Create Activity Allocation Cycles - Indirect Allocation - Plan
Application component: Cost Center Accounting
App type: SAP GUI
Description:  You can use indirect activity allocation to automatically allocate planned and actual activity. You can specify keys to allocate activity, which is not possible when you use manual activity input in the plan or actual activity allocation. In addition, if calculating the sender activity quantities involves too much time or expense, the R/3 System can determine the activity quantity inversely based on the activity of the receivers. Note If you execute indirect actual activity allocation without completing planning for the combination cost center/activity type, you must activate the actual price indicator in the activity type master data. Target=actual allocation is a special form of indirect activity allocation in actual. In contrast with the other forms of indirect activity allocation, target=actual allocation allows you to create an iterative activity input network with multiple levels using the operating rate as the tracing factor. 
Key features:  You can choose between two methods of indirect activity allocation, depending on the activity types category. These methods are determined for each segment and can be combined in one cycle. Activity quantities can be entered on the sender object For certain activity types you can determine the total activity quantity for each sender. These are category 3 activities (Manual calculation and Automatic allocation). Using indirect activity allocation, these posted activity quantities are distributed by the senders among the receivers defined in the segment according to their allocation base. The corresponding segment must use the sender rule Posted quantities. All options apart from Fixed quantities are permitted as receiver rules (see: Sender and Receiver Rules for Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations). Example The “Quality Control” cost center uses 1,000 hours of the “Testing” activity type. This cost center provides activity for the “Goods Receipt” and “Finished Products” cost centers. The allocation is made on the basis of the tracing factor “Number of test items” (TI). These are 4000 items for the “Goods Receipt” cost center and 6000 items for “Finished Products”. This corresponds to an activity input of 400 hours for “Goods Receipt” and 600 hours for “Finished Products”.The price per activity unit for the “Quality Control” cost center is 50 USD/h. This results in activity output costs on “Quality Control” of 50,000 USD. The receiver cost centers are debited with the following costs based on the tracing factor “TI”.Goods Receipt: (50,000 USD X 4.000 TI) / 10,000 TI = 20,000 USDFinished Products: (50,000 USD X 6.000 TI) / 10,000 TI = 30,000 USD  Activity quantities can be determined for each sender, but only with great difficulty In this case, the system determines the activity quantity based: Either on receiver tracing factors with weighting factors, which can be defined for each senderIf you use the sender rule Inversely determined quantities, you define the weighting factors described above by choosing Sender values. Or through Fixed quantity values, which you define in segment definition.If you use the sender rule Fixed quantities, you define the fixed activity quantity by choosing Sender values.  These activity types belong to category 2 (Indirect entry, indirect allocation). The corresponding segment can use the following combinations of sender and receiver rules: Sender rules Receiver rules Inversely determined quantity Any Fixed quantity Any  (see: Sender and Receiver Rules for Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations). Example  In the example, you calculate activities for the sender using the receiver tracing factors with weighting factors, which are to be defined for the sender. The sender rule here is inversely determined quantities. You can use any receiver rule.The receiver tracing factors are:“Goods Receipt”: 4,000 testing items“Finished Products”: 6,000 testing itemsYou need 0.4 hour to check one item using the “Quality Control” cost center. The sender rule defines a weighting factor of 0.4 for the “Testing” activity type.This results in an activity input of 1600 hours on the “Goods Receipt” cost center and 2400 hours on “Finished Products”.The “Testing” activity is valuated with a price of 5 USD/hr. This results in a credit to the sender of 20,000 USD and debits of 8,000 USD to “Goods Receipt” and 12,000 USD to the “Finished Products” cost center. Note If you are working with transfer prices (parallel value flows), the indirect activity allocations are carried out in the leading valuation. The planned activity price used for the allocation is thus regarded as uniform for all valuation methods.For more information on transfer prices, see the SAP Library under:Financials   Enterprise Controlling (EC)  Profit Center Accounting  Multiple Valuation Approaches/Transfer PricesFinancials  CO -Controlling  Controlling  Overhead  - Controlling   See also: Defining Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations Creating or Changing Cycles Executing Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations Online Displaying the Cycle Overview