In addition to specifying the updating type (synchronous/asynchronous) and the period unit in which values are cumulated, you have other options for filtering and varying the updating the data from Sales and Distribution processes.

You might require further differentiation for the following reasons:

• You only want the system to update statistical data for a selected number of customers or products.

• You want the statistical update for certain types of sales documents to be different from others.

The factors which influence the filtering and variation of the statistical updates are explained below.

These factors relate to:

• Master data (material master record, customer master record)

• Sales and distribution document types

• Item categories

The "Statistics group" indicator appears in the material master record and customer master record and allows you to influence the statistics update with reference to your master data.

The statistics group is a freely definable group key. You can group together materials or customers to make a common statistics group for which the same type of updating applies. This grouping can be used, for example, to exclude certain customers or materials from the updating process completely, or to make a distinction between important customers and materials and less important customers and materials.

You can also define statistics groups at sales and distribution document level, by defining statistics groups for your sales and distribution documents and then assigning them to the document types and item categories in sales, shipping, and billing.

You define statistics groups in Customizing for the Logistics Information System.

You need to integrate the statistics group into the update control process by allocating it to an update group. The statistics groups for the master data and the sales documents are assigned to a specific update group on the basis of the sales organization, distribution channel, and division. A particular type of updating is therefore assigned to a particular business transaction.

When a transaction is updated, the statistical data is then updated in accordance with the requirements that have been assigned to it.

You can make these assignments to update groups in Customizing for the Logistics Information System.