Not knowing what is happening within a corporation is likely to result in a failure to meet corporate goals. Efficient controlling aids are needed to manage the company as a unit. SAP provides that control using the EC (Enterprise Controlling) application component of SAP's ERP System. It contains four subcomponents that fully support the various aspects of enterprise controlling and the related organizational options.

EC (Enterprise Controlling)

Features of EC Consolidations:

• Consolidate multiple company codes
• Import data from General Ledger to Consolidating Units
• Manual and automatic eliminations between Consolidation Units
• Eliminations within a consolidating unit
• Reclassifications
• Upload data from Non-SAP systems
• Report Painter reporting (GR55)

Enterprise Controlling – Consolidations is the module where consolidations and eliminations occur for both a legal entity (Company Code) and a management area (Profit Center). Consolidation gives you a reconciled view of your financial data and lets you create the reports required by both local corporate laws (by group, company or business areas) as well as reports reflecting management structure (by profit center or region).

The raw data gets transferred via interfaces with General Ledger, Asset Accounting, Materials Management, Sales and Distribution and EC-PCA. This also provides the functionality of analyzing the results of the consolidation immediately in EC-EIS. Profit center accounting forms an interface between the operative controlling (CO) applications and the Enterprise Controlling (EC) module It reflects the actual and plan postings from operative controlling and settlements components with which it is in targeted in real-time. It then summarizes this data according to profit centers, which reflect the internal structure of areas of responsibility within the company code.

Data for controlling must be collected from different sources. However, this task entails more than just adding numbers. Many different types of systems must first be reconciled. This variety or heterogeneity can stem from the data processing environment with different hardware, system software, and applications software. Enterprise controlling uses accounting as one of its sources. However, integrated company management also requires data from logistics and personnel, as well as the company environment.

Enterprise controlling data is used by corporate controllers and management. They require a reporting system which supports both corporate external reporting as well as structured management oriented reporting for ad hoc problem analysis.

The EC (Enterprise Controlling) application has been designed with four subcomponents to account for these various aspects and organizational options:

EC-PCA - Profit Center Accounting

Profit center accounting creates a company organization which is distinct from all other organizational concepts. Profit centers are master data from a management perspective. To avoid additional entries, the corresponding allocations can be effected in the operational systems (for example, material, project, cost center). Profits and losses are determined for these profit centers (valuation with transfer prices) as well as key figures for responsibility accounting (ROI, cash flow, and so forth).

EC-CS - Consolidation

This subcomponent consists of general consolidation functions. These functions are for external as well as for internal reporting. Integrated application areas are not only consolidated financial statements on the group level as required by law but also business area consolidation, profit center consolidation or consolidation based on group-wide profitability analysis by product line.

EC-EIS – Executive Information System

SAP-EIS makes it possible to define company-specific data structures which are oriented toward multidimensional evaluation views. Data can also be transferred from non-SAP applications. Many functions are available to process this data into a consistent, uniform whole. A graphical interface is available for presentations, particularly for management. Hierarchical processing and elimination functions make simple consolidation functions possible.

EC-BP – Business Planning

This function is used for entering planning data related to the entire organization. Model-supported simulations can be carried out based on this planning data as well as on actual data. The resulting company planning data can be provided to the company units as performance targets. Integration of the operational SAP applications permits group-wide investment controlling with investment programs and budgeting, investment monitoring of ongoing measures, and depreciation simulation.

SAP EC (Enterprise Controlling) has the following sub modules:

1. Consolidation (EC - CS)
2. Executive Information System (EC-EIS)
3. Profit Center Accounting (EC - PCA)
4. Business Planning and Budgeting