A customer wants to perform cost center planning to reflect different expectations for the future. How can the customer create different plans in parallel?

Planning versions in SAP allow users to create and manage multiple, independent planning scenarios for the same organizational units (like cost centers). This enables comparing different budgets, forecasts, or "what-if" scenarios side-by-side.

Costing variants are used in product costing to define how a material cost estimate is calculated, not for parallel cost center planning.

Planning areas are more relevant to Flexible Planning in Logistics or other specialized planning functions, not the primary means for creating parallel cost center plans.

Valuation areas are used in Materials Management to define the organizational level at which materials are valued (e.g., plant or company code), not for parallel cost center planning.