Representative Materials 

Definition

A representative material is a material number that stands for a group of materials with similar characteristics. For example, different materials that have similar manufacturing or cost structures can be grouped together under one representative material.

Use

If you have a large number of variants of one material and store each of these variants under a different material, it may be useful to select one of these materials to represent the others. It may not always make sense to store actual data, create plan data and define transfer prices at the individual material level. By defining one material as the representative material, you can store and analyze actual and plan data by product or product group.

Structure

A representative material can be either a material which is already part of the combined group, or an additional material which you create for this purpose. In both cases, it is necessary to create a corresponding master record in the system, analogous to all other materials. Normally, finished and semifinished products, not raw materials, are used as representative materials.

In Customizing, under Representative Materials, Derivation, you can define rules according to which the accompanying representative material is derived from a material. You can assign representative materials at the controlling area, company code or depreciation area level, or for any combination of these.

You can find more information on derivation strategy in the documentation for Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) under Derivation Type.

Integration

You can use representative materials in planning, for actual data, and for calculating transfer prices.