Cost Element Accounting (CO-OM-CEL) Purpose Cost Element Accounting is the part of accounting where you enter and

organize costs incurred during a settlement period. It is thus not an accounting system as such, but rather a detailed recording of data that forms the basis for cost accounting. Integration In an integrated accounting system such as the SAP R/3 System, you do not need to enter cost data in a special way. This is because each business transaction relevant to cost accounting provides the (CO) component with detailed information for the cost element, and for the account assignment object itself. Each consumption transaction in Material Management (MM), each billing in Sales and Distribution (SD) (= revenue), and each external transaction for invoice verification flows directly through the G/L Account (= cost element) to the corresponding account assignment object. Features You can restrict the entry of cost data to a part of the Outlay Costs and Additional Costs. While, for example, you can transfer depreciation costs from Asset Accounting for the depreciation of fixed assets, you must use accrual calculation in cost accounting for management income. The cost accounting component in the SAP R/3 System also has the task of identifying the costs incurred in the subareas of an organization, and the cost flows that took place. The R/3 System provides a complete display of the costs for all types of account assignment objects (such as cost centers, orders, projects, and so on). For cross-company-code or cross-business-area cost accounting, the cost flow in Controlling may require reconciliation between internal and external accounting. The necessary reconciliation is also one of the tasks of Cost and Revenue Element Accounting. Reconciliation Ledgers - Subsequent Posting Use You can update the reconciliation ledger online, and also subsequently structure the reconciliation ledger using the CO data. You can use this function for the following: To make postings that originate from the time before you activated the reconciliation ledger. To avoid the activation of the reconciliation ledger entirely. This can be useful if you want to keep system usage to a minimum during the runtime, and want to use low usage time to update the reconciliation ledger. This enables you to avoid high system use at peak times by running the subsequent postings in the background when system use is low. When follow-up postings are made, the SAP R/3 System checks if transaction data has already been posted in the reconciliation ledger for the relevant periods. The system deletes these values and posts the correct CO documents in the reconciliation ledger.

The reconciliation ledger is locked for online postings while follow-up postings are in progress. Ensure that the line items in the period for which you are posting the values have not been reorganized. Procedure

In Cost Element Accounting, choose: Tools Reconciliation Ledger Follow-up postings When you make the follow-up postings, enter the periods to be posted, the fiscal year, and the parameters for processing options, such as test run and background processing.