods.

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) goods are classified in the UK using an ET leaflet number such as ET3 for sugar, ET7 for poultry, ET16 for fish. An ET leaflet with the corresponding number describes the official rules for claiming refunds (restitution) for the CAP goods described in the leaflet.

CAP products

Goods for which you can apply for restitution when the goods are exported outside of the customs territory of the European Community.

capacity

A reflection of the output of a cost center and activity that is technically possible during a specific period.

capital allowance

A form of tax depreciation used, for example, in Singapore.

capital invested in group equity

A share of the investment book value of an investor corresponding to its group share.

The calculation of capital invested in group equity is a characteristic of simultaneous consolidation and is a prerequisite for the correct determination of minority ownership.

capital investment order

A tool used to monitor internal tasks whose costs are to be settled to a fixed asset account.

You can perform preliminary costing on capital investment orders, make postings to them, and settle them to assets under construction. On completion of the task, the order is settled to one or more assets.

capital lease method

The capitalization of a leased asset in the amount of the present value of the future lease payments.

When you use this procedure, the leased asset must be shown in the balance sheet of the lessee, not the lessor. The periodic lease payments are not shown in the profit and loss statement of the lessee. Instead, periodic depreciation from the present value of the asset, including the interest resulting from the determination of the present value, is posted to profit and loss.

capital stock

The capital stock of a company that is registered with a country's authorities.

capitalization

A posting procedure used to enter values as belonging to fixed assets.

capitalization method

A method that specifies the basis for valuation used for the capitalization of a fixed asset.

For newly acquired assets, the typical basis for valuation is the acquisition and production costs.

capitalization of an asset under construction

An accounting procedure that is required when an asset produced in-house is completed.

The acquisition and production costs that were collected on the asset under construction are transferred to another asset. From the perspective of the balance sheet, this transfer corresponds to a transfer between the balance sheet item for assets under construction and another balance sheet item (such as, machinery).

In the SAP System, this transfer can either be a simple, summary transfer, or a line item settlement.

capitalization rule

The rule that determines the items of property that belong to fixed assets, and those that do not.

capitalized costs

The difference between the actual costs and the calculated costs for an order, calculated using results analysis.

Capitalized costs are calculated if the actual costs exceed the calculated costs.

With deficit orders, this figure is reduced to allow for the loss realized.

capitalized profit

The difference between the inventory from which revenue can be generated and the capitalized costs.

The capitalized profit is calculated using results analysis.

card verification value

Three or four digits, printed to the right of the credit card account number in the signature panel of a credit card.

This value, contained in the magnetic strip on the back of the card, is a security feature ensuring that the customer has a card and a card account. The card verification value, the account number, and the expiration date form an algorithm during the authorization process. If part of this algorithm is missing or incorrect, the authorization is declined.

cardholder

The person using the card provided by the issuing bank to purchase goods and services.

carnet ATA

A customs document used for importing commercial samples and professional equipment that are temporarily duty free.

The Admission Temporaire or Temporary Admission (ATA) Carnet guarantees that duties and excise taxes will be paid if the items on the document remain the country over a year.

carnet TIR

A document that allows passage of foreign merchandise through a customs territory.

carriage and insurance paid to

An international commercial term under which the seller's (exporter's) price includes cost, insurance, and freight paid to an inland city.

This is the same as carriage paid to, but the seller must contract for insurance and pay the insurance premium.

The carriage and insurance paid to (CIP) term also requires the seller to clear the goods for export. The CIP term can be used for any mode of transport including multimodal transport.

carriage paid to

An international commercial term under which the seller (exporter) pays the freight for the carriage of the goods to a named inland point beyond the ocean port.

The risk of loss of, or damage to the goods, and costs after the goods have been delivered to the carrier is transferred from the seller to the buyer when the goods have been delivered to the first carrier.

The carriage paid to (CPT) term requires the seller to clear the goods for export. CPT may be used for any mode of transport including multimodal transport.

CAS number

A number that identifies specific pharmaceutical products worldwide.

A product with this number is exempt from customs duties.

cash concentration

A process under which balances from different bank accounts are transferred to one header account, but without reducing the balance of any given account below a certain minimum.

The target account then contains a cash management closing balance that can be used for various financial investments.

cash discount

A discount granted for those payments made within a certain period of time.

cash discount base amount

A portion of the invoice amount for which cash discount is granted.

cash discount terms

The subtraction of a certain amount (typically expressed as a percentage of the total amount) as cash discount when making payment within a specified period.

In the SAP System, you can define terms of payment containing up to three different cash discount terms - for example 3% cash discount for payment within 14 days, 2% for payment between 14 and 20 days, and due net between 20 and 30 days.

cash journal

A double-entry compact journal managed in account form that records the postings for cash transactions.

By setting the cash balance at the beginning of the day, the cash journal shows the cash balance at any time by adding the cash receipts and deducting the cash expenses. The cash journal also serves as a basis for entries in the general ledger and thereby represents the "Cash" G/L account.

cash journal business transaction

A business transaction in the cash journal.

A business transaction summarizes accounting-specific information such as account type, tax code, and transaction type under a concise name.

There are the following business transaction types in the cash journal:

Expense

Revenue

Cash transfer - Cash journal to bank

Cash transfer - Bank to cash journal

Customers - Incoming payment or outgoing payment

Vendors - Outgoing payment or incoming payment

cash journal document

A statement of changes to cash journal values (based on business transactions) within a company code.

Cash journal documents contain information about a business transaction, such as the amount, business transaction type, account assignment, and receipt recipient. Within Financial Accounting, the cash journal document represents the original document for cash journal postings. As a result of the transfer of this information to the general ledger, an accounting document is generated as a follow-on document.

cash journal document

A statement of cash journal value changes (caused by business transactions) for one company code.

A cash journal document contains information on a business transaction in a cash journal (for example,

amount, business transaction type, account assignment, receipt recipient) and is the original document for cash journal postings within accounting. An accounting document is compiled as a follow-on document when data is transferred to G/L accounting.

cash journal posting

The cash journal postings update value changes in liquid funds in the cash account.

A cash journal document is created. Cash journal postings consist of the following steps:

1. Posting in the cash journal -

The posting is saved locally in the cash journal.

2. Transfer to the Financial Accounting general ledger -

A cash document saved in the cash journal is latertransferred to the cash account in the general ledger. An accounting document is created as a follow-on document.

cash management and forecast

The short-term and medium-term access to liquid or near-liquid financial resources.

cash management position

The cash management position shows the short-term activity in your bank accounts.

This display draws data from:

• FI postings to G/L accounts that are relevant to Cash Management
• Memo records (payment advice notes) entered for planning purposes

cash security deposit

The amount of money a utility company requires from customers with poor credit standing or expected bad payment behavior before services are provided.

There are several ways in which cash security deposits can be paid back.

cashed checks

A procedure whereby the bank reports the payment of checks.

To do this, the bank creates a data medium with which the necessary postings can be generated by the SAP System.

category

The areas to which material ledger data belong.

The following material ledger categories exist:

• Beginning Inventory
• Receipts
• Cumulative Inventory
• Consumption
• Ending Inventory

cell

A tool used to perform calculations within a report.

Cells pinpoint a particular location or range within the column- and row matrix of a report.

Symbolic names defined in the set header or a set line (or both) are used to define the row and column coordinate of a cell.

central planning

The capability of planning cost elements defined on cost centers by a central administrative unit.

Example

Costs for occupational accident insurance are planned centrally for the entire company.

central sales tax number

A tax number, in India, assigned by the authorities to legal persons for transactions involving central sales tax.

central value-added tax

A procedure whereby businesses (for example, in India) can offset excise duty on inputs against excise duty on outputs, similar to value-added tax in other countries.

centrally agreed contract

A contract negotiated by a purchasing organization for an entire corporate group (represented by a "client" in the SAP system).

Such corporate contracts enable more favorable conditions to be obtained (through bulk buying) than if individual organizational units within the group enter separate contracts.

A centrally agreed contract is involved if:

• One single purchasing organization procures for an entire corporate group.
• A reference purchasing organization makes a contract available to other purchasing organizations linked to it, so that the latter can issue release orders against that contract.

certificate of exportation

A stamp printed on export papers by the customs office of goods departure during goods export.

It certifies the date a merchandise actually left the EU customs area.

certificate of origin

A formal declaration, from a certified office in the country of origin, stating the name of the country in which goods have been manufactured including information on the identity of the goods.

certificate of origin

A formal declaration stating the name of the country in which imported goods have been manufactured, and identifying the goods.

cess

In India, a tax on the manufacture of certain products, mostly foodstuffs.

chain liability

Responsibility of the main contractor to pay the income tax and social security contributions that their sub-contractor fails to pay.

change in indirect investment

A change in the group share in a company, without a change in direct investments in the company.

This is possible only in multi-level groups.

Indirect investment in a company changes if the group share in an immediate parent company changes because of step acquisitions or transfers on a hierarchy level above.

change of method

A change of the consolidation method used for a company from one statement closing to the next.

The need for changing the method often arises when a company buys or sells shares of another company.

Typically, a change occurs from the equity method or proportional consolidation method to the purchase method, or vice versa. There can be changes from the valuation at cost of the investment to either the equity method or purchase method, or vice versa.

change of stratum

The transfer of a stock management unit from one stratum to another or from the sampling area to the complete-count area due to a change in the stock value.

changes in balance sheet from local to consolidated values

A worksheet that shows item values after various consolidation steps.

For example, changes as a result of:

• Local valuation of individual financial statements
• Standardizing entries to corporate valuation of individual financial statements
• Eliminating subgroup-consolidating entries to the final group valuation (consolidated values)

changes in balance sheet values

A worksheet that shows item values after various consolidation steps.

For example changes as a result of:

• Local valuation of individual financial statements
• Standardizing entries to corporate valuation of individual financial statements
• Eliminating subgroup-consolidating entries to the final group valuation (consolidated values).

changes in investee equity

A historical record of the equity of companies in a subgroup, organized by financial statement item.

changes in investments

A historical record of the investments of immediate parent companies in other companies in the subgroup.

characteristic

The characteristics in Profitability Analysis represent those criteria according to which you analyze your operating results and your sales and profit plan.

Valid values of these characteristics are combined to form profitability segments. You can use concepts within the SAP System, such as "Customer" and "Sales organization," to define characteristics. In addition, you can manually define your own characteristics when you customize your SAP System.

characteristic

The criterion used to select data, such as:

• Cost centers
• Cost elements
• Activity types

characteristic group

The combination of characteristics for which a user can specify values.

Characteristic groups enable you to control the specific characteristics that allow entry of values for the following functions:

• Entry of profitability segments in various actual posting transactions (assignment to profitability segment)
• Transfer of sales quantities to Sales and Operations Planning
• Report definition in the information system
• Cycle maintenance for periodic allocations
• Entry of line items

chart of accounts

A classification scheme consisting of a group of general ledger (G/L) accounts.

A chart of accounts provides a framework for the recording of values to ensure an orderly rendering of accounting data. The G/L accounts it contains are used by one or more company codes.

For each G/L account, the chart of accounts contains the account number, the account name, and technical information.

A chart of accounts must be assigned to each company code. This chart of accounts is the operative chart of accounts and is used in both financial accounting and cost accounting. Other charts of accounts include:

• Country-specific charts of accounts -

These are structured in accordance with legal requirements of the country in question

• Group chart of accounts -

This is structured in accordance with requirements pertaining to Consolidation.

chart of accounts index

An index of all charts of accounts that can be used within a client.

chart of accounts list

A list of all the charts of accounts that can be used within a certain client.

chart of depreciation

An object that contains the defined depreciation areas.

It also contains the rules for the evaluation of assets that are valid in a specific country or economic area.

Each company code is allocated to one chart of depreciation. Several company codes can work with the same chart of depreciation.

The chart of depreciation and the chart of accounts are completely independent of one another.

check list

A systematic list of all important transactions that occur during a task, so that completeness and correct sequence are guaranteed.

check lot

An object that summarizes incoming checks that originate from the same source or that are to be processed together.

All the items in a check lot have the same value date and currency key in the payment lot header and other specifications at line item level are not possible.

check repository

An object used for administration of checks that have been issued.

In Contract Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable the check repository forms a direct link between the document number and the number of the check issued.

check/bill of exchange

A financing procedure to help the buyer borrow money.

The buyer pays by check and has the vendor draw a bill of exchange on him or her at the same time. He or she accepts the bill of exchange and hands it in at his or her bank for discounting.

Chemical Abstracts Service

A division of the American Chemical Society located in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

CAS produces the world's largest and most comprehensive databases of chemical information. CAS monitors, indexes, and abstracts the world's chemical literature and patents. Sources for CA include more than 8,000 journals, patents, technical reports, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations from around the world.

class interval

The value range of the classes in a sample-based physical inventory.

When the sampling area is divided into classes, the class interval is constant.

Example

If the class interval is 30, the first class contains all stock management units with a value between 0.01 and 30.00, the second class contains all stock management units with a value between 30.01 and 60.00, and so on.

class rule

An enterprise-specific rule that controls the selection of travel services per employee.

For each travel service category, a class rule defines service classes (for example, room class, or flight cabin class) that can be chosen by an employee (for example, based on the length of time for hotel stay or usage of service).

classification

An automatic process that takes place during inventory sampling.

To minimize the number of elements to be counted during inventory sampling, the random selection is performed not for the entire sampling area but for individual strata.

To permit the generation of strata, the sampling area is divided into classes, each containing stock management units of "approximately" the same value. This division into classes (classification) is performed automatically when the stock population is formed.

classification feature

A feature that is entered into the contract that controls general ledger allocations as well as sales tax and duty calculation.

classification of FS items

The classification of financial statement items refers to the chart of accounts in the case of individual financial statements, or the FS chart of accounts in the case of consolidated financial statements.

classification of FS items

An ordered list, defined according to accounting principles, of all G/L account master records and cost elements.

The chart of accounts contains the account number, the account name and control information for each G/L account master record. Several charts of accounts can be created per client. Each company code must be assigned to one chart of accounts.

cleared subitem

A line item that contains the cleared amount of a partially cleared item.

Cleared subitems result from every partial clearing.

clearing

A procedure by which the open items belonging to one or more accounts are indicated as cleared (paid).

Open items can be cleared if the credit amount used to clear the item equals the debit amount of the item to be cleared. For example, an invoice of USD 45 can be cleared by a payment amount of USD 45.

clearing account

An account to which postings are recorded temporarily.

Clearing accounts are auxiliary accounts that exist for technical reasons and which are cleared repeatedly.

Postings may need to be made to a clearing account because of:

• A time gap between accounting transactions (GR/IR clearing account)
• Organizational task distribution (bank clearing account)
• Accounting transactions requiring clarification

clearing business area

An additional account assignment in a document that is used to calculate receivables and payables between business areas.

clearing house

A service provider for processing authorization and settlement data supplied by the merchants, and a distributor of information to banks.

clearing procedure

A procedure by which open items are cleared.

This procedure enables you to post an incoming payment and clear the invoice(s) paid in a single step. There are two types of clearing procedure within the system:

• Account clearing

When you clear an account, you can clear items in one currency only (there must be no need for additional postings).

• Posting with clearing:

When using this function, you can post and clear items at the same time.

clearing transaction

An accounting transaction (such as an incoming or outgoing payment) that initiates the clearing procedure.

clearing value

The sum of the amounts posted to the GR/IR clearing account when invoices are entered with regard to a business transaction.

closing operations

The preparation and execution of all procedures that are necessary for:

• Day-end closing
• Month-end closing
• Year-end closing

closing period

A period that divides the life cycle of a results analysis object into open and closed periods.

Results analysis data between the start of results analysis and the closing period remains frozen.

Results analysis data for periods after the closing period can then be calculated.

CM number

A tax number assigned by the provincial tax authorities to legal persons in Argentina.

A company is assigned a CM number if it has operations in more than one province. The same CM number applies in all provinces. If it only has operations in one province, it is assigned an NIP number instead.

CNPJ number

A tax number assigned, in Brazil, to legal persons by the federal tax authorities.

In Portuguese, the tax number is known as Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Jurídicas.

CO interface

A program that controls the communication between different application components, particularly between Financials application components.

The programs used for data entry pass sets of data to other programs at certain times for checking or processing (such as after a CO assignment is made in a document line).

The CO interface mediates between the different applications. It determines the programs that need be accessed at those times.

The CO interface's program control tables can be used to determine the R/3 applications or user-defined interfaces that should be accessed at a particular time.

CO product group

A group that can contain materials and enables product drilldown reports to be displayed.

CO product groups are master data in the CO-PC information system that enable you to group materials from the standpoint of CO. They are based on a cost object ID. CO product groups cannot receive postings directly.

CO production order

An internal order that represents a production order from the cost accounting point of view.

code sharing

The conducting of flights of one airline under two (or more) flight numbers - that is, under its own number and that of a partner airline.

This can mean that there is an operating airline and one or more airlines that offer the flight. That is, one airline makes the flight while another offers and books a number of seats on the same flight under its name.

collection

A collection of receivables due - in particular, bills of exchange.

collection

An assessment, levying, entry, notification and collection of customs duties.

Customs duties are levied for commodities based on the regulations of the countries concerned, for example, based on Art. 189 ff. ZK in Germany. Customs authorities register the commodity and inform the the person or organization of the amount of duty and method of payment.

collection procedure

A procedure for automatic payment settlement occurring in the form of a bank transfer, check, or settlement payment order.

collective determination

The calculation of preferential duty rates for multiple items after exploding a bill of materials (BOM) .

collective invoice

A billing document for several deliveries to one customer that is created at the end of each period.

collective invoice account

A special contract account in which line items belonging to different contract accounts are grouped together to enable the same dunning or payment procedure to be applied to all the line items.

collective number

A number that can be used to group together all RFQs issued to potential bidders, or the quotations received from bidders, for a proposed procurement of goods or services.

collective requirements inventory

An inventory to be manufactured (or that has been manufactured) in a make-to-stock production environment.

Collective requirements materials are placed into the make-to-stock inventory.

In contrast to collective requirements materials, individual requirements materials are carried in the sales order stock or project stock. Whether a material is an individual requirements material or a collective requirements material is specified in the material master.

collective slip

One of three print versions of a goods receipt/issue slip (a slip accompanying goods movements).

The collective slip covers all the items of a material document.

The other two versions are the individual slip and the individual slip with quality inspection text.

column block

A set that is used in the column definition of a report.

A column block covers several physical rows.

column layout

An object used to determine the data that is to be displayed or printed in a specific column of a data entry form or standard report.

A single column layout can be assigned to one or more reports or entry forms.

Commerce Control List

A list containing commodities under license restrictions.

commitment

The types of commitments and liabilities, such as:

• Outstanding orders (delivery commitment for confirmed orders)
• Open purchase orders (acceptance commitment from binding orders)
• Bill liability (total bill of exchange commitments at a bank)

commitment

A contractual or scheduled commitment that is not yet reflected in Financial Accounting but that will lead to actual expenditures in the future.

Commitment management gives you an early recording and analysis of such commitments for their cost and financial effects.

Commitments can be entered for the following objects:

• CO production orders
• Production orders
• Internal orders
• Maintenance orders
• Sales orders
• Cost centers
• Networks
• Network activities
• Projects (work breakdown structure elements)

commitments

The commitments and liabilities include:

• Outstanding orders (delivery commitment from confirmed orders)
• Open purchase orders (acceptance commitment from binding orders)
• Bill of exchange liability (total bill of exchange commitments at a bank)

commitments orders

The total of all commitments that were posted on orders, and that were displayed in the funds overview for the projects.

The orders must be assigned to a project in the order item.

commodity code

A code (from the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System) that provides a standard way to identify materials for a country's export and import reporting systems.

The first six digits of a material's code number are standard internationally. Each country adds digits to assign materials in its own classification system:

• In the USA and Japan, commodity codes contain 10 digits
• In Europe, the codes contain 8 to 12 digits.

Codes used for importing goods are longer than codes used for export.

Additional information for USA:

In the United States, codes from the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the USA (HTSUSA) are used to classify import goods. With a few exceptions, it can be used to classify export goods. Schedule B is the official listing of commodity classifications used by shippers to report export shipments from the United States and in compiling the official statistics on exports of merchandise from the U.S.

commodity code

An official key as defined in the European Communities' harmonized system for describing and coding commodities.

Commodity codes are used in the Intrastat declaration and are relevant to EU foreign trade statistics.

Common Agricultural Policy

The European Community (EC) agricultural market regulations.

The EC uses the Common Agricultural Policy to ensure that agricultural supplies are:

• Safeguarded
• Managed the same way throughout the EC
• Reasonably priced
• Regularly available

The EC also uses the Common Agricultural Policy to ensure that EC producers receive a fair price for their goods.

company

The smallest organizational unit for which individual financial statements can be drawn up according to the relevant commercial law.

A company can consist of one or more company codes.

All company codes within a company must use the same transaction chart of accounts and the same fiscal year breakdown. The company code currencies can be different.

A company has one local currency in which its transaction figures are recorded.

company code

The smallest organizational unit for which a complete self-contained set of accounts can be drawn up for purposes of external reporting.

This includes recording of all relevant transactions and generating all supporting documents required for financial statements.

company code relationship type

A characteristic that specifies the type of legal relationship between two company codes.

One of the following applies:

• The company codes are separate legal entities.
• The company codes are both part of the same legal entity.

In the asset transfer variant, you can specify different transfer methods for asset transfers between company codes, depending on the type of company code relationship.

company grouping

A grouping of companies defined for reporting purposes.

Companies can be grouped according to user-defined criteria, for example, region or business line.

company ID

A six-digit identification key that is unique to each company and is definable by the user.

company pair

The two trading partners that have a sender-receiver relationship.

Example

• A invests in B
• A sells assets to B

company share

The ownership of a subgroup´s companies in its own equity.

This term represents the portion of a subgroup´s item value, where

• The item can be not only an equity item but also any type of item (asset, liability)
• The portion in question is "owned" by the subgroup´s subsidiary companies.

Company shares can be shown in both standard reports and interactive reporting.

company's share

An entity's percentage of ownership in another.

comparison rule

Rule used for the purposes of a LIFO lowest value comparison.

You can specify whether the LIFO lowest value comparison is to be performed:

• Layer by layer on a net basis
• Layer by layer on a gross basis
• On all layers on a net basis

competitor product

A product from another company that competes with yourcompany's products on the market.

complete invoice document

The data of a vendor invoice entered in the SAP System in the "Park Invoice" application using the "Save as Complete" function.

You save invoice documents as complete if:

• No changes will be made to them.
• The balance is zero.
• They are subject to a release procedure and are not to be posted yet.

The following updates take place:

• Documents changed are logged
• Data for advance tax returns
• Index for duplicate invoice check
• Vendor open items
• PO history
• PO commitments
• CO documents

Invoice documents that have been saved as complete can be changed, deleted, or posted. However, they cannot be put "on hold."

complete purchase requisition

A purchase requisition covering several materials that are needed at the same time.

The document type determines that the requisition can only be released in its entirety: that is, complete.

If the requisition is subject to a release strategy, releasing one item simultaneously causes all other items in the requisition to be released.

complete-count area

A quantity of the stock management units of a sample-based physical inventory that must be counted.

A stock management unit can be an element of the complete-count area for the following reasons:

• The book inventory is zero.
• A deletion indicator has been set for the material in the material master record.
• The material has an ABC indicator.
• The price of the material exceeds a given upper limit.
• The value of the material exceeds a given upper limit.

completion rule

A rule that specifies when the item in a reference document is fully referenced.

If one document is copied to another document, different rules apply to when the completed status is assigned to the reference document. When the reference document is completed, it cannot be copied to another document.

In the SAP standard version, an inquiry item is assigned the status completed as soon as part of the inquiry quantity is copied to a quotation. A quotation quantity is not completed until the total quantity has been copied to one or more sales orders.

complex asset

An asset that is made up of several component assets.

A complex asset is represented in the SAP System by the main asset number. Its component assets are represented by asset sub numbers.

You can split an asset into sub-assets to:

• Show separate value development for subsequent acquisitions
• Show separate value development for components of large assets
• Assign sub-assets to different cost centers
• Break down the asset from a technical viewpoint (for plant maintenance)

complex fixed asset

An object, a right (such as licenses) or other type of economic value that is at the long-term disposal of the enterprise.

A complex fixed asset can be represented in the SAP System by one or more asset master records.

complex make-to-order production

A production in which a product is manufactured for a customer with a special process used only for that product.

The product, which is manufactured only once in this form, is represented by the order BOM of the sales order item.

In complex make-to-order production, you can use the functions of Product Cost by Sales Order. The sales order item is the cost object.

composite inflation index

An inflation index that is composed of two or more other inflation indexes.

It enables you to adjust G/L accounts and line items for inflation if you need to adjust them using more than one inflation index.

Example

A company is required by law to adjust its real estate accounts using an inflation index that combines the following inflation rates:

• A specific inflation index for real estate
• The general inflation index

For these purposes, you would use a composite inflation index.

condition basis

The base value in a scale to which the discount or surcharge refers.

A discount is subtracted from the condition basis whereas a surcharge is added to the value.

condition category

A classification of conditions according to predefined criteria.

These categories include packaging costs, delivery costs, output taxes and discounts. The classification of conditions by condition categories can be used for analysis.

condition class

A grouping that lets you control each condition type differently.

For example, the condition type "taxes" defines that the taxes in a document must be recalculated if the country of the ship-to party changes.

condition index

A customer-defined list of conditions that allows quicker access to condition records or a group of condition records.

condition pricing unit

A quantity referring to the condition unit.

If a customer and a vendor agree on a material price for 100 pieces, "100" is the condition pricing unit and "pieces" is the condition unit.

condition rate

A figure in the pricing procedure that determines how the system calculates a condition value.

Depending on the condition type, the rate can be an absolute value or a percentage value.

condition record

A data record that stores a condition or condition supplements.

Conditions include:

• Prices
• Discounts and surcharges
• Taxes
• Output

condition scale unit of measure

A unit of measure on which a quantity scale is based.

condition step

A number that specifies the sequence of the conditions in a determination procedure, for example, the pricing procedure in pricing.

condition supplement

A condition that the system takes into account when determining a condition used for a document.

Condition supplements are stored with a main condition in the condition record.

condition table

A table that defines the structure of condition record keys.

The key consists of a variable part that represents one or more fields, and a fixed part that is identical for all condition records.

condition type

A distinction, in overhead calculation, is made between:

• Base condition types, which determine the object for which the overhead is to be calculated
• Overhead condition types, which define the percentage overhead to be applied

In resource planning, a condition type determines the types of resource prices that are stored in the SAP System. These can be absolute or percentage values, for example.

condition type

A characteristic of a condition.

For example, in pricing, different condition types are used to distinguish between a discount that refers to a net price and a discount that refers to a gross price.

condition unit

A unit of measure to which the condition rate refers.

condition value

The value, resulting from pricing, for a condition, total, or sub-total in a document.

confirmed letter of credit

A confirmation that you (the exporter) will be paid "at sight" by your bank.

This occurs no matter what happens to the importer (applicant) or the importer's bank bank (opening bank) as long as you conform to the letter of credit.

confirmed quantity

The uantity of a document item that the system can confirm as available after performing a check when a sales document is created or changed.

confirmed scrap quantity

The quantity of material confirmed as scrap.

confirming bank

A bank in the exporter's country that guarantees payment of a letter of credit when documents are correct and presented on time.

The confirming bank is also called the "advising bank".

consequential change

A change to data carried out not directly by a user but automatically by the system as a result of another change made elsewhere.

Example

You changed the delivery date in a purchase requisition item. As a result, the system automatically adjusts the release date in the item.

consignment

A form of business in which a vendor (external supplier) maintains a stock of materials at a customer (purchaser) site.

The vendor retains ownership of the materials until they are withdrawn from the consignment stores.

Payment for consignment stock is required only when the material is withdrawn for use. For this reason, the vendor is informed of withdrawals of consignment stock on a regular basis.

consignment material

The goods from one or more vendors made available to an enterprise for storage or sale on a consignment basis that are then kept in that enterprise's storage facilities.

Consignment material is not transferred to the enterprise's valuated stock until it is withdrawn from storage for sale or use.

As a result of such withdrawals, the enterprise incurs a liability towards the vendor. Such liabilities are settled on a periodic basis.

consignment order

A request by an enterprise (the ultimate purchaser) to a consignment vendor to replenish stocks of material held in consignment stores by supplying the stipulated quantity.

consignment stock at customer

The stock made available to a customer that is stored on the customer's premises but remains the supplying entity's property until withdrawn from the stores by the customer for use or transferred to the customer's own stock.

consolidated balance sheet

A consolidated balance sheet is one that contains the translated corporate valuation of the individual financial statements and the consolidation entries.

consolidated entity

A user-defined combination of several consolidation units, grouped for consolidation and reporting purposes.

consolidation

An accounting procedure whereby the financial operating results of the companies within the group are combined to create overall results for the group in accordance with the entity theory.

According to the entity theory, the consolidated financial statements must portray the assets, the financial and income position of the group, as if all of the companies were a single corporation.

To accomplish this, all transfers of assets and services, as well as all financial relationships between the consolidated companies that affect the consolidated financial statement, must be eliminated.

The consolidation activities include the following steps:

• Consolidation of investments
• Elimination of payables/receivables
• Elimination of intercompany profit/loss
• Elimination of revenue/expense
• Elimination of investment income
• Reclassifications

In FI-LC, these steps are represented by their corresponding consolidation entries; these are divided into eliminating entries and subgroup-dependent consolidation entries.

consolidation business area

An organizational unit within accounting that corresponds to a limited area of operations or responsibility, from a consolidation point of view.

Companies and consolidation business areas together make up the consolidation units that are the basis for business area consolidation.

consolidation chart of accounts

A consolidation chart of accounts is a systematic classification of financial statement items that serve a common purpose.

The classification is marked by either corporate external or internal requirements (or both). For example, you could have one consolidation chart of accounts for the purpose of generating financial statements to meet the requirements of statutory authorities, and you could have another consolidation chart of accounts to accommodate corporate-internal requirements for contribution margin accounting.

You can have multiple consolidation charts of accounts within a single dimension. This enables you to generate multiple financial statements at the same time to meet various requirements. Example: A single dimension for legal consolidations could use one consolidation chart of accounts for generating consolidated financial statements according to the 4th/7th EU directive, and another consolidation chart of accounts for generating consolidated financial statements according to US GAAP.

consolidation entry

Journal entries that transfer the corporate valuation of individual financial statements to the consolidated financial statements.

These include:

• Eliminating entries for
• Intercompany payables and receivables
• Intercompany revenue and expense
• Intercompany profit and loss in transferred assets
• Intercompany profit and loss in inventory
• subgroup-consolidating entries
• Consolidation of investments
• Reclassifications on a group level

consolidation frequency

An indication of the number of consolidated financial statements to be prepared per year.

In the Consolidation system, the period intervals to be included in the statements are assigned to the relevant consolidation frequencies.

Example

• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Semi-annual
• Annual

consolidation ledger

A ledger designed for recording the value movements for consolidation purposes.

consolidation method

The Consolidation system supports the following consolidation methods:

• Purchase method
• Proportional consolidation
• Equity method
• Pooling of interests method
• Mutual stock method
• Cost method

consolidation of investments

The consolidation of investments (C/I) offsets the investment account of one or more parent companies against each parent company's share in the stockholders' equity of the subsidiaries, joint venture and affiliated companies that are included in consolidation.

This process prevents these assets from appearing "in duplicate" on the consolidated financial statements.

The Consolidation system supports all common consolidation of investments methods.

The following consolidation activities are recognized and performed automatically:

• First consolidation
• Subsequent consolidation
• Step acquisition
• Increase or reduction in capitalization
• Change in indirect investment
• Transfer within the group
• Divestiture outside the group
• Amortization of investments

The consolidation of investments is performed by subgroup. This means that the C/I entries posted for the corporate group do not apply to any subordinate subgroups, in contrast to the elimination of intercompany payables and receivables. Therefore, consolidation of investments must be performed separately for each individual subgroup.

consolidation of investments method

The FI-LC application supports the following consolidation of investments methods:

• Purchase method
• Pooling of interest
• Proportional consolidation
• Equity method

The following consolidation variants are available:

• Book value method
• Revaluation method
• Proportion of equity method

Each case offers various options for the treatment of hidden reserves (fair value adjustments) and goodwill.

Goodwill can be capitalized and amortized, or be eliminated directly against the appropriations.

consolidation status

The status set for companies and subgroups to control and monitor the sequence of individual consolidation activities.

The consolidation status shows the activities that have been performed by whom, and those that are still to be (or cannot yet be) performed.

consolidation using plan values

A simulation of consolidated financial statements using predicted or planned data.

In the FI-LC application, consolidation with plan values can be realized using versions.

Construction Industry Scheme

A system, in the United Kingdom, whereby the Inland Revenue monitors all payments made within the construction industry.

The scheme is intended to reduce tax evasion in the industry.

construction tax certificate

A certificate, in the United Kingdom, that the Inland Revenue issues to construction companies wishing to act as subcontractors under the terms of the Construction Industry Scheme.

Only large companies are entitled to a construction tax certificate. For example, the company must be listed on the stock exchange and its annual revenue must be at least GBP 1,000,000.

The certificate, which is also known as a CIS5 certificate, is proof that the company has registered as a subcontractor with the Inland Revenue. You do not withhold any tax on payments to holders of these certificates.

construction tax certificate number

The number appearing on a construction tax certificate, in the United Kingdom, which serves to identify the subcontractor with the Inland Revenue.

consularization

The approval of export documents by a foreign consulate or other entity required by some countries.

The invoice, certificate of origin, packing slip, bill of lading can be consularized.

consumable material

A material or service that is the subject of procurement and whose value is recorded using cost element accounts or fixed asset accounts.

There are consumable materials:

• Without a material master record
• With a material master record without inventory management
• With a material master record with inventory management on a quantity basis only

consumption

A quantity usually updated by the system when a material is withdrawn from the warehouse or stores, indicating how much of the material has been used or consumed over a certain past period.

consumption alternative

A representation of the different ways a material can be consumed, such as:

• Production (multilevel)
• Subcontracting (multilevel)
• Stock transfer (multilevel)
• Cost center (single level)
• Asset (single level)

In multilevel processes, the consumption alternative and the procurement process are identical.

consumption cost element

A cost element under which a cost object (such as a production order) is credited.

The consumption cost element is the cost element that corresponds to the inventory change account in the income statement.

consumption entry

A type of customs entry admitting goods into the commerce of the US.

This can be formal or informal.

contact person

A person you deal with in the customer company.

contact person screen

A screen in the SD view of the customer master record on which you can create the person.

container identification number

An ID number for containers in the United States that includes four letters and seven digits, for example ABCD 1234567.

Containers include, for example, pallets, unit loads, and tanks.

contingency order

A results analysis object that collects the costs of complaints.

Results analysis creates reserves for the anticipated costs of the complaints and uses these reserves as costs are incurred.

contingent claim

A

receivable (such as a received guarantee of payment) that does not have to be included on the balance sheet.

contingent liability

The contingencies or rights of recourse arising from payment guarantees made, warranties, and bills of exchange.

These items are displayed separately on the balance sheet.

continuity in valuation

The continuity in valuating net assets.

To be able to compare items in the balance sheet over the course of several fiscal years, the valuation methods must remain the same.

contra item

The data transmitted to the Consolidation system automatically can cause the balance of certain financial statement items to be reversed, making it necessary to show the value on the other side of the balance sheet.

Within a consolidation chart of accounts, you can assign to such FS items an FS item of the other side of the balance sheet, a so-called contra item.

contract

A form of longer-term purchase agreement against which materials or services are released (ordered, or called off) according to need over a certain predefined period.

contract account

An account in which posting data for contracts or contract items are processed for which the same collection/payment agreements apply.

Contract accounts are managed on an open item basis within contract accounts receivable and payable.

contract account category

A key under which certain attributes are defined that apply to a contract account once this key is assigned to it.

The attributes that can be defined for a contract account category include whether:

• One or more than one business partner can be assigned per contract account
• The contract account can have one or more than one contract
• Collective bills are possible for the contract account, and
• Which number ranges (external/internal) are valid for the contract account
• Which processing screens or data fields can be used to process the contract account
• The contract account can be processed online.

contract account master record

A data record that contains all information (master data) belonging to a contract account.

It is required for processing business transactions (such as business partners, bank details, payment methods).

contract accounts receivable and payable

A subledger in R/3 financial accounting set up for processing a large number of postings automatically.

In a business context, this constitutes a type of invoicing in which receivables and payables expected from or owed to a business partner are continually updated in a contract account and periodically transferred to the general ledger in aggregated form.

contract partner

A contract partner is a business partner type to whom a contract related to a contract account is assigned.

contract release order

A form of purchase order used by a customer to request from the vendor part of the total quantity or value of goods or services stipulated in a longer-term purchase contract.

A release order contains information on quantities and delivery dates.

A number of different terms exist for this concept including "call-off" (UK), "draw-off" (UK), "delivery order," "release," and "blanket release."

contract release order

A form of order that a customer uses to request from a vendor part of the total quantity or value of goods or services agreedin a contract.

A release order contains information on quantities and delivery dates.

contract service specifications

A binding agreement pertaining to services that are to be performed and containing the relevant conditions to be fulfilled.

The basis for the subsequent recording of services performed (work done) by the vendor (contractor) and settlement of amounts due to the latter under the terms of this agreement is a set of contract specifications.

contractor tax reference

A number issued to every company that registers with the Inland Revenue as a contractor in the UK Construction Industry Scheme.

You are required to quote your contractor tax reference on all vouchers (withholding tax certificates) that you issue, and on all withholding tax returns.

control copy T5

A document that is required for the export of Common Agricultrual Policy (CAP) products.

It also serves as a monitoring document.

control cost

The costs that are compared with the target costs when the variances are calculated.

In Overhead Cost Controlling (CO-OM), the control costs are always the actual costs.

In Cost Object Controlling (CO-PC-OBJ), the control costs are either the actual costs less the work in progress and scrap, or the cost calculated in the preliminary cost estimate for the order, depending on the target cost version.

control costs

The costs that are compared against the target costs when the variances are calculated.

In Overhead Cost Controlling (CO-OM), the control costs are always the actual costs.

In Cost Object Controlling (CO-PC-OBJ), the control costs are either the actual costs less the work in process and scrap or the cost calculated in the preliminary cost estimate for the order, depending on the target cost version.

control input quantity

The input quantity of materials and activities that is compared with the target input quantity in the variance calculation.

The control input quantity can be either of the following:

• The actual input quantity after deduction of the quantities for work in process and scrap
• The input quantity calculated in a preliminary cost estimate for the order

The target cost version controls how the control input quantity is calculated.

control output quantity

A quantity that can be compared against the target output quantity (the quantity that should have been delivered to inventory) in variance calculation.

The control output quantity depends on the target cost version. For example, it can be the quantity of yield delivered to inventory.

control parameters

The data the Consolidation system needs to process data according to the user's requirements.

Typically, control parameters are set in Consolidation customizing.

Example

• Currency translation methods
• Consolidation of investments methods
• Reclassification rules

control quantity

A quantity that is compared against the target quantity in variance calculation.

• In Overhead Cost Controlling (CO-OM), the control quantity is the actual activity quantity.
• In Cost Object Controlling (CO-PC-OBJ), the control quantity can be (for example) the actual input quantity less the actual input quantities for work in process and scrap, depending on the target cost version. It can also be the yield.

control total

A statistic relating to a program run indicating the volume of (material) master records processed.

control totals

The totals you can use to determine whether the amounts of posted documents were entered correctly.

You can instruct the SAP System to update control totals when posting documents.

control variant of Travel Planning

Usergroup in SAP R/3 Travel Planning with defined access rights to the System.

The control variant allows you to define specific settings regarding the display of available travel services, the price display of available travel services, the display strategy for hotel rates and/or maximum amounts for hotel accommodation.

controlling

A management function concerned with preparing comprehensive information on company activities to aid the implementation of management decisions.

Controlling covers both the operational and the strategic aspects of management.

Controlling

An instrument that supports management's decision-making processes.

The various phases of controlling include:

• Planning
• Monitoring
• Reporting
• Consulting
• Informing,

These should be implemented company-wide in an integrated software solution for the individual controlling functions, for all business functions (procurement, production, sales, and so on), including:

• Financial controlling
• Investment controlling
• Cost and profitability controlling

controlling area

An organizational unit within a company, used to represent a closed system for cost accounting purposes.

A controlling area may include single or multiple company codes that may use different currencies. These company codes must use the same operative chart of accounts.

All internal allocations refer exclusively to objects in the same controlling area.

controlling area currency

The currency in which cost accounting is performed.

The controlling area currency appears as a default in the cost accounting objects (such as cost centers) but can be overwritten at any time.

Controlling document

A document of value and quantity changes within a controlling area because of a business transaction.

It holds one or more line items detailing the changes.

controlling level

A tool that, in Product Cost Controlling, enables you to determine the level at which you perform the following functions for a material:

• Calculate planned values
• Collect actual values
• Determine target values
• Analyze costs

A material has a separate controlling level for each plant and process category. Through various characteristics, the controlling level determines the level of detail of the procurement alternatives. The standard setting of the controlling level is determined by the characteristics Material/Plant. For example, if the controlling level is Production , it can gain detail by means of the additional characteristic Production Version.

Controlling object

The organizational units in the Controlling (CO) application component, including:

• Controlling area
• Cost element
• Revenue element
• Profit center
• Investment center
• Cost center
• Activity type
• Order
• Project
• Business transaction
• Work-breakdown structure element
• Cost object
• Business process
• Operating concern
• Profitability segment
• Object class

CO-OM responsibility area

An administrative unit holding one or more cost centers or nodes of the standard hierarchy in the Cost Center Accounting component.

User authorization for the SAP System can be defined for individual CO-OM responsibility areas.

corporate group

An affiliation of legally independent companies under the common management of a controlling company.

corporate income tax

Income tax of:

• Corporations
• Legal persons under private law
• Business enterprises of legal persons under public law

corporate policy

The group guidelines governing the preparation of individual financial statement data for consolidation.

Among other things, these guidelines specify the:

• Data to be reported
• Valuation rules for any standardization of data required

corporate valuation

The corporate valuation of an individual financial statement includes the local valuation plus the standardizing entries.

correspondence

The printed correspondence of a company.

It includes:

• Order confirmations
• Dunning notices
• Payment notification

correspondent

A larger bank in a foreign country that helps a small bank in a host country with business.

cost

A means of showing how costs are represented in a sales document.

This lets you match costs to the prices determined in pricing for a sales document and perform contribution margin accounting.

Cost and Freight

An international commercial term under which the seller (exporter) pays the cost of the merchandise and all shipping costs to the named port of destination.

When the goods have been delivered on board the vessel, the risk of loss or damage to the goods and costs that occur after are transferred from the seller to the buyer.

Cost and Freight (CFR) requires the seller to clear the goods for export.

The CFR term can only be used for sea and inland waterway transport.

cost base

A quantity on which the displayed costs are based.

cost behavior

An attribute of a business process indicating the dependencies influencing the process costs.

Example

• Number of lots -

Costs depend on the number of lots to be processed.

• Activity quantity neutral -

Costs are independent of the activities produced (such as personnel costs for the cost center responsible person).

cost center

An organizational unit within a controlling area that represents a defined location of cost incurrence.

The definition can be based on:

• Functional requirements
• Allocation criteria
• Physical location
• Responsibility for costs

cost center budget

The budget is the approved cost structure for an action or project in a particular period.

Budgeting differs from cost planning in that it is binding. While you must estimate costs as accurately as possible during the planning phase, it is in the approval phase that you prescribe your funds, in the form of a budget.

cost center category

An attribute that determines the type of cost center.

Example

• F - Production cost center
• H - Service cost center

cost center currency

The currency in which the costs on a cost center are reported.

cost center group

A hierarchical group of cost centers defined and organized according to selected criteria.

cost center hierarchy

A hierarchical structure that combines several cost centers according to certain criteria.

cost component

A grouping of cost elements that:

• Makes the costs of a material, an activity type, or a process transparent
• Groups the costs of a material according to the requirements for material valuation and profitability analysis

cost component group

A group of cost components presenting a condensed view of cost components in the information system. The cost component group is defined in Customizing.

This cost component group is not the same as the cost component group used in Report Writer reports.

cost component group

A group of cost components used in a Report Writer report.

The cost component group is a copy of the cost component structure. It can contain up to 40 cost components. This cost component group is not the same as the cost component group in the information system.

cost component split

A breakdown of costs into units called cost components, which provide detailed cost information for accounting purposes.

Cost component splits can be used to break down the cost of a material, process, or activity type.

Examples of cost components in a cost component split:

• In Product Cost Controlling (CO-PC) and Profitability Analysis (CO-PA):
• Material
• Internal activities
• External activities
• Overhead
• Other
• In Overhead Cost Controlling (CO-OM):
• Energy
• Labor
• Raw materials
• Other

There are two types of cost component split:

• Cost component split for the cost of goods manufactured (not used in CO-OM)
• Primary cost component split

Grouping multiple cost elements into one cost component facilitates cost analysis, helping you to answer questions such as the following:

• In CO-PC and CO-PA: Is the increase in the cost of goods manufactured due mainly to higher material costs or higher labor costs?
• In CO-OM: How much of the total price of an activity type is material costs?

In CO-PC and CO-PA, the cost component split can be used to roll up costs, enabling you to see the value added in production separately for each production level.

In CO-PC (and for CO-PA), a separate cost component split can be generated for each partner that supplied a resource for the product. Possible partners:

• Company code
• Plant
• Profit center
• Business area

When allocating activities in CO-OM to determine prices, you can use a switching structure to enable the costs to flow into different cost components for the receiver than for the sender.

cost component split for cost of goods manufactured

A structure that divides the costs for a material into different cost components.

Unlike a primary cost component split, a cost component split for cost of goods manufactured shows internal activities using secondary cost elements.

It is used to create a standard price for the material and to supply Profitability Analysis with the cost of goods manufactured, or the cost of goods sold.

cost component structure

A control of how the results of activity price calculation or material costing are stored.

The cost component structure groups cost elements into cost components to show the following information:

• Activity prices for an activity type
• Cost of a process
• Planned cost of a product

In Product Cost Controlling (CO-PC), the cost component structure determines the attributes for passing on the following costs:

• Material costs passed on to material valuation as the standard price or inventory price
• Cost of goods manufactured passed on to Profitability Analysis

cost component view

A tool that structures the results of a material cost estimate according to the requirements of other areas of the SAP System.

For each cost component, you define the portion of the costs it contains that will be displayed in the cost component view.

Example:

• Cost of goods manufactured
• Cost of goods sold
• Sales and administration costs
• Physical inventory (commercial)
• Physical inventory (tax-based)
• Inventory valuation

cost driver

The cost drivers are the main causal factor in the incurrence of overhead, determining the process quantity used by a cost object.

Typically, they appear in the form of statistical key figures or are determined dynamically from various parameters.

cost element

A cost element classifies the organization's valuated consumption of production factors within a controlling area.

A cost element corresponds to a cost-relevant item in the chart of accounts.

Cost Element Accounting

A component of Controlling (CO) that collects and summarizes postings that arise within CO in a reconciliation ledger.

Cross-company and across business area postings are passed on to Financial Accounting. You can also create cost analyses in the CO applications.

cost element attribute

An attribute of a cost element.

cost element category

The classification of cost elements according to their usage or origin.

Examples of cost element categories are:

• Material cost elements
• Settlement cost elements for orders
• Cost elements for allocating internal activities

cost element group

An organizational entity that combines cost elements of the same type.

Cost element groups can serve various purposes. For example, they can be used to create reports or to process several cost elements in one business transaction.

cost element itemization

An object that splits the individual costing items according to cost element (such as material costs or personnel costs).

If an origin group has been entered in the material master, the costs for each material cost element can also be split by origin group.

cost element layout

A report layout that determines the line layout of a report according to cost element.

cost element planning

The planning of primary and secondary costs for:

• A cost center
• An order
• A project

Primary cost planning involves recording the costs incurred because of the consumption of goods and services and incurred by the company in transactions with external parties.

You can plan primary costs either as values, or with reference to quantities.

• Planning with reference to quantities means that the planned consumption is recorded and then valuated with the planned cost per unit.
• Planning values means that you record only the planned costs for each cost element.

You plan secondary costs to reflect the fact that cost centers require services from other cost centers to perform their own activities.

You can plan secondary costs directly by means of activity input planning, or with reference to quantities using assessment.

cost estimate

A document showing the costs calculated for a costing object.

cost estimate with quantity structure

A function for planning costs and setting prices for materials using the data from Production Planning.

This data (the quantity structure) is determined by the SAP system.

The quantity structure can be any of the following:

• BOM and routing (production by lot size)
• BOM and rate routing (repetitive manufacturing)
• Master recipe (process manufacturing)

cost estimate without quantity structure

A function for planning costs and setting prices for materials without using the data from Production Planning and Control.

You enter the items to be costed (such as materials and activities) into a unit cost estimate manually.

cost object

The units of output resulting from the value-added process with which costs are identified according to how they are incurred.

Cost objects can be independent entities (called cost object IDs), or they can represent other entities (such as orders or projects).

The functions of preliminary costing, simultaneous costing, and final costing can be performed on cost objects.

The following cost objects can be used in the SAP System:

• Product cost collectors
• Production orders
• Process orders
• Cost object IDs
• Sales order items

cost object category

A tool that specifies how a particular cost object ID is used.

Example

• In the Product Cost by Period component, the cost object category can indicate that the cost object ID is being used as a cost object node in a cost object hierarchy.
• In the Costs for Intangible Goods and Services component, the cost object category can indicate that the cost object ID is being used as a general cost object.
• In the Product Cost Controlling Information System, the cost object category can indicate that the cost object ID is being used as a CO product group.

Cost Object Controlling

An area within cost accounting that assigns costs incurred in a company to the activity units of the company.

This information is used as a basis for:

• Comparing actual costs against planned costs
• Target and actual comparisons
• Valuating inventories of semifinished products and finished products

Cost Object Controlling also supplies data to other components in the SAP System, such as:

• Actual Costing/Material Ledger
• Financial Accounting
• Profit Center Accounting
• Profitability Analysis

cost object hierarchy

The business object "cost object hierarchy" contains a number of cost objects structured in hierarchical form.

A cost object hierarchy can be used to analyze target costs, actual costs, and variances in situations where costs cannot be collected at the level of orders or materials.

A cost object hierarchy consists of cost object nodes to which you can assign the following:

• Material or plant
• Material, plant or production process

The assignment to a cost object hierarchy lets you select production cost collectors and manufacturing orders by the node to which they are assigned.

At the level of the cost object hierarchy, price differences can be passed on to inventory and from there to Financial Accounting and Profitability Analysis.

You can also distribute the costs to the assigned orders and settle them from there.

cost object ID

An object in cost accounting to which costs can be assigned to reflect how they are incurred.

Example

• In Activity-Based Costing (CO-OM-ABC), cost object IDs are used to represent cost objects to which process costs can be allocated.
• In the Costs for Intangible Goods and Services component, cost object IDs are used to represent intangible goods and services. In this component, they are called general cost objects.
• In the Product Cost by Period component, cost object IDs are used to create cost object hierarchies. In cost object hierarchies, cost object IDs are called cost object nodes.
• In the Information System for the Product Cost by Period component and the Product Cost by Order component, you can use cost object IDs to create CO product groups. You can create CO product groups for reporting purposes in the information system. CO product groups can use cost object IDs for reporting purposes.
• If the Activity-Based Costing component (CO-OM-ABC) is used for statistical purposes, cost object IDs are used to represent cost objects to which the process costs are allocated.

cost object node

A cost object that is a permanent part of a cost object hierarchy.

cost object profile

An object that contains default values for product costing.

For example, entries made in the cost object profile for the following appear as default values in the master record of the cost object ID:

• Costing sheet
• Overhead key
• Settlement profile

cost object type

A tool that determines the technical attributes of a cost object ID.

It specifies the SAP application to which cost object ID is assigned, and controls the functions that are available.

There can be multiple cost object categories for each cost object type, but at least one cost object category must be assigned to each cost object type.

cost of goods manufactured

The sum of the material costs and production costs incurred in the production of a material.

cost of goods sold

A sum of the costs incurred through the value-added process.

The cost of goods sold consists of the following costs:

• Cost of goods manufactured
• Sales overhead
• Special direct cost of sales
• Administration overhead

cost of sales

The cost of goods manufactured for the products sold.

The cost of goods sold can be compared against the sales revenues.

The cost of goods sold does not contain costs for finished or semifinished products still in the inventory.

Typically, the cost of goods sold is calculated at the point of goods issue. In contrast to the period accounting method, the posting is made to an account "Cost of goods sold" and not to "Change in stock." This can be defined in Customizing for goods issues.

cost of sales accounting

A type of profit and loss statement that matches the sales revenues to the costs or expenses involved in making the revenue (cost of sales).

The expenses are listed in functional areas such as:

• Manufacturing
• Management
• Sales and distribution
• Research and development

Cost of sales accounting displays how the costs were incurred. It represents the economic outflow of resources.

cost overrun

The amount by which the actual costs exceed the planned costs.

cost planning

An instrument for drawing up all costs that are expected to be incurred during the course of an activity.

These costs can be incurred with respect to:

• An order
• A cost center
• A project.

There are the following basic types of planning:

• Rough planning (also called "structure-oriented planning") -

An estimate is made of the costs to be incurred for an order or for an element of a work breakdown structure element.

• Cost element planning
• Unit costing

cost rollup

A process in material costing in which costs at lower production levels are allocated to the highest level.

Costs are rolled up by cost component, assuring that the origin of the costs remains visible after rollup. For example, labor costs in preassembly are rolled up into the cost of goods manufactured of the end product as internal labor costs rather than material costs.

Any costs assigned to cost components that are not rolled up are not included in cost estimates of higher costing levels.

Cost, Insurance and Freight

An international commercial term under which the seller (exporter) must not only pay the cost of the merchandise, all shipping costs to the named port of departure, but also procure marine insurance against the buyer's risk of loss or damage to the goods during transport.

The Cost, Insurance and Freight term requires the seller to clear the goods for export.

This term can only be used for sea and inland waterway transport.

cost-accounting value

An asset value that is not calculated for external financial reports, but is used primarily for internal information.

Management accounting values may not have to correspond with the values determined for book and tax depreciation. For example, it may be useful (for cost accounting reasons) to use depreciation methods that are not allowed in book and tax depreciation.

SAP recommends that you set up a separate depreciation area to calculate cost-accounting values.

costed multilevel BOM

A hierarchical overview of the values of all items of a costed material according to the material's costed quantity structure (BOM and routing).

Shows the itemizations for this costed quantity structure.

costing

A process that calculates the cost of goods manufactured, or the cost of goods sold, in relation to a product or cost object.

The results of costing are used to determine the following information:

• Target costs
• Variances for materials produced
• Contribution margin for materials sold

The costing process is based on the order quantity or the costing lot size in the material master record.

costing item

A line in a cost estimate.

The data shown in the line varies according to the item category.

Example

A costing item for a material contains the following items:

• Material
• Plant
• Quantity
• Unit of measure
• Value

A costing item for an internal activity contains the following items:

• Cost center
• Activity type
• Quantity
• Value

costing level

A level of costing that controls the sequence in which the materials are costed, enabling cost rollup covering more than one level.

costing method

A method of creating a cost estimate.

A number of different costing methods can be used, depending on the available data and the purpose of costing:

• Product costing (automatic costing)
• Unit costing (manual costing)
• Multilevel unit costing
• Easy Cost Planning

When you cost sales document items, you can choose between product costing and unit costing.

costing model

A planning tool for simplified cost planning.

Costing models are used to design planning procedures that are performed frequently in similar ways. The factors that drive costs (the characteristics) are converted into a unit cost estimate by deriving the costing items from the characteristics. The characteristics are defined by the planner in the costing model. Characteristics values can be predefined. For each characteristic, rules are defined that determine how data is assigned in the SAP System.

Example

Characteristics: Number of employees, mode of travel, equipment needed

Values: 4, car (predefined), laptop PC (predefined)

costing object

A reference object for a cost estimate.

Examples of reference objects that can be costed are:

• Materials
• Cost object IDs
• Production orders
• Sales document items (inquiry, quotation, sales order)
• Projects (work breakdown structure elements)
• Internal orders
• Primary cost elements

costing run

A tool that provides the opportunity to cost multiple materials at the same time.

In Product Cost Planning, costing runs are used to cost materials based on planning data. This type of costing run is based on a user-defined name and a date.

In Actual Costing/Material Ledger, costing runs are used to cost materials with actual data. This type of costing run is based on a costing run profile and a period.

costing run profile

A template for costing runs in actual costing, in which you can enter the organizational units for multilevel material settlement.

costing sheet

A definition of how values posted in the SAP System are calculated.

A costing sheet consists of one or more of the following lines:

• Base lines -

These contain the amount or quantity on which the overhead is calculated.

• Calculation lines -

These contain the percentage rate to be applied to one or more base lines.

• Totals lines -

These contain the sum of the base amount and calculated amounts.

Costing sheets are used in the following components:

• Overhead Orders (CO-OM-OPA) and Product Cost Controlling (CO-PC), where they are used to calculate overhead
• Profitability Analysis (CO-PA), where they are used to calculate anticipated values
• Overhead Cost Controlling (CO-OM), where they are used to calculate resource prices

costing type

A parameter that establishes the technical attributes of a cost estimate.

For a material cost estimate, the costing type controls the following:

• How the cost estimate is used, and which field in the material master is updated with the cost calculated in the cost estimate (such as the standard price, commercial price, or tax valuation price)
• The costs that are used as the basis for allocating overhead
• The valuation view (legal, group, or profit center) that is costed

For a base planning object, the costing type determines the valuation view that is costed.

costing variant

A tool that contains all control parameters for costing, including parameters that control how cost estimates are executed and the material prices or activity prices that are used to valuate the costing items.

In material costing (costing with and without quantity structure), the costing variant determines the following:

• The purpose of the cost estimate (costing type)

• The prices that are selected to valuate the quantity structure and calculate overhead expenses (valuation variant)

• The dates that apply to the actual cost estimate and to the explosion and valuation of the quantity structure (date control)

• How the BOMs and routings are selected to create the quantity structure (quantity structure control; only relevant for cost estimates with a quantity structure)

• The strategy by which the SAP System looks for costing data from other cost estimates (transfer control)

In unit costing (base object costing and unit costing for orders), the costing variant determines the following:

• The purpose of the cost estimate (costing type)

• The prices that are selected to valuate the costing items (valuation variant)

• Whether the individual costing items are assigned to cost elements

In Easy Cost Planning, the costing variant determines the following:

• The purpose of the cost estimate (costing type)

• The prices that are selected to valuate the costing items (valuation variant)

• For internal orders, work breakdown structure (WBS) elements, and ad hoc cost estimates, the dates that apply to the cost estimate (date control). For WBS elements, the dates can be overridden by the dates of the WBS element.

You define costing variants in Customizing for the appropriate application component.

costing variant type

An indicator that controls the cost estimate that is used to calculate the target costs.

costing version

A method of distinguishing two or more cost estimates for the same material. Costing versions enable you to:

• Create and save multiple cost estimates for a given material without the cost estimates overwriting each other.

In this case, you use the costing version without making further Customizing settings.

• Utilize other control parameters for costing (such as transfer prices, exchange rate types for converting currencies, or quantity structure types for mixed costing) without having to use a new costing variant.

In this case, you specify these control parameters in the costing version in Customizing.

costing-based profitability analysis

A form of profitability analysis in CO-PA.

Costing-based Profitability Analysis represents costs, revenues, and revenue deductions for internal controlling purposes. The direct costs are collected from the relevant material cost estimate for the product sold. All values are stored in value fields.

cost-of-sales accounting

A type of Profitability Analysis.

It is used to support decision-making in sales and marketing departments. With this approach, the revenue for the units sold is transferred from the SD system or from an external billing system to CO-PA. Sales deductions and manufacturing costs are assigned to each unit sold.

costs

The value of use of economic goods both tangible and intangible for the creation and sale of goods and services, as well as the acquisition and maintenance of plant and machinery.

Costs for Intangible Goods and Services

A determinant of the costs of intangible goods and services using the functions of Cost Object Controlling (CO-PC-OBJ).

It is performed at the level of general cost objects, either separately for each period, or cumulatively.

costs that can be capitalized

The costs for which there is an option to capitalize.

These are the costs that can be capitalized under commercial and tax law but for which there is no legal requirement to do so.

For the calculation of work in progess and for results analysis, you can specify that there is an option to capitalize for certain values.

costs that cannot be capitalized

The costs that cannot be capitalized.

These are the costs that cannot be capitalized under commercial or tax law.

For the calculation of work in process and for results analysis, you can specify that certain values cannot be capitalized.

costs that must be capitalized

The costs that must be capitalized.

These are costs that must be capitalized under commercial and tax law.

For the calculation of work in process and for results analysis, you specify the amount of costs that must be capitalized.

counted stock

The physical stock of a material, the quantity of which was determined during a physical inventory (stocktaking) process by counting, weighing, measuring or estimating.

Differences discovered between the book inventory and the counted stock lead to correction of the book inventory balance.

countervailing duty

A form of excise duty imposed on imports that are subsidized by the country in which they were manufactured.

Countervailing duty (also known as CVD) is intended to make the imports more expensive, thereby redressing any competitive advantage they might have over goods produced locally.

country of departure

A country from which merchandise is exported.

country of origin

A country in which goods were completely derived or manufactured.

country variant

A country-specific screen for entering a business transaction.

country-subdividing region

The partial area of a country in which several IATA locations within it are grouped.

Country-subdividing regions are R/3 specific and, unlike IATA locations, user definable. They are used as restrictive criteria for determination of company-specific trip rules for the corresponding transportation and accommodations types.

CPF number

A tax number assigned, in Brazil, by the federal tax authorities to natural persons.

In Portuguese, the tax number is known as Código de Pessoa Física.

credit card

A card authorizing the purchase of goods and services with regular billing and with or without extended credit.

In the US, credit cards allow debit which for an indefinite period. In Europe, the debit is paid in full once a month. Credit cards require authorization before settlement in the US. No authorization is required before settlement in Europe. Settlement is performed after goods issue is posted at the billing stage or later.

credit control area

An organizational unit that represents an area responsible for granting and monitoring credit.

This organizational unit is either a single company code or, if credit control is performed across several company codes, multiple company codes. Credit information can be made available per customer within a credit control area.

credit limit

The maximum amount granted a customer as credit.

credit memo

A posting that reduces the balance of receivables or payables.

credit memo request

A sales document used in complaints processing to request a credit memo for a customer.

If the price calculated for the customer is too high, for example, because the wrong scale prices were used or a discount was forgotten, you can create a credit memo request. The credit memo request is blocked for further processing so that it can be checked. If the request is approved, you can remove the block.

The system uses the credit memo request to create a credit memo.

cross-company code document number

A number denoting all the documents that are produced in a single cross-company code posting.

cross-company code posting

A posting transaction involving several company codes.

The SAP system creates a document for each company code involved. Cross-company code postings are used, for example, to process centralized purchasing or centralized payment.

cross-company G/L account maintenance

A necessity if you work with multiple company codes or charts of accounts (or both).

To reuse charts of accounts and G/L accounts, you can copy the charts and create reference or sample accounts. You can create G/L accounts at the company code or chart of accounts level. This is necessary in cases where you use the same chart of accounts in multiple company codes, but the accounts are set up differently at the company code level.

cross-company-code purchasing organization

An organization responsible for purchasing activities for a number of company codes.

cross-country region

A combination of multiple countries and their IATA locations.

Cross-country regions are R/3 specific and, unlike IATA locations, are user definable. They serve as restrictive criteria when defining company-specific travel rules for various types of transport and accomodation.

cross-system business area

A business area that is unique throughout a group and that has a cross-system business area ID in addition to its local business area ID.

cross-system company code

A company code used across a (corporate) group.

It has both a cross-system company code ID and a local company code ID.

cross-system depreciation area

A depreciation area that has the same function and significance in all charts of depreciation within a corporate group.

A cross-system depreciation area consists of a key and a description only. It has no control parameters of its own. You can assign local depreciation areas in various charts of depreciation to one cross-system depreciation area. As a result, they can be identified by the same key in all clients.

A local depreciation area becomes a cross-system depreciation area when it is assigned to the same key throughout the SAP System.

CUIL number

A tax number assigned, in Argentina, by the federal tax authorities to small companies.

CUIL stands for clave única de identificación laboral.

CUIT number

A tax number assigned, in Argentina, by the federal tax authorities to large companies.

CUIT stands for clave única de identificación tributaria.

cumulated activity price

An activity price that increases by successive addition or accumulation of costs.

cumulative allocation

An allocation method that smoothes out fluctuations in the tracing factors or in the sender amounts to be allocated, enabling assignment of the allocated costs on a cause-and-effect basis.

Cumulative allocation smoothes the allocation across periods.

Cumulative allocation is supported for the following:

• Assessments
• Distributions
• Periodic repostings

cumulative delivered quantity

Sum of all deliveries made in the customer fiscal year

cumulative delivered quantity

The total accumulated quantity of all deliveries in respect of a scheduling agreement item over a period up to certain key date.

The cumulative delivered quantity facilitates the planning and monitoring of such deliveries.

cumulative issued quantity

The sum of all delivered quantities for which goods issue has been posted.

This sum is calculated even if the customer or external agent has not yet received or recorded the delivered quantities.

cumulative quantity

In the procurement of materials using scheduling agreements, the accumulated quantity of a material over a period up to a certain key date.

Cumulative quantities facilitate the planning and monitoring of procurement transactions between business partners.

Examples

• Cumulative scheduled quantity
• Cumulative received quantity
• Cumulative delivered quantity
• Agreed cumulative quantity
• Cumulative released quantity

cumulative quantity in transit

The difference between the current delivered quantity and the cumulative quantity received by the customer.

cumulative quantity received by customer

The sum of all deliveries received by the customer in the customer fiscal year.

cumulative received quantity

The total accumulated quantity of all goods receipts involving a scheduling agreement item over a period up to a certain date.

The "cumulative received quantity" facilitates the planning and monitoring of such goods receipts.

By comparing the cumulative received quantity with the cumulative delivered quantity recorded by the vendor, Purchasing can ascertain which quantities of a material are in transit.

cumulative released quantity

The sum of the individual quantities of a material procured (released or called off) against an item of a scheduling agreement up to a certain point in time.

The cumulative released quantity is equal to the cumulative received quantity plus the sum of the open schedule lines of the scheduling agreement (SA) release. It is shown in the SA release transmitted to the vendor.

Example

The cumulative received quantity of a scheduling agreement item is 100 pc. In other words, the vendor has delivered 100 pc of this item to date. The current SA release contains three delivery schedule lines @ 10 pc. That is to say, you are notifying the vendor of a further requirement of 30 pc through this release. The cumulative received quantity of 100 pc and the quantity represented by the open schedule lines of the release (here totalling 30 pc) are added together to obtain the cumulative released quantity (in this case 130 pc).

cumulative released quantity

The sum of the cumulative quantity received by the customer, and the schedule line quantities up to the relevant deadline.

cumulative scheduled quantity

The total accumulated quantity of all delivery schedule lines for an item of a scheduling agreement over a period up to a certain date.

The cumulative scheduled quantity facilitates the monitoring and expediting of the delivery schedule for an item.

By comparing the cumulative scheduled quantity with the cumulative received quantity, Purchasing can identify underdelivery and overdelivery situations and agree any necessary remedial action with the vendor.

CURP number

A tax number, in Mexico, assigned to natural persons. The abbreviation stands for cédula de identificación fiscal con clave única de registro de población.

currency

A medium of exchange in current use within a particular country.

currency devaluation

The devaluation of a currency usually only takes place in countries with high inflation.

It can lead to the introduction of a new national currency.

A company within the group that has prepared its financial statements in a currency affected by such devaluation needs to change its currency key and translate its local currency amounts into the new currency.

currency of declaration

A currency used for a customs declaration, for example, INTRASTAT currency.

currency translation

The corporate groups must prepare their consolidated financial statements in group currency.

Before foreign companies (units in EC-CS/SEM-BCS) can be included in consolidation for the group, their individual financial statements must be translated from local into group currency.

The following choices influence the results of translation:

• Translation methods -

Choice between the balance sheet spot or current exchange rate and the historical rate for the translation of individual financial statement items.

• Handling of translation differences -

Choice between the different alternatives for dealing with differences resulting from translation.

• Exchange rates -

Choice between various exchange rates.

currency translation difference

The difference resulting from currency translation because of any of the following reasons:

• A change in a currency's exchange rate over the course of time - for example, between two balance sheet report dates
• The use of different exchange rates, such as the historical and the current rates, during the translation of the individual assets, liabilities, revenue and expenditures

These differences must be taken into account in the translated financial statements to ensure that the balance sheet balances.

Currency translation differences can be posted with or without an affect on net income, depending on the differential items that are chosen.

currency translation key

The currency translation key determines the type of exchange rate that is to be used (for example, historical or spot rate).

This key also determines the base currency to be used for the currency translation.

The FI-LC system offers the following base currencies:

• The local currency
• The transaction currency

currency translation method

A method for translating financial statements prepared in a foreign currency, which have varying effects on assets, finances and income.

During consolidation the following methods (among others) can be used:

• Spot rate method
• Modified spot rate method
• Temporal method
• Function-specific translation method

In FI-LC, currency translation methods are defined when translation entries and, where applicable, rounding are entries assigned to them.

(See also: exchange rate indicator, rounding entry, spot rate method, currency translation key, currency translation difference, translation entry, currency translation, temporal method.)

currency type

A key identifying the role of a currency in the SAP system.

In addition to the local currency as house currency, you can manage parallel currencies with the following currency types:

• Group currency
• Hard currency
• Index currency
• Global company currency

currency-related elimination difference

The difference incurred in Intercompany Elimination when two tradingpartners report different values in group currency because of differing local currencies or exchange rates (or both), despite both having the same values in transaction currency for a certain business transaction.

current cost estimate

A cost estimate that can be created at any time to valuate the current quantity structure with the current prices.

This cost estimate serves the following purposes:

• You can compare its results with the results of the standard cost estimate to support decision-making in production.
• You can transfer the results of this cost estimate to the material master and use them to valuate the goods receipt when working with materials that use the moving average price.

current layer

A stock layer for last-in-first-out (LIFO) valuation for the current period.

current market value insurance

The insurance of an object at its current insurable value, reduced by depreciation.

The current insurable value can be managed in a separate depreciation area.

You can use all indexing and depreciation methods available in other depreciation areas for calculating values as new and net book values.

current standard cost estimate

A material cost estimate for the current period.

This cost estimate establishes the standard price of the material.

customer

A business partner with whom a business relationship exists, involving the issue of goods or services.

customer

A business partner from whom receivables are due for, among other things, goods delivered, services performed and rights transferred.

customer account

A structure that records value movements in a company code that affect receivables or payables against a customer.

customer billing document

A notification of remuneration to be paid, based on previous business transactions for which a sales area is responsible.

customer card

A card authorizing customers to purchase goods and services from a merchant or group of merchants.

In the US, there is no credit limit and the debit is paid in full each month. Administration is outsourced.

customer complaints order

A request from a customer to the company or,in the case of debit memo requests, a request from the company to the customer to correct inconsistencies that occurred during processing of an SD transaction.

customer contract

An outline sales agreement that contains special conditions negotiated between the vendor and a customer, for example, price, target value or target quantity.

A customer contract is valid for a specified period. A customer submits a sales order to release materials or services from the amount agreed in the contract.

customer credit account

A structure for entering customer credit information in a credit control area.

The customer credit account monitors the amount of credit taken advantage of by the customer.

A customer credit account contains a total of:

• All open items (credit taken)
• Customer orders that have not yet been sent
• Customer orders that have not yet be invoiced
• SD invoices in preparation without FI documents (anticipated credit claim)

customer delivery

A combination of sales materials that are delivered together to a ship-to party.

It is the basis for processing shipping functions at a shipping point.

customer expected price

A price taht the customer is prepared to pay for a document item.

The customer expected price can be entered during order processing using a condition type.

If the customer expected price deviates by a specified amount from the price that the system determines, the sales order is given the status "Incomplete" and must be released before you can perform other sales processing.

customer group

A definable grouping of customers for pricing or statistical purposes.

For example, a customer group can be made up of wholesalers or retailers.

customer hierarchy

A representation of complex customer structures.

For example, you can display the regional structure of a buying group as a customer hierarchy. The customer hierarchy contains pricing information that is valid for all customers in the hierarchy.

customer hierarchy node

A separate element in a customer hierarchy that represents one element of the customer's organizational structure such as a regional buying office.

All hierarchy nodes below the highest hierarchy node refer to a higher level of the customer hierarchy.

If a new customer is assigned to a hierarchy, all pricing agreements that are valid for the hierarchy node to which the assignment is made are valid for this customer.

customer inquiry

A customer request to the company for a quotation or sales information that is not binding.

The request can refer to materials or services, conditions and, if necessary, delivery deadlines. It is accepted by the sales area that is then responsible for any further processing.

customer master

A collective term for all customer master records.

The customer master contains the basic data for all customers with which a company conducts business.

customer master record

A data record containing all the information necessary for any contact with a certain customer, in particular for conducting business transactions.

This information includes, for example, address data and bank data.

customer outline agreement

A long-term contractual agreement between a sales organization and a customer concerning the delivery of materials or services according to fixed terms.

A customer outline agreement is valid for a specific period of time.

A sales area is responsible for the agreement and for fulfilling the contract.

customer potential analysis

The evaluation of a customer based on the quantity or value that this customer puts on a material.

The customer potential analysis includes their materials and those of their competitors.

customer pricing procedure

A process that permits you to determine the pricing determination procedure and the document pricing procedure.

customer program

A program of offers by a travel service provider with special conditions.

Customer programs are agreements that are based on certain criteria, such as the frequency or volume of travel services bought from the provider by an enterprise.

In the flight sector, typical customer programs are Frequent Flyer programs that offer reduced rates for travelers who fly more often - for example, the Miles & More Program offered by Lufthansa.

customer quotation

An offer by a sales area to a customer for delivery of goods services according to fixed terms.

The offer legally binds the company for a certain period of time. A customer quotation can refer to a partner sales activity or it can be used by the sales area to reply to a customer inquiry.

customer scheduling agreement

A customer outline agreement in which the relevant delivery dates and the corresponding delivery quantities are defined.

customer special stock

Stock assigned to a certain customer and stored either on your enterprise's own premises or those of the customer.

Customer special stocks can be:

• Consignment stock with customer
• Returnable packaging with customer
• Sales order stock

customer-material info record

A customer-specific information for a sales material.

The user can simplify the data entry process by using a customer-material info record during sales processing.

customs authority

An office that is responsible for administering customs regulations.

This includes personnel responsible for customs declaration documents, and all personnel who prepare and enforce customs regulations.

customs broker

An individual or a firm licensed in the US by the Customs Service of the US Treasury Department to assist importers with transactions.

The customs broker arranges customs clearance and shipment.

customs ceiling

A specified quantity of goods whose importation is limited because of weight, value, or other characteristics.

These goods can enter the country based on customs regulations during a predefined period in the year.

Each ceiling is identified by a unique number.

customs clearance

The official act of performing customs procedures in which goods are made available for domestic consumption or are converted to a customs status.

customs declaration

A document used for the submission of information regarding the importand receipt or export and dispatch of goods to customs authorities.

This document lists the goods, quantities and their value. Using the document, the declarer establishes the customs procedure used to processthe merchandise.

customs duties

A duty or tax imposed by a government on imported and exported goods.

customs duty rate

A percentage of the total value of goods that are imported into a customs territory that is levied as a customs tariff.

There are three duty rates for imported goods:

• General rate: used for assessing duties on imports from most countries
• Special duty rate: rates reduced as a result of trade agreements between friendly countries or free trade agreements, such as NAFTA or INTRASTAT agreements (in some cases, no duty is levied)
• Statutory duty rate: apply to unfriendly countries and are are generally much higher than general duty rates

customs exemption

A permission freeing goods of a customs duty to which others are subject.

customs inspection

An official examination and determination of the quantity and composition of goods presented for clearance through customs or for other customs handling, for export or destruction.

customs law

Rules and regulations of a customs territory.

customs office

An office in which customs formalities can be performed.

These include primary customs offices and customs stations at border crossing areas.

customs procedure

A process for converting customs goods to a status that allows for commercial exchange, shipping (importing), domestic consumption, inward and outward processing, and exporting.

customs product master

A material master that is transferred to a distributed system landscape from a logistics system to a customs system and, in the customs system, is referred to as "customs product master".

The customs product master contains all information on a material required for customs processing.

customs quota

Weight or quantity limitations that are imposed on the import of goods into a customs territory for a particular period of time.

customs status

The status of goods from a customs point of view, for example, domestic merchandise or foreign merchandise.

customs tariff

The tax (duty) imposed on imported and exported goods.

Tariffs are imposed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.

customs territory

A territory, region, or country that is governed by the same customs regulations.

customs warehousing procedure

A customs procedure in which foreign merchandise can be brought into a customs territory without levying duties.

Such goods are stored in a bonded warehouse and then reexported or submitted for import procedures in the territory.

cutoff month

The month of the cutoff period.

The cutoff month is the last month for which results analysis data is calculated.

cutoff period

A period that divides the life cycle of a results analysis object into open and closed periods.

Results analysis data from the start of results analysis up to and including the cutoff period remains frozen, protecting the data from being overwritten. Results analysis data for periods after the cutoff period can then be calculated.

cutoff value

The net value of a fixed asset, below which the SAP System does not continue to calculate depreciation.

For particular types of valuation (for example, net worth tax valuation in some countries) it may be beneficial to have depreciation end when a given value is reached. The cutoff value can be entered as a specific amount, or a percentage of acquisition and production costs.

The cutoff value can be used in one of the following ways:

• Deduction of the cutoff value from the base value for depreciation before depreciation calculation starts
• Definition of the cutoff value as a fixed value at which depreciation stops

cutoff year

The year of the cutoff period.

The cutoff year is the last fiscal year for which results analysis data is calculated.

cycle

A collection of rules for cost allocation.

A specific cycle can contain a number of segments. A segment consists of the following elements:

• Sender objects, whose values to be allocated are computed using the same rules
• Receiver objects, whose allocation bases are computed using the same rules

The sender-receiver relationships defined in a cycle are processed iteratively. If you want to process hierarchies separately, you must define a cycle for each level of the hierarchy. You then process the cycles in succession.

Cycles are valid only in the environment in which they were defined (such as planned assessment). When you create a new cycle, you can copy the values from a cycle in a different environment (such as an actual assessment cycle).

You use the following to define cycles:

• Cost center groups
• Cost element groups
• Order groups
• Cost object groups
• Work breakdown structure element groups
• Business process groups

cycle counting

A physical inventory procedure in which materials are counted at regular intervals during a fiscal year.

These intervals, or cycles, depend on the cycle counting indicator set for the relevant material.

You can use the cycle counting approach to ensure that stocks of fast-moving items are checked more frequently than slow-moving items, for example.

cycle run group

A grouping unit to which cycles can be assigned.

To execute cycles of one allocation type simultaneously, you must assign them to different cycle run groups.

cycle type

A definition of a cycle according to its usage.

The cycle type shows the posting or allocation for which the cycle was defined. Cycles can be defined in the plan and in the actual for:

• Periodic reposting
• Distribution
• Assessment
• Indirect activity allocation
• Joint venture assessment
• Joint venture distribution