Assessment

Use
Assessment is a method of allocating primary and secondary costs in Cost Center Accounting and
Activity-Based Costing. The following information is passed on to the receivers:

• The original cost elements are assigned cumulatively, or in groups, to assessment (secondary)
cost elements. The original cost elements are not recorded on the receivers.

• Sender and receiver information (sender cost center, receiver cost center, or business process)
appears in the Controlling (CO) document.

Allocation through assessment is useful when the composition of the costs is unimportant for the receiver.
For example, the assessment of cafeteria costs to a cost center need not be broken down further.

You can use the information system to analyze the assessment results by assessment cost element
according to sender and receiver relationships.

In periodic reposting, distribution, and assessment, the system writes line items for each
sender and receiver. You cannot restrict this process. You can reverse the line items if
you repeat the periodic allocation within a given period. The posting date of the actual
allocation is always the last day of a calendar month. The posting date of the plan
allocation is always the first day of a calendar month.

You cannot allocate consumption quantities using assessment. To allocate activity

quantities, you must use indirect activity allocation.

Features
For allocations using assessment, you can summarize all the cost elements into one assessment cost
element. When you carry out the assessment, the system allocates all the costs to be allocated from the
sender using this cost element. However, this method does not store any information on the receiver,
regarding the composition of the costs.

Alternatively, you can use an allocation structure to define which cost elements are to be allocated under
which assessment cost elements. You can assign individual cost elements, cost element groups or
intervals to an assessment cost element. The allocation structure can be stored during segment
maintenance.

Until now, if you wanted information regarding the composition of costs at a summarized
level, you needed to create a large number of segments. These segments only differed in
 the assignment of the allocation cost elements to the assessment cost elements.
Allocation structures enable you to reduce maintenance and the runtime of the cycle.

Company A has 10 subsidiaries in Germany. The primary costs of each subsidiary are to
be allocated at period end using its own assessment cost element. Cost centers are
summarized across all the subsidiaries (for example, all cafeterias of the subsidiaries).
However, although the sender and receiver remain the same, an individual assessment
cost element is to be used for each subsidiary.

Until now, you needed to create a corresponding segment for each cost element that was
assigned to an individual assessment cost element.

Segment Sender Receiver Cost Assessment cost

element element

Segment 1 Cost center 3500 Cost center 3600 Cost Assessment cost element
Purchasing Cafeteria element 510000
415000

Segment 2 Cost center 3500 Cost center 3600 Cost Assessment cost element
Purchasing Cafeteria element 520000
430000

... ... ... ... ...

You can now summarize the primary cost elements 415000, 430000 in an allocation
structure, as well as their assignments to assessment cost elements. This reduces the
number of segments required.

Segment Sender Receiver Allocation structure

Segment 1 Cost center 3500 Cost center 3600 Allocation structure A1

Purchasing Cafeteria (415000 → 510000
430000 → 520000
... →... )

For more information, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Cost Center Accounting or Activity-Based
Costing, under Actual Postings → Period End Closing → Assessment → Create Assessment Cost
Elementsor Maintain Allocation Templates or under Planning → Allocations → Assessment → Create
Assessment Cost Elements or. Maintain Allocation Structures.

See also:

Defining Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations

Processing Cycles

Creating or Changing Cycles

Executing Periodic Repostings or Periodic Allocations Online

Displaying the Cycle Overview