Distribution key in COPA

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

In COPA planning framework we have created a planning for sales volume for customer-product combinations on quarterly basis. We use a distribution key to distribute the quantities equally towards months. So employees enter a sales volume per quarter in one planning level and in another planning level they can call up the figures per month. So far this works perfectly.

However, before the employees enter planning data in the planning on quarterly basis, they want to copy actual (invoiced) data to the plan for reference purposes. This way values from the actual line items are added up and appear in the columns for each quarter. The employees should then overwrite this data with planned figures.

And now it comes.....if in jan 6 pieces are invoiced and in feb 9 pieces, these are added up to 15 for the 1st quarter. When copying to the plan, 15 pieces appear for the 1st quarter. When the employee then overwrites this data with plan data (pieces he expects to sell), for ex. 30 pieces, this should be distributed according to the distribution key (10 pieces each month when euqally distributed).

But what happens, the 30 pieces are now distributed according to the proportion of the actual data (so 12 in january and 18 in february and 0 in march) that is copied inot the plan instead of the equal distribution of the distribution key.

How should I prevent that the plan data is distributed according to the proportion of the actual data (which was copied into the plan) instead of the distribution key?

Hope someone knows the answer.

Greetings,

Stephan

[Former Member]

What do you mean with "the employee then overwrites this data with plan data "?

Do you copy actual data in the plan version that is used for entering plan data?

I would use another plan version for actual data for information purpose and enter plan data in the version which is then distributed.

Cheers

matej

[Former Member]

Hi Matej,

First of all: thanks a lot for responding!

Yes, I copy the actuals to the plan version that's used for entering plan data. The option you give to have another version for reference purposes could be a solution. However, copying straight to the plan saves work for entering plan data and the user should keep open another screen with this reference data while entering in the other screen.

By overwrite I mean that after the actual data is copied to the plan version the user enters data for, the user adjusts this data to plan data. This way the actual data can serve as reference. Also, the copy action saves work since a lot of plan lines are created automatically by the copy action.

To explain my problem a bit more:

After copying actuals to the plan, the distribution key does not apply anymore.

For ex.

- when a distribution key is used that distributes quarterly sales volume equally to months

- when I enter 60 piecess to the plan for Q1, without copying actuals to the plan first, the 60 pieces would be equally distributed towards the months.

- when copying actuals to plan first I would get for ex. 30 pieces for Q1 (which is for ex. a summing up from jan 10 pcs +feb 5 pcs + march 15 pcs)

- When I replace this reference qty of 30 pcs by changing it to 60 pcs, the 60 pcs are distributed equally according to the distribution key but according to the 10-5-15 divsion of the actual data. So I would get 20-10-30 pcs per month.

As you see the 60 pcs are not distributed equally anymore.

Hope this is a better explanation and I would appreciate any further advice very much.

Greetings,

Stephan