Dear Gurus,how to maintain business area for a line item?

Question

Hi Gurus,
   Thanks for all gurus for your knowledge sharing,everyday i get new things from you gurus,
right now i got one problem, while releasing the invoice i got the error as
"Business Area not entered in the line item  000000012"
where i should maintain the business area details, which T-code,
my friend told me that it is a FICO related issue,Please Guide me gurus,
Warm Regards,
Deepak Shanmugam

Answer 1

Hi Deepak
Business Area
Technical name: 0BUS_AREA
Technical Data
Available from Release
3.0D
Data element
GSBER
External hierarchy
Not available
Business Areas in SAP are used to differentiate transactions originating from different points/lines/locations in business. Let me give some examples to elucidiate:-
A company (say, ABC) is a huge company and has a variety of businesses under it. Let us say that it typically operates in 3 different domains like machinery manufacturing, trading and assembling of machine parts. 
There are 2 options here now -
1. Either create different company codes for the 3 business operations (which would be the easiest and require no creativity)
or 
2.) Create each of these business lines into business areas (the better option). 
The advantages of using the second option is:
1. You can use these business areas if other company codes require the same areas
2. The configuration is simpler as in case of company code, you would require to go through the entire configuration of creating Chart of Accounts, Fiscal Year variants, posting periods variants and so on. In the business area option, you just need to attach it to the company code and the rest of the details in Business area is attached by default from the company code you are using it in. 
3. Using the options in controlling (EC-PCA, Enterprise Controlling, Profit Centre Accounting), you can even draw up Balance Sheets and PL statements for your business areas and hence this is used for management accounting in some companies (like HP, Dell, etc) when it wants to know the operating profits for different business areas/lines.
The above was an example when the company wanted to separate entries according to the lines it operates in... the other case could be when it wants to find out profitability during its operations in cities and differentiates these cities into Business Areas...
Business Areas are not much relevant in FI but are much more relevant in CO.
You can define business area in
Path: Img-enterprise structure Definition--Financail Accounting --- Define Business area.
Same pathe: Assignment---Assign Business area to Consolidation business area.
Same Path: Logistics General --- Assign Business Area to Plant/Valuation Area & Division
I hope this clears.
Reward if useful to u
Message was edited by:
        narendran vajravelu