I heard from a company the other day that they were told that they shouldn't use the Payroll Reconciliation Report for US Payroll because it wasn't accurate. They were talking about report RPCPRRU0 (RPCPRRU0_CE if you're on CE), transaction PC00_M10_REC. They said someone from SAP told them this, back in the late-90;s when they first implemented. Incredible!
If there is any one standard report in SAP US Payroll that you can trust, it's the Payroll Reconciliation Report (also known as the 'recon report'). Yes, for a long time it has run slowly. Yes, for a long time the report output was ugly and clunky (even with the new ALV layout options, it's a bit confusing). And yes, the selection options and run-time options are confusing. BUT - it is accurate for US payroll reporting. It produces results you can count on, provided you understand how to run the report and interpret the output.
Now, I have developed reports for my customers to use in addition to or instead of the recon report - only because they couldn't get the data items they needed from the recon report in a way they needed. For my Public Sector customers I have a report that displays Fund, Grant, Functional Area and related items for example. I've taken similar approaches when other data items are needed. These days I'm relyng on the SpinifexIT Generic Reporting Toolkit (now named Easy Reporter) for that (no more custom ABAPs for me!). But all these reports use the same logic as the recon report - because that's the right way to report payroll results.
So I'd like to know from people - have you heard similar advice from SAP or consultants that you shouldn't use the recon report? Are you one of those advisors who tell customers not to use it? I am really curious to understand the reasons for that.