SAP Investment Management

SAP Investment Management (SAP IM) is a module in ERP Central Component (ECC) that helps organizations plan and manage investments and capital expenditures. The SAP IM module contains functions for managing investments in fixed assets. Financial assets, in contrast, are managed in the SAP Treasury (TR) module of SAP ECC.

SAP IM helps organizations develop and manage investment plans and annual budgets for "investment programs," an SAP term that describes a way of organizing capital investments or other projects in a hierarchical structure. The meaning of "investment" extends beyond the sense of traditional investments that must be capitalized for bookkeeping and tax purposes and encompasses any measure that involves costs and may only generate benefits after a certain time period has elapsed.

Each module is intended to allow separate management accounting, budgetary approvals and appropriations that are of significant scope. Users can monitor an investment program's entire budget rather than just the individual levels within it. They can also get overviews of planning and budgeting processes of all investments and large group projects while maintaining strict control over budgets for such things as:

• capital investments, including acquiring fixed assets either through purchase or in-house production;
• research and development;
• projects that are considered overhead, such as employee continuing education or establishing new markets; and
• maintenance.