EC-CS comprises general consolidation functions for external reporting, but also for the internal reporting

structure in accordance with the internal management structure. EC-CS consolidates ’financial data’ from
external and internal accounting.
 Define consolidation groups and units
 Create and use a consolidation chart of accounts
 Collect individual financial statement data in EC-CS and translate it into group currency as required
 Customizing and execute various consolidation functions
 Use standard reporting and define simple reports

Complex group structures have to be managed effectively.

At the same time, increasing globalization requires decentralized group management for independent
organizational units. Business units that are close to the market have to be managed decentrally in order to
leverage their full market potential.

The company is managed in accordance with internal enterprise structures, which can be very detailed. This
means that extremely flexible structures are necessary. Therefore, SAP Consolidation is not only based on
companies.

Success is measured by the speed with which a business strategy can be realized. To optimize enterprise
controlling SAP has developed the New Dimensions component Strategic Enterprise Management
(SEM)

The SAP consolidation engines used by both EC-CS and SEM-BCS contains all the consolidation functions.
The consolidated data can be made available in the OLTP system (R/3 EC-CS) or in BW
(SEM-BCS).

In legal consolidation, the consolidation units are the legally independent companies. They report their
individual financial statements to the group, which are used to compute the consolidated financial
statement.

In management consolidation, the consolidation areas can be profit centers or business areas.
EC-CS supports the consolidation of any "consolidation units", providing the required financial data is
supplied. Through SAP integration, data can be made available for the consolidation of companies (legally
independent units), business areas (subdivisions of companies for the purpose of external segment
reporting), and profit centers (areas of responsibility inside or across companies).
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If the transaction applications and the Consolidation system are all in the same client of the same system,
data can be transferred to the Consolidation system online (in real-time). Additionally, data can be
transferred by periodic extract or rollup from non-SAP systems.

 Global parameters are important settings for EC-CS that typically remain the same for a work session.
 These parameters are saved for a particular the user when he/she logs off, and are automatically used
when he/she logs back on. However, the parameters can be changed as and when required.
 When you run a function, the information saved as a your global parameters are either proposed by
default, or set in the background
 The global parameters are displayed in a status row at the top of every screen in Customizing and the
consolidation functions.
 In Customizing, the parameters that are relevant for the current maintenance are displayed in a different
color. For example, maintenance of financial statement items is dependent on the consolidation chart
of accounts, but not on the version.

Both the enterprise structure and the consolidation chart of accounts used are built up in a multilevel.