SAP SEM BCS

Recently, I had the chance to learn a general overview of SAP Business Consolidation or BCS in short. Or more precisely, the consolidation process. All I can say is that, I'm quite overwhelmed. I mean I feel more like an accountant each day. With all the mumbo jumbo about 'interunit elimination', 'equity method' blah blah blah, It's sometimes, quite hard to digest.

Anyway, to cut long story short, this SAP BCS is basically a long process that follows a certain sequence that will eventually transform a certain infocube, into a virtual cube that can be used as a basis for consolidation reporting.

The following is a gist of what process that we have to go through to do consolidation:

1. Master Data
   - Consolidation Unit, Consolidation Group, FSI Item, Breakdown, Version
2. Data Collection
   - Method
   - Validation on Reporting Financial Data (RFD)
   - Currency Translation
   - Standardising Value Entries
   - Validation on Standardized Financial Data (SFD)
   
3. Consolidation Process
   - Manual Entry of Consolidation Financial Data (CFD)
   - Interunit Elimination
   - Reclassification/Allocation
   - Consolidation of Investments
   - Balance Carry Forward
   - Validation on CFD
4. Reporting
   - Standard
   - Customized

So basically, it's a lot. I'm not going to elaborate much on what each process is. Well for that, you have to attend SAP BCS course :) But the main point is, there's a lot of "creative accounting" at work here, and for that my friend, you might have to take, perhaps an accounting certificate!