S/4 Period end closing - Material Ledger and Actual Costing

[cgarcia052]

We are planning the period-end close timetable for a Fortune 500 CPG company that is rolling S/4 globally. We have activated the material ledger with actual costing, multi-level price determination and cross-company costing. Our objective is to have the material ledger calculate all variances flow as part of month-end into the products sold and revaluate inventory accordingly. Our partners have recommended that we must have all cost center assessment allocations (i.e. KSU5) done as part of month-end before we can execute the material ledger close with actual costing.

• We understand actual costing will consider transactions that are relevant to valuation (such as goods receipt, invoice receipt, or process order settlement). Which cost center assessments must be complete before we can execute material ledger close? Should those be overheads charged from shared cost centers to mill cost centers that would create a variance between plan and actuals and transfer those to production orders where products were manufactured? The normal sequence we would expect before the material ledger close is: Edit Costing Run (Cost Estimates), Allocation relevant process, Actual Cost Rate Calculation, WIP Calculation, Variance Calculation, Order Settlement, Actual Costing Run (Material Ledger). The allocation-relevant process piece is where we need to understand what kind of allocations must be ready before we can close the material ledger
• What is the average runtime for material ledger close in a global company having operations in all continents? We have been told about 6-8 hours for a single global instance S/4 instance. Perspectives from others in the community are appreciated.