SAP ERP Financials and FICO Handbook

1.13 CO-PA 85
represent reference objects for allocating costs in PA. This enables source-related
cost allocation at the level responsible, according to direct costs and contribution
margin accounting. Some of the SAP-delivered characteristics are: Country, Material
group, State, and Customer group.
199. What are value fields?
Value fields are key figures that represent the lines in a report in CO-PA drill-down
reporting. The values contained in the fields can be aggregated with reference to
the characteristics available or displayed at a lower level. Some of the value fields
are: Sales quantity, Outgoing Freight, Revenue, and Qty discount.
200. What is characteristic derivation?
Characteristic derivation is a process through which you will derive values of
other characteristics. Derivation lets you find values for certain characteristics
automatically based on the known values of other characteristics, where these
characteristics are logically dependent on one another.
When an operating concern is generated, the system produces a standard derivation
strategy containing all known dependencies between characteristics. You
can display these by choosing View ® Display all steps .
If you use the Derivation rule in derivation step type, some additional entry
options are available:
■ Under Maintain rule values, you will enter which values in the target fields
must be placed in which characteristic values of the source fields.
■ Under Characteristics, you can make additional entries that, for example, make
it possible to enter a validity date for the step.
201. What are the differences between account-based CO-PA and costingbased
CO-PA?
Table 1.4 shows the differences between account-based CO-PA and costing-based
CO-PA.