Cost center planning with SAP and Excel

Cost center planning with SAP - the classic example

High-quality cost center planning is the requirement for corporate management and reporting based on target/actual comparisons. Here, SAP has various transactions in the standard system to support you in this important task. However, the SAP planning transactions do not offer the option of viewing historical reference data or using calculation formulas. Therefore, these are of limited use to you. As a result, you have to rely on an external tool - usually Microsoft Excel - to supplement cost center planning. You have to copy the historical data from SAP to Excel, transfer the planning templates to the various planners, collect the Excel forms again and transfer the data to SAP. This is a slow and error-prone process that often results in poor data quality and no longer ensures that plan data is up-to-date. Allevo makes it easier and more efficient for you.

Cost center planning with Excel integration into SAP

Allevo is an Excel integration into SAP. We use SAP ERP (ECC or S/4 HANA) as the basis and Microsoft Excel as the front end. As a standardized planning tool, Allevo uses the Desktop Office Integration on the part of SAP. In this way, integrated cost center planning can be ensured, which provides both master data and transaction data in real time.

With Allevo, you can plan various business transactions from a single interface, such as primary costs (activity type-dependent and activity type-independent), activity inputs or statistical key figures. You are supported by many planning functions such as splashing for automatic monthly distribution, top-down planning or the entry of comments. In addition, any detailed and specialized planning that is important for cost center planning can be integrated, such as investment planning, personnel cost planning or intercompany planning. The flexibility of Excel allows you to individually design the planning templates. Thanks to the complete integration in SAP, the planning results of the individual sub-processes can be evaluated at any time via standard reports. In this way, strategic decisions can be made quickly and easily, and your company is best prepared for future developments thanks to Allevo.

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Cost center planning at Energie Wasser Bern (ewb)

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Decentralized budget planning directly in the individual departments

Before Allevo was introduced in 2007, the cost center managers in the individual departments at ewb (such as Energy Management) had no way to independently enter their planning data. "You can’t expect anyone who doesn’t work with SAP on a daily basis to understand the SAP planning transactions," explains Stephan Mücher, Head of Controlling at Energie Wasser Bern. For that reason, only the Controlling department would enter planning data. The result was a single process in which important information from the individual departments frequently got lost. Thanks to Allevo, everything has changed. Since then, the cost center managers in the individual departments have been able to independently enter planning data, provide important information using the comment functions in Allevo, and make this information transparent for everyone involved.

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