CONTROLLING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Enterprise structure

 What is controlling area? What settings are maintained under

controlling area?

 Can an organization have multiple controlling areas? Can a

company code be assigned to multiple controlling areas?

 What is cost center hierarchy? How do organizations decide cost

center hierarchy?

 Can an organization have multiple cost center hierarchy? Cost

center hierarchy once created is fixed or does it keep changing on an
on-going basis?

 What is profit center hierarchy? How do organizations decide

profit center hierarchy?

 Can an organization have multiple profit center hierarchy? Profit

center hierarchy once created is fixed or does it keep changing on an
on-going basis?

Cost Element Accounting

 What is a cost element? How is cost element different from GL

account?

 What is primary cost element? What is secondary cost element?

What is the need of secondary cost element?

 What is cost element category? What specific purpose is served

by each cost element category?

 How a primary cost element master data is created?

 How a secondary cost element master data is created?

Cost Center Accounting

 What is a cost center? How do organizations use cost centers to

analyze and control cost?

 How do organizations decide cost center hierarchy?

 How a cost center hierarchy is created in SAP? How a cost center

hierarchy is changed in SAP?

 Understanding cost center categories in SAP? Why do we have

different cost center categories in SAP?

 Understanding the significance of various fields in cost center

master data?

 Real cost center vs statistical cost center?

 What are cost center allocation cycles? Explain cost center

allocation cycle in detail.

 How to organizations use cost center allocation cycles?

 How a distribution cycle different from assessment cycle?

 What cost center reports are offered by SAP? How do

organizations make use of these reports?

Profit Center Accounting

 What is a profit center? What do you understand by profit center

accounting?

 How do organizations decide profit center hierarchy?

 How a profit center hierarchy is created in SAP? How often a
profit center hierarchy is changed?

 Understanding the significance of various fields in profit center

master data?

 Profit & loss account or balance sheet account, every line item in a
document must have profit center.

 Profit center in a line item is either manually entered/ derived

from real cost object master data/ substituted by substitution rule.

 Profit center in a line item is derived from real cost object only
and not from statistical cost object. Explain with examples.

 What profit center reports are provided by SAP? How

organizations use these reports?

 Why profit center are considered as statistical cost object?

 How profit centers along with cost centers help in analyzing

profit? Explain with examples.

Internal Order

 What is internal order? How internal order is different from cost

object?

 Under what business scenarios internal order is used?

 Understanding the significance of various fields in internal order

master data?

 What is meant by internal order settlement?

 What configuration is needed for internal order settlement? What

is settlement profile? What is settlement rule?
 How internal order settlement is performed in SAP? Is internal
order settlement a periodic activity? What accounting entry is
generated as a result of settlement?

 Line item in a document derives cost center from internal order

master data?

 Real internal order vs statistical internal order?

 What internal order reports are provided by SAP? How

organizations make use of these reports?

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

 What is WBS? How WBS help organizations in cost controlling?

 Since internal order and WBS both are cost objects, under what
business scenarios organizations prefer WBS over internal order?
Explain the use of WBS with examples?

 Understanding the significance of various fields in WBS master

data?

 What is meant by WBS settlement? Similar to internal order,

WBS is also settled periodically. Explain with example.

 What configuration is needed for WBS settlement? What is

settlement profile? What is settlement rule?

 How WBS settlement is performed in SAP? What accounting

entry is generated as a result of settlement?

Product Costing

 Understanding the concept of product costing and how it's done

in SAP?

 How product costing is done in actual business? Different business

processes require different approach of product costing. Explain
 What are the benefits of doing product costing in SAP? How
actual business process is replicated in SAP?

 In order to configure product costing in SAP, we need to

understand actual production process followed by business.

 Understanding everything about production order from finance

point of view. What documents are posted in SAP at different stages
of production process?

 Understanding configuration needed for handling WIP in SAP?

 Understanding standard costing vs Actual costing by taking an

example of production order.

 Production order vs process order? Under what scenario

production order is preferred over process order?

 How product costing is performed in SAP? What activities are

performed in SAP to arrive at cost of a product in SAP?

 Actual production process involves a set of activities to be

performed. Every activity involves cost (material cost, labor cost,
machine cost). Once an activity is completed in production process,
activity confirmation is performed in SAP.

 What are milestones in production process? What is the

significance of milestones in product costing?

 How SAP helps in analyzing and keeping a product cost within

budget? How cost analysis is performed for a product?

Profitability Analysis (PA)

 What is meant by profitability analysis?

 When we already have SAP FI and SAP CO which provides us with
numerous reports then what is the need of profitability analysis?
How PA helps achieve better analysis?

 Let’s understand profitability analysis with example.

 Terminologies used in PA. Let’s understand what is meant by

characteristics field and value field.

 What activities populate value fields and characteristic fields?

 What configuration is required to populate data in value fields?

 How reports can be developed in SAP for profitability analysis?