Assign Costing Keys to Characteristics - Profitability Analysis
Application component: Profitability Analysis
App type: SAP GUI
Description: There are two basic ways to calculate the cost of sales in Profitability Analysis (CO-PA). While a retail company only needs to know the total value of goods as cost of sales, a much more detailed breakdown of the costs of goods manufactured is required in a manufacturing company. The costs are represented in the cost component split for the cost of goods manufactured, which divides material values into fixed and variable cost components for the cost of goods manufactured (such as material costs, internal services, external services), which can then be entered into different rows during multi-leveled contribution margin accounting.  Valuation with cost estimates therefore values in CO-PA the quantities of products sold together with the costing results (such as the standard cost estimate) that were calculated in Product Cost Planning (CO-PC). See also the section Costing Sequence. For valuation using cost estimates, you can also define an access key to the Actual Costing/Material Ledger in order to use the actual cost estimate to value your sales quantities during periodic revaluation (see Setting Up Valuation Using Actual Cost Estimates from Material L). Note As an alternative to valuation using material cost estimates, it is possible in retail companies to calculate the value of goods using a condition from the material master or the goods issue document. For more detailed information, see the section Valuation Using Conditions or choose Master Data  Valuation and then in Customizing for CO-PA. 
Key features: To calculate the cost of sales, you define rules in CO-PA Customizing and then use these rules to call up one or more specific material cost estimates in Product Cost Planning. To tailor contribution margin accounting to your needs, you can trace and display different requirements, such as the following examples: You wish to call up the standard cost estimate that has been released for material valuation and to calculate the costs of sales that have been reconciled with Financial Accounting (FI) for the goods issue key date.In additional rows of your contribution margin report, you wish to calculate the contribution margins for group production costs and then value sold products accordingly using group costing.As a make-to-order manufacturer, you wish to draw on the sales order costing results stored in the sales order to calculate the cost of sales.To display the most reliable early-warning information about the expected result, you wish to value your incoming sales orders using future or current costing.For planning purposes, you should use a search strategy to check several cost estimates individually and then incorporate them into valuation. Procedure for Valuation using Material Cost Estimates The valuation rules described above are stored in Customizing for CO-PA and are defined by the combination of the costing key and the assignment of the costing key to characteristics. How all this is related is depicted in the following graphic:  When a sales order or a billing document is posted, the system first checks whether valuation using material cost estimates is active. The type of costing that is to be used to calculate the cost of sales is specified in a costing key. Costing keys can be assigned to different characteristic values. The cost components for cost of goods manufactured from Product Cost Planning are assigned to value fields in CO-PA.  Costing Key You use the costing key to define the rules specifying which cost estimates from Product Cost Planning should be used to value the cost of sales in CO-PA. Flexible assignment means that you can assign the desired cost estimates based on the product or material type, or based on any other characteristic in your operating concern. In the costing key, you define the callup parameters required for cost determination. The following includes an example demonstrating the valuation logic: You use the costing variant and the costing version to tell the system to access for valuation the standard cost estimate in a particular version.As the validity date for the cost estimate, choose the planning period indicator Released standard cost estimate matching goods issue date to reconcile the cost of goods manufactured in CO-PA with those in FI.Since the delivering plant comes under the organization of a marketing company, you do not wish to read from this plant's cost estimate in order to calculate the costs of goods manufactured. Instead, you wish to read from the production plant. You specify the desired plant in the costing key.Alongside the main cost component split, you also copy the auxiliary cost component split. In this way, both the primary cost component split and the cost component split for cost of goods manufactured can be used for analyses in CO-PA.