This document discusses master data and structures in Profitability Analysis (CO-PA). Master data provides the fundamental data and defines characteristics and value fields that determine profitability segments. Structures are created by defining characteristics, value fields, and operating concerns. Master data consists of individual characteristic values that specify valuation levels through their combination into profitability segments. The document describes how profitability segments, characteristics, characteristic values, and structures are related and integrated in CO-PA. It also discusses valuation methods like using material cost estimates, conditions, costing sheets, and customer exits that are used to determine values in profitability segments.

1. COPA Master Data
Purpose:
In Profitability Analysis, master data provides the fundamental data and content within
the structures you have already determined by characteristics and value fields.
Features:
The system uses the combination of characteristic values to automatically create during a posting
the affected market segment, that is the profitability segment that is being posted to. The
specifications you make for the characteristic values form the basis for the automatic
determination of the profitability segment.
You can specify the valid characteristic values for the new characteristics you have
defined. See also the section Maintain Characteristic Values in Customizing.
You can place the characteristic values for a single characteristic into a hierarchical
relationship. For more information, see the section Characteristics Hierarchy.
You can specify which principles are to be applied for automatically determining further
characteristic values when posting data to Profitability Analysis. For more information,
see the sections dealing with Characteristic Derivation.
You can perform a re-alignment so that changes made to master data in the SAP System
and copied to characteristic derivation are also applied to past data in the CO-PA dataset.
You can also specify for value fields which principles are to be applied for automatically
determining further characteristic values and setting these values in the value fields when
additional data is posted. For more information, see the sections dealing with Valuation.

2. Structures:
To use Profitability Analysis (CO-PA), you have to create structures first. The possible valuation
levels are determined in the creation of structures.
Features:
To create the structures, you need to define the operating concern as well as
the characteristics and value fields belonging to the operating concern.
From a technical point of view, you are actually creating different tables. To find out how these
tables are related to each other, you can consult the section Database Tables for CO-PA
Transaction Data.
In the operating concern, you can define your structures so that the revenues and sales deductions
(= value fields) that are shown correspond to the respective levels (customer, customer group,
sales office, and product (= characteristics)).
Integration
The master data is closely linked to the structures in Profitability Analysis. Master data consists
of the individual values that the characteristics and value fields can take. The combination of the
latter specifies the valuation level. In other words, the combination of particular characteristic
values forms the actual analysis object, called the profitability segment.
The following graphic illustrates how the different concepts relate to one another:
Profitability Segment: It is an Object within Profitability Analysis to which costs and revenues
are assigned. A profitability segment corresponds to a market segment. You can calculate the
profitability of a profitability segment by setting off its sales revenues against its costs.
A profitability segment in an operating concern is defined by a combination of characteristic
values. Characteristics can be concepts that already exist in the R/3 System (customer, product,
sales organization, and so on), or you can define your own concepts (such as "order size class").

3. Example:
Profitability segment 1: Product "Prod-1132"/ Customer "100267"
Profitability segment 2: Industry "Chemicals"/ Country "USA"/ Product group "Laboratory
instruments"
Maintain Characteristic Values: In this step you maintain characteristic values and texts for
your user-defined characteristics if you only want these characteristics to have a fixed set of
possible values.
You define characteristics in the Customizing step Maintain characteristics. When you define a
user-defined characteristic, you need to specify the field type and length of its characteristic
values. When you define such a characteristic, the system automatically generates a check table
and a text table which are used to check what characteristic values are permitted.
Valuation: In profitability and sales accounting, it is particularly important to have quick access
to recent profitability information for sales-related business transactions, and this information
should be as complete as possible. To this end, you use valuation for cost-of-sales accounting
purposes, completing the information on units sold as well as the price and discount information
for your marketing system.
Valuation can be used, for example, to calculate:
Sales deductions that do not appear in the invoice (such as cash deductions, rebates, and
commission)
Costs of sales (sold products * standard costs of goods manufactured)
Calculated direct costs, referred to as the special direct costs for sales (such as
transportation costs, packaging or insurance)
In what follows, the various valuation options are described, along with the different cases for
which you can calculate anticipated values in costing-based Profitability Analysis (CO-PA).
Unlike costing-based CO-PA, account-based CO-PA only posts values that are reconcilable with
Financial Accounting (FI). This means that the valuation functions described here can only be
implemented for costing-based CO-PA.

4. You can use the valuation options described in this section for actual data as well as for planning
data. While you usually valuate your business transactions just after they have occurred (that is,
when they are posted), you can also perform a revaluation of your profitability information, to
take into account, for example changed costs of goods manufactured.
Valuation Methods: Profitability Analysis offers you the following methods of valuation:
Valuation Using Material Cost Estimates
Valuation using material cost estimates lets you determine the cost of sales when you post a sales
transaction to Profitability Analysis. For this, the quantities of products sold are multiplied by the
standard costs of goods manufactured, thereby including in the contribution margin analysis
detailed fixed and variable cost components for the cost of goods manufactured in the individual
contribution margins.
Moreover, you can use the actual cost estimate from Material Ledger to valuate your sales
quantities during periodic revaluation.
Valuation Using Conditions and Costing Sheets
You can use the condition technique to calculate values in CO-PA that, although relevant for
analysis purposes, such as calculating a contribution margin at each level, are not yet established
when the document posting occurs. This means in particular that you can determine anticipated
sales commissions, discounts, or shipping costs that are not yet known at the time of billing, and
use this information to analyze your sales transactions.
Conditions are typically used in the case of percentage or absolute additions/deductions, for
example, that are stored in CO-PA according to criteria that you can select (as in the case of
price determination in SD).
Valuation using customer-defined valuation routines ( Customer Exits: Valuation).
Customer-defined valuation routines are available for cases where anticipated valuation
approaches cannot be determined using either of the two preceding methods. This means that
you can implement your own valuation logic.
For Example:
The value fields in the following contribution margin scheme are filled with data partly from the
relevant sales system, and partly from valuation using conditions and valuation using material
cost estimates:
Gross sales From the sales system
Customer discount From the sales system
Material discount From the sales system
Special offer discount From the sales system
Quantity discount From the sales system
Cash discounts ç Valuation using conditions and costing sheets
Rebates ç Valuation using conditions and costing sheets
Total sales deductions
Net sales
Sales commission ç Valuation using conditions and costing sheets
Accrued freight costs ç Valuation using conditions and costing sheets

5. Special direct costs for sales ç Valuation using conditions and costing sheets
Net revenue
Material direct costs ç Valuation using material cost estimates
Variable production costs ç Valuation using material cost estimates
Contribution margin I
Material overhead costs ç Valuation using material cost estimates
Fixed production costs ç Valuation using material cost estimates
Contribution margin II
Valuation Strategy: You can define a valuation strategy in relation to the point of valuation, the
record type, and the plan version (if applicable). You specify in the valuation strategy which of
the methods mentioned above (valuation using material cost estimates, valuation using
conditions and costing sheets, as well as user exit valuation) are to be used to fill the value fields
and in which order these methods are to be implemented.
Database Tables for CO-PA Transaction Data: The concepts line item and profitability
segment are essential for understanding how data is stored in CO-PA. A line item can be
compared, for example, to an item in a billing document from the SD component. The
combination of characteristic values stored in a line item is what defines the particular
profitability segment to which the line item must be posted.
To improve system performance, you can also restrict the characteristics that make up the
profitability segment. Furthermore, a time-based dimension (the posting period) has to be
represented.
The CO-PA data basis, which the system creates when an operating concern is generated, reflects
how the information is organized logically.

6. There is the table CE1xxxx for actual line items (where xxxx = operating concern), which
contains all the data at the most detailed level. Planned line items are stored in the table
CE2xxxx.
There is also the segment table CE4xxxx, which is located at a higher level. It is used to assign
segment numbers to each combination of characteristic values. For the first summarization to be
performed, at least the document number and the billing item are hidden.
The characteristics that were deactivated from use in the profitability segment in Customizing
are also hidden. Segment table CE4xxxx should therefore be optimized for processing data
within Profitability Analysis, such as for the information system. Table CE4xxxx_ACCT
contains external account assignment information as well as the characteristics for CE4xxxx and
serves as the "interface" to other applications.
The segment level CE3xxxx is set up between the segment table and the line items, thereby
making a time-based classification possible. Alongside value fields, the segment level also
contains the characteristics record type, planned/actual indicator, version, and period, as well as
some additional technical details. Several lines from the segment level are attached to a
particular profitability segment (that is, to a line in the segment table). These lines all have the
same segment number but relate to different posting periods.
Each line at the segment level adds together the value fields for a row of line items bearing the
same segment number and assigned to the appropriate posting period.
The following graphic provides an overview of the tables:
Example: You have invoiced three documents for customer 0815. The first posting occurs in
March (posting period 003), and revenues of 100 DEM and 200 DEM are posted respectively for

7. the products ART1 and ART2. The second posting occurs in April. Revenues of 400 DEM and
800 DEM are posted respectively for the products ART1 and ART3. The third posting also
occurs in April. Revenues of 1600 DEM and 3200 DEM are posted respectively for the products
ART1 and ART3. When the line items are posted, the segment table and segment level are
updated, producing the following table contents:
Segment Table (CE4xxxx)
Segment
number
Customer Product Additional
chars
0047 0815 ART1 ...
0048 0815 ART2 ...
0049 0815 ART3 ...
Segment Level (CE3xxxx)
Segment
number
Period Revenue Additional
value
fields
0047 003.2000 100.00 ...
0047 004.2000 2 000.00 ...
0048 003.2000 200.00 ...
0049 004.2000 4 000.00 ...
Line Item Table CE1xxxx (Planned Data in CE2xxxx)
Segment
number
Period Document Item Customer Product Additional
chars
Revenue Additional
value
fields
0047 003.2000 000007 0001 0815 ART1 ... 100.00 ...
0048 003.2000 000007 0002 0815 ART2 ... 200.00 ...
0047 004.2000 000008 0001 0815 ART1 ... 400.00 ...
0049 004.2000 000008 0002 0815 ART3 ... 800.00 ...
0047 004.2000 000009 0001 0815 ART1 ... 1 600.00 ...
0049 004.2000 000009 0002 0815 ART3 ... 3 200.00 ...