Is there a standard report to throw these exceptions?
What is the best control to ensure that cost element is created for all expense accounts in GL?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is just download the GL Accounts, download Cost Elements and do a quick VLookup in Excel. That will tell you. That'll take you about 5 minutes or so.
or
You could try this respective transactions:
OKB2
OKB3
SM35
To prevent creating of GL P&L items without creating the cost elements on 4.6 / 4.7 onwards, there is an option to allow the automatic creation of Cost Elements whenever a G/L account is created in a Company Code. i.e. It does not create when an account is created at the Chart of Accounts Level, only when it is created in a Company Code.
To do this:
// Financial Accounting // General ledger Accounting //
G/L Accounts // Master Records // Preparations // Edit Chart of Accounts
List // Select the Chart of Accounts then;
Integration // Controlling Integration // then I'll let
you guess.
Also, you need to specify within controlling which account
ranges should be created under which Cost Element Category;
// Controlling // Cost Element Accounting // Master Data
// Cost Elements // Automatic Creation of Primary and Secondary Cost Elements
// *.*
If this was configured, you could also create a batch file now that would catch up with any cost elements not yet created.
Notes:
If cost elements are not created automatically after the creation of P & L accounts. Use OKB2 to check those P & L accounts are maintained, then use OKB3 to create all cost elements of corresponding P & L accounts.
Another account you should note is the COGS account.
This G/L account is sometimes created as cost element,
and sometimes isn't.
It really depends on your settings and the business needs.
Further notes:
WIP accounts should not create as cost elements since the value flow from CO to FI. If you create it as a cost element then system will expect a cost object while you are settling WIP.
I would like to share our experience with you, hope it helps. In our case we have the materials assigned to the Profit Centers in the Masters based on the Material Groups and also have one to one assignment of Profit Centers to Cost Centers. Thru maintenance in OKB9, based on each of the Profit centers, the postings in the COGS Account (Cost Element) get assigned to the respective Cost Centers.
Another use of assignment of COGS postings to Cost Centers is in terms of Functional Profit & Loss Account based on the mappings, which is quite different from the normal management reporting, this is just the additional information and probably, is out of the scope of this discussion.
