The applications Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) and Profit Center Accounting (EC-PCA) provide effective tools for analyzing profitability in your organization. This section compares the different purposes of these two applications in the SAP System and describes the different methods of profitability control.

The application CO-PA lets you analyze the profitability of segments of your market - structured according to products, customers, orders, and summarizations of these and other characteristics - and organizational units such as company codes or business areas. The aim is to provide your sales, marketing, planning, and management organizations with decision-support from a market-oriented viewpoint.

CO-PA can be used by companies in any branch of industry (mechanical engineering, wholesale and retail, chemical, service industries and so on) and with any form of production (repetitive manufacturing, make-to-order manufacturing, process manufacturing). The data can be analyzed by period, or by order or project.

The application EC-PCA lets you analyze internal profit and loss for profit centers. This makes it possible for you to evaluate different areas or units within your company. You can structure profit centers according to region (branch offices, plants), function (production, sales), or product (product ranges, divisions). Profit Center Accounting is a component of the module Enterprise Controlling.

EC-PCA can be used by companies in any branch of industry (mechanical engineering, chemical, service industries and so on) and with any form of production (repetitive manufacturing, make-to-order manufacturing, process manufacturing). The profit-relevant data is displayed by period.