Accounting in SAP: Challenge accepted!

But what SAP has relatively new in its portfolio is the so-called combined profitability analysis. This combined profitability analysis, as the name suggests, combines accounting and costing-based profitability analysis. In simple terms, this means that you can now post values in SAP both in an accounting sense to a cost element and in an imputed sense to value fields, such as revenue, discount, sales quantity or similar. This combined profitability analysis from SAP thus combines precisely the two previously separate worlds.

Interface wanted

What SAP has not yet offered, however, is an official technical interface to this new Copa world of combined profitability analysis. This is because the BAPIs that can be used in other areas of the controlling module as an external interface for posting or reading out data do not (yet) exist for this. So when a Kern customer asked in March of this year whether the Allevo planning tool could also handle this SAP-new combined profitability analysis, development was faced with the question: "What do we do now?" The challenge was taken up and a solution developed.

SAP offers function modules for reading or even posting data that can also be used as an external interface, but which are stored directly in the customer's own SAP system and are also only created specifically for the customer when an operating concern is created. The idea was to use these function modules to build an interface from Allevo to the customer's own SAP system. Accordingly, a "self-written" BAPI (BAPI adapter) was developed, which can be called dynamically and then reads out or posts the data that is required. Thus, a connection was created from a standard BAPI to the function modules that already exist from SAP.

Win-win situation

The great advantage of Kern's self-developed Bapi adapter is that the flexibility and all functionalities of the Excel-SAP integrated planning solution Allevo can be fully used by the customer. The adapter can also be used by future customers. This is because it has been designed in such a way that the basic technical framework can be integrated into any other customer's own SAP system. Only a relatively small number of adjustments have to be made to the customer's system. This means that Kern can offer the new solution for profitability analysis in SAP to other customers and serve them with relatively little effort.

SAP also benefits

Another exciting aspect of the development project was that SAP was developing further in this area at the same time, so that the newly developed function modules from SAP could be used directly for the new Bapi from Kern.

SAP was also able to benefit from the development of Kern's own Bapi. Because some errors could actually be practically tested and corrected directly by SAP in coordination with the responsible SAP developer and Kern through a test in Allevo and thanks to the newly developed Copa interface. The joint customer itself thus receives a better product. In other words, a genuine win-win situation.