2043914 - Posting Date of Customer Project Expense List Later Than Original Expense Posting Date

You are using projects with sales integration. Incurred times and expenses shall be invoiced using project invoicing.

A time confirmation of type External Service Confirmation has been posted on dd.mm.yyyy with the recorded Goods and Service Receipt. An associated expense allocation to sales order item (Customer Project Expense List) 123 however shows a later posting date dd.mm.yyyy + x.
Consequently the incurred cost will not be realized before this later date. Your expectation is that the posting date of the Customer Project Expense List (CPEL) always reflects the posting date of the incurred time/expense item.
It is not possible to manually modify the posting date in Project Management under Not Invoiced Time and Expenses.

There are several ways of identifying the posting dates of project related time and expense items.

You could for instance

1. Navigate to the Cost and Revenue workcenter and there go the Reports - List view
2. Select the Sales Documents - Line items report
3. Filter for the respective project ID.
4. In the report you can find the business transaction called External Service Confirmation referring to the external project time recording.
5. You can also find the related business transaction Expense Assignment to Sales Document referring to the expense allocation to the respective sales order item.
6. You notice that the posting date of the expense assignment is after the posting date of the external time confirmation.

Cost and expenses can be subjected to various updates before they are effectively realized.
An earlier CPEL reflecting the original expense posting date can be offset by later events resulting in a posting date dd.mm.yyy + x. In this case, items contained in a Goods and Service Receipt are included in a corresponding GR/IR Clearing. This is a system definition.

The origin and posting date derivation for involved documents can be illustrated best when viewing the Projects - Line Items report.

Example:

• An External Time Confirmation XYZ based on purchase order item XXX-20 over 0,5 h and 100,00 EUR has been recorded for 01.01.2014 against project ABC. This is reflected in Goods and Service Receipt DEF showing the same posting date.
• CPEL 123 has then been posted for 01.01.2014 accordingly.
• The Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt Clearing for purchase order XXX and GR/IR Clearing Set DEF-1 is performed only on 20.02.2014.
• CPEL 123 will be updated with a posting date 20.02.2014.
• Depending on the applied accrual method the realization of the 100,00 EUR will happen for 20.02.2014 earliest, for example by executing the Revenue Recognition run for period 002.2014.

Possible differences associated with GR/IR Clearing (e.g.: differences between purchase order and supplier invoice, payment and supplier invoice) would have to be traced back to the original expense posting. On an aggregated level this is considered as not desired due to possible adverse implications.

1. In case earlier periods are closed for operational postings (e.g. 001.2014) the GR/IR Run would abort. Due to the complexity of involved data, post-processing of various periods would be necessary in order to update the incurred cost.
2. Traceability of realized cost and revenues:
   In case the supplier invoice is raised in a later period - posting the difference resulting from the GR/IR Clearing at the original date of the expense would precede the invoice receipt. This usually would not comply with applied general accepted accounting principles.

When applying revenue recognition and project invoicing as in the described scenario and for a huge amount of projects, it is recommended to execute related update-runs, such as the GR/IR Clearing and Revenue Recognition on a regular and timely basis in order to mitigate undue delays in cost realization.

KBA , SRD-FIN-COR , Cost & Revenue , How To