SAP ERP Financials and FICO Handbook

74 CHAPTER 1 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
allocation bases defined by the user. This method produces the same results as
transaction-related reposting.
170. What is the difference between assessment and reposting?
Assessment is a method of internal cost allocation by which you allocate (transfer)
the costs of a sender cost center to receiver CO objects (orders, other cost centers,
and so on) under an assessment cost element.
Reposting is a posting aid with which primary costs are posted to a receiver
object through original cost element (the cost element of the sender object).
Under assessment, costs are allocated to the sender cost center under the assessment
cost element. The sender cost center receives costs under the assessment cost
element, which does not reveal the actual cost elements. In reposting, however,
costs are transferred under the original cost elements.
171. It is said that both activity type and SKF act as a tracing factor for cost
allocations. Explain what the difference is between these two and when
each is used.
An SKF is set up within the cost centers and values are assigned to them as part
of the allocation process. Activity types have absorption rates linked to them and
dollars are consumed out of a cost center based on a specific amount of activity that
has been consumed.
For example, you can have activity types for people hours and machine hours
being consumed out of a manufacturing cost center. You calculate a rate in the planning
processes that is loaded at the beginning of the year. Then for every hour used to
produce a product, you will consume dollars from the cost center into the production
order or cost object based on the hourly rate you set at the beginning of the year.
Activity type is used where the sender cost center produces certain output,
such as machine hours, that is utilized by other cost objects, while SKF is used to
distribute cost among various cost objects.
172. How are cost centers populated with financial data?
Cost centers get financial data in the following ways:
■
While posting a transaction you are entering the cost object at the line item level.