Internal Orders (CO-OM-OPA)

Purpose
Internal orders are normally used to plan, collect, and settle the costs of internal jobs and tasks. The SAP system enables you to monitor your internal orders throughout their entire life-cycle; from initial creation, through the planning and posting of all the actual costs, to the final settlement and archiving:

Implementation Considerations
Order management within a company usually differentiates between sales-oriented orders, and internal orders. Sales-oriented orders (production or sales orders) are intended mainly for the logistical control of input factors and sales activities. Internal orders are categorized as either: Orders used only for monitoring objects in Cost Accounting (such as, advertising or trade fair orders) Productive orders that are value-added, that is, orders that can be capitalized (such as in-house construction of an assembly line).

Internal order management is the most detailed operational level of cost and activity accounting. It can be used for: Cost monitoring, for example, where costs need to be looked at from object-related aspects, unlike in Cost Element Accounting or Cost Center Accounting Assisting decision-making, when you need to decide between in-house production and external procurement

An enterprises internal orders can be used for different controlling purposes. For more information, see Classified by Controlling Objectives .

Features
You can use master data to assign certain characteristics to your internal orders, which enables you to control which business transactions can be used with the internal order. Internal order planning enables you to roughly estimate the costs of a job before the order starts and to make an exact calculation at a later date. You can choose between various planning approaches to compare the effectiveness of different methods. You can assign and manage budgets for internal orders. You apply the actual costs incurred by a job to your internal orders using actual postings. In Financial Accounting, you can assign primary cost postings (such as the procurement of external activities and external deliveries) directly to internal orders. In period-end closing you can use various different allocation methods (for example, overhead costing) to allocate costs between different areas of Cost Accounting.

Order settlement enables you to transfer the costs incurred by an order to the appropriate receivers. The information system for internal orders enables you to track planned and assigned costs on your orders in each stage of the order life-cycle. You can archive internal orders that you no longer require. See Archiving.

1 Internal Orders Definition

An internal order is used to monitor parts of the costs, and under certain circumstances, the revenues of the organization.

Use
You can create an internal order to monitor the costs of a time-restricted job or the costs (and revenues, if required) for the production of activities. Internal orders can also be used for the long-term monitoring of costs. Overhead cost orders are used for the time-restricted monitoring of overhead costs (that are incurred when you execute a job) or for the long-term monitoring of parts of the overhead costs. Investment orders let you monitor investment costs that can be capitalized and settled to fixed assets. Accrual orders enable you to monitor period-related accrual calculation between expenses posted in Financial Accounting and the costing-based costs debited in Cost Accounting. Orders with revenues let you monitor costs and revenues that are incurred for activities for external partners, or for internal activities that do not form part of the core business for your organization. You can use model orders as a reference, when creating new internal orders.

You can find further information on the internal order types mentioned above, in Orders Classified by Content.

Integration
You can use the following transaction-related postings on internal orders for the allocation of costs between different areas of cost accounting: Repostings of Primary Costs and Revenues

Repostings enable you to repost primary costs, which you had previously assigned to a given internal order in Financial Accounting. They also enable you to refine the original assignment (true to the cost element) to other internal orders, or to repost cost centers. Direct Internal Activity Allocations

The system posts internal activities (such as those supplied by the cost center) to the internal order that received the activity, using the corresponding activity type. Creating Statistical Key Figures

Statistical key figures on internal orders are for information purposes only. For example, if you want to post all the costs incurred for a trade fair to a trade fair order, you create statistical key figures for the following: The number of visitors to your trade stand, Requests for further meetings The total number of orders arising from your trade fair participation.

Funds Commitments

This function allows you to enter costs, which you know will definitely occur, but you do not yet know through which transaction they will be caused (for example, purchase order, material reservations, and so on). You can thus reserve parts of the order budget at an early stage. For more information on funds commitment, see Commitments Management. Allocation of Overhead Costs

You can allocate overhead costs to internal orders using overhead calculation or cost center assessment.

For more information on allocations, see Manual Actual Postings.

2 Master Data Use

Master data is partly used for system-technical purposes, and partly for business purposes. It either does not change at all, or only insignificantly during the life of an internal order. You use the master data to define the attributes of an internal order, such as: Its purpose (using the Order Type) The processing possibilities (using Status Management and the allowed or prohibited Business Transactions per status)

Features
For more information on the classification of order master data, see Structuring the Order Layout. You can print master data for internal orders, using forms adaptable to your needs. For more information, see the implementation guide (IMG), under Controlling Internal Orders Order Master Data Prepare for Order Printing. See also: Creating an Internal Order You can maintain master data in the intranet as well as in the SAP system. More information is available in Maintaining Master Data in the Intranet.

3 Planning 4 Cimmitments Management (CO) 5 Funds Commitments (Cost Centers,Internal Orders, Projects) 6 Manual Actual Postings in Internal Orders 7 Period-End Closing in Internal Orders 8 Information System for Internal Orders 9 Archiving Internal Orders